Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Monster Weed Removal

When we had our new house inspected before we bought it the first thing the inspector said to me before even introducing himself was "That tree has to come down. I won't let you buy this house if removing that tree isn't part of the deal." The tree in question was a Chinese Elm (otherwise known as a really big weed) on the south side of our house and was literally right up against the house:

To say that the tree was encroaching on the foundation is the understatement of the year. The view from that basement window was nothing but tree trunk:

We got several bids for removing the tree and the lowest by far was Discount Tree (I highly recommend them!). Our neighbor, Sunny, a nice elderly man who lives alone was so excited that we were having the tree removed that he offered to pay half the cost. Apparently he and the previous owner fought bitterly over having the tree removed and Sunny ended up spending $1000.00 to have the branches hanging over his house removed. The crew leader from Discount Tree was obviously nervous about working in such a tight space and asked me several times if I was absolutely sure I wanted the whole tree removed. Despite his reservations he got in there and got it done and did a great job. Here they are four hours into the job:

After about seven hours of work all they had was trunk. Since the space was so tight they couldn't just cut it from the bottom for fear of it falling the wrong way and damaging one of the houses, so they had to take that trunk down in one and a half to two foot slices, which you can see in the back of the trunk in this photo:

The only damage done was this big tire trench through the tender young grass I planted a couple weeks ago in a bare spot in my front lawn. The day after I seeded the area I realized that it would probably get ruined during tree removal. Hind sight is 20/20- oh well.

Since they couldn't grind the stump they had to poison it. So I guess we have a souvenir:

So much better! If you need any tree work definitely give Discount Tree call- they got this enormous job plus trimming another large tree in the backyard done in nine hours and they did a great job cleaning up. That's one big thing marked off the to-do list!

5 comments:

  1. Congratulations! My mom calls Chinese elm trees "piss elms," and piss elms indeed! We have them lining the fence of our townhouse's "backyard," and I would love to get rid of them (if I get the chance, I will call Discount Tree).

    Sure they provide shade and look lovely from afar, but they are full of dead branches and fill our rain gutters with crap.

    You may have to poison it more than once. Piss elms are resilient.

    And thanks for your comments about the Internet etc. So many opinions and "facts." I am going to try to rely on common sense more often. :)

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  2. One more thing, you have a very nice neighbor.

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  3. Wow, I thought the two cottonwood trees removed from our front yard were close (about 2-3ft to the foundation) but WOW! Your tree removal story tops mine! I'm glad you got a photo of it.... and really glad you got it removed!

    Your new house is so darn cute. Someday I hope we can live in a house without a prominent garage face like yours.... :)

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  4. Yeah, a tree like that can be considered as one big weed. All those dead branches can be annoying for the home owner and neighbors, so it's good that you got it removed. Good job!

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