Scariest night ever…

Anybody know a good arborist, who might be able to judge the likelihood of a tree falling?

The one front right with the ivy on it is sus. I'd drop it. The one uphill with the codominant leader about 60' up is suspicious too, but I'm not sure if that's a threat to the house.  Hard to tell from the rest of the photo but I'm guessing there's some soil subsidence.  Start looking for voids and obvious slippage.

Arborists are very busy right now, good luck.

Anybody know a good arborist, who might be able to judge the likelihood of a tree falling?

The one front right with the ivy on it is sus. I'd drop it. The one uphill with the codominant leader about 60' up is suspicious too, but I'm not sure if that's a threat to the house.  Hard to tell from the rest of the photo but I'm guessing there's some soil subsidence.  Start looking for voids and obvious slippage.

Arborists are very busy right now, good luck.

Good eye. Those split-top ones (there's another one out of the picture to the right) make me the most nervous. That one on the uphill side has to go, but not sure when we'll be able to get it done, though...

5 days was our record from the snowstorm as well.
We've lost 5 smaller trees this winter, but other than some minor fence damage and some dents to my old pickup we've fared OK.

Anybody know a good arborist, who might be able to judge the likelihood of a tree falling?

Ugh, we've gotten rid of all our Doug firs, just too much liability were they were.
Not sure if they would go to Los Gatos, but the two best tree guys we've used are:
North County Tree service
Element Arbor Care

Both of these guys are  located in Bonny Doon, and I suspect they both have a lot of work right now.
Even back in 2021 Josh from Element was booked up 3 months out due to Post CZU fire work.

I haven't used these guys, but my neighbors have and give them a good recommendation:
http://www.huertastreeservice.com/

Best wishes to everyone, I'm ready for spring.

Thanks for the suggestions. We've used Huerta's several times, as they are the most popular in our area. There's actually several different Huerta's teams (7 are listed on their website) and some of them don't seem to talk to each other, and they've given us wildly differing quotes in the past. One of them was supposed to cut down 3 trees for us last week, but they kept pushing it back, so I canceled and will wait until a less busy time...

Not much wind here today but I feel like I should make some measurements and guesstimate where our neighbors’ tree would hit if it swung our way

If it fell without wind it would absolutely destroy their house, but I was watching it on one of the big wind days and it was aiming our way a lot of the time

Oak trees are a beautiful thing but this one looks a lot more ominous these days. What’s impressive is the mass of the upper limbs

Not much wind here today but I feel like I should make some measurements and guesstimate where our neighbors’ tree would hit if it swung our way

If it fell without wind it would absolutely destroy their house, but I was watching it on one of the big wind days and it was aiming our way a lot of the time

Oak trees are a beautiful thing but this one looks a lot more ominous these days. What’s impressive is the mass of the upper limbs

We spent a bunch of money last year getting tanoaks cut down, after one fell on the power lines and broke off a telephone pole that hit our car. In our neighborhood, they almost always grow straight up, then die and fall downhill.

I'm a fan of the redwoods, but I'd cut down just about everything else, if I could afford it...

With the cost if calling in the tree guys if you had a lot of trees to deal with seems worth owning the chain saws etc and milling the wood

My cousin has acres and just with thinning he has a barn full of prime lumber

In my dreams...

With the cost if calling in the tree guys if you had a lot of trees to deal with seems worth owning the chain saws etc and milling the wood

The learning curve can be steep and not everyone is cut out for climbing trees.  I grew up doing it, and I don't particularly like it either.  Some of those trees have to come down in pieces, it's going to be quite a bit of work.  My buddy, an arborist, fileted his hand open with his saw while working on my cherry tree a couple months ago when his saw walked up some ivy.  I ended up taking the rest of it down myself, but there's a reason I hired someone to do it even though I'm quite capable.

Trees like firs and redwoods, if the trunk is straight, usually can be felled in a predetermined path and if well away from structures can be tackled without climbing. Oaks and big bays with big limbs splayed every direction can take erratic descents putting the faller in danger as well as structures. Piece by piece for those and it costs. Milling is a good thought but milling with a chainsaw is slow and laborious and making straight lumber usable cuts very difficult. If one has good lumber tree wood there may be some guys with a portable circular saw mill who might do the job for a percent of the finished product.

There’s a guy in the Santa Cruz mountains who seems to be salvaging trees in the fires on his property, I think mostly redwoods and turning it into dimensional lumber

I’ve seen his wood listed on Craigslist a few times

I think he’s around Scott’s Valley

Trees like firs and redwoods, if the trunk is straight, usually can be felled in a predetermined path and if well away from structures can be tackled without climbing.

“Usually” is the operative word. About 5 of the most intimidating fir trees that we’ve got would have to come down on pieces, with those pieces being roped and swung out of the place where they would otherwise fall. That’s when it gets very pricey.

 

Dang that is way too close for comfort.


Oh and I just started getting a little bigger than pea sized hail raining down. 

Trees like firs and redwoods, if the trunk is straight, usually can be felled in a predetermined path and if well away from structures can be tackled without climbing.

“Usually” is the operative word. About 5 of the most intimidating fir trees that we’ve got would have to come down on pieces, with those pieces being roped and swung out of the place where they would otherwise fall. That’s when it gets very pricey.

Wow that is really close!  Hoping the rest of the year goes easier for you guys down that way.

Dang that is way too close for comfort.

If that tree falls over, I envision the roots catapulting the entire house into Lexington Reservoir...

we removed a few big tan oaks back in 2021.
On the initial inspection Josh, from Element Arbor Care pointed out the hard black fungus on the trunks of all three of them.

It presents as hard black blobs with a bit of texture on the surface. Appearance of this fungus means the tree is indeed compromised, though actual collapse is tough to predict obviously.

The largest we had removed was about 2' in diameter and leaned towards our neighbor's garage. Once cut it had about a 1' diameter dead core inside of it. It could have come down any time or lasted for another 2-3 years dead on it's roots.
I'm still cutting up pieces of the trunk of that tree today.

Dang, that's a scary thought!  I remember hearing oaks are prone to dropping limbs in high heat and no wind.  Don't rest under an oak tree in a heat wave.