Tree Hazard Assessment
Healthy or Hazard?
Make an Informed Decision About Your Trees
Trees provide many benefits to our communities, but trees also have the potential to fall and injure people or damage property. Thus, trees can also be liabilities. Addressing tree hazards keeps your property safe as well as helping prolong the life of the tree for years to come.
Even though trees can be a source of beauty and can enhance a property's value, trees can also be hazardous. Hazardous trees may shed limbs, drop fruit or nuts onto a sidewalk or driveway, send up suckers from the roots and cause property damage, or just plain fall over. Hazardous trees can even lift the pavement on driveways and sidewalks, grow so large they begin to overhang a roofline, or interfere with power or other utility lines.
As homeowner, it is your responsibility to ensure that trees on your property do not present a hazard. Additionally, you are responsible for the branches from trees that overhang other properties. Hazardous trees in your yard can be a danger to children, pets or guests who could wander into harm's way. It is up to you to keep dangerous trees either maintained or removed.
Every tree represents some level of risk, and it's up to you to determine just how much risk you can tolerate. Hazard assessments are a good way to identify the level of danger if one or more hazardous trees exist on your property.
Here are some common issues homeowners face with their trees:
• Dead branches, especially large ones
• Hanging, broken branches
• Signs of rot, or large holes or hollows in the tree trunk or in major branches
• Presence of mushrooms at the tree base
• Splits and cracks where branches connect to trunks or where trunks diverge
• Fallen branches around the tree
• Dead or fallen trees nearby
• Trunk lean
• Damaged roots by lowering the soil level, installing pavement, repairing sidewalks, or extensive digging
• Recent modification of the site by construction, raising the soil level, installing lawns or other forms of landscaping
In urban environments, additional factors come into play and there are specific issues that can arise:
• Pruning or topping can regrow into lines
• Trees too close to utility lines
• Branches broken or mostly detached
• Open hollows in the trunk or large branches
• Branches that are dying or dead
• Multiple branches emerging from a single point on the trunk
• Old wounds resulting in decay and rot
• Landscaping changes in grade or soil level, or other construction changes
In rural environments, there are also specific considerations as well as specific issues:
• Recent construction, grading and tree removal at the site
• Development that includes clearing of forests
• Pre-existing tree failures in the area
• A tree beginning to lean near a target (a "target" is something that could be damaged by a tree falling)
• A fork in the trunk - this is when branches and stems are roughly equal in size
• Wet, boggy ground with shallow soil
Halifax Tree Service Pros can help you with your tree problems. We are familiar with what causes hazardous trees, and have treatments available that could reduce the risk associated with any potential problems. These include:
• Removing things (targets) that are in immediate danger. Obviously you cannot move your house or a power line, but outdoor furniture, fixtures or vehicles certainly can be moved.
• Pruning or trimming the problem areas of the tree.
• Install cables and/or bracing to provide physical support for the tree. This can often stabilize the tree without more drastic action being required.
• Routine care for your tree. This can include such items as watering, fertilizer, or other tasks or treatments appropriate for the type of tree and the current season.
• Tree removal - the last resort but sometimes, unfortunately necessary. Some hazards are best handled by complete removal.
Halifax Tree Service Pros is a full-service tree services company that takes pride in providing YOU, our client, with quality work, excellent customer service, and overall tree care. We offer affordable, hassle-free tree hazard assessment to safely, effectively - and permanently - mitigate risks caused by your trees. We're proud of the service that we provide, we always leave your yard clean, and we look forward to working with you!
Call us today to book a tree removal service in Halifax, Dartmouth, and surrounding areas.
