TIMBER!

Story #7

It’s rare that you experience the instant reward for a good deed or smart action. But we had a combination of lucky timing and good decision making that we’re sure prevented expensive property damage. Because we bought our house at the end of summer and plan to completely remodel it, we are focused almost exclusively on completing the inside projects as quickly as possible so we can move in. For the most part, we will work on the yard and exterior next spring. However, we’re so grateful that we chose to remove 2 dead trees in the backyard right away.

There was a sad-looking 10’ high tree stump and a 40’ tall dead tree in the backyard. We decided to get rid of them both as another small project while we gather quotes from sub-contractors and apply for building permits. Another piece of luck on this project is that I happened to see a post in a local Colorado real estate investing Facebook group recommending Armando Arana from A&A Tree Service. I immediately contacted him to request an estimate.

Armando earned our trust and business by competently describing how he trims and removes trees. Then, he worked to squeeze our smaller project (for his crew) into his busy schedule. Josh observed his crew safely and efficiently cut down the dead trees at our first house.

We wanted to get rid of this 10' tree stump and 40' tall dead tree, but they weren't a top priority on our list of projects.

The previous owners had chopped down part of this dead tree, but they left this sad-looking stump in the middle of the backyard.

We hired Armando and his crew to safely remove these two dead trees from our backyard. See the overhead power lines that they also had to avoid?

Termites had eaten the entire base of this rotten, dead tree. It was tall enough that it could have hit the back of our house or our neighbor's fence if it fell down because of winds and snow.

This is a cross section of the trunk. A plant was growing INSIDE the half of the dead tree that the termites had already eaten, while the wood in the other half of the trunk looks healthy.

After this tree had died, termites invaded the base. They ate so much that the tree removal team could pull it down with ropes, instead of cutting it down with chainsaws.

WHAT WE LEARNED

While taking down the taller trunk, Armando discovered that termites (uncommon in Colorado) had eaten the entire base of the rotten, dead tree. Instead of using a chainsaw, the crew could pull it down with their ropes. Scroll through the photo gallery to the last image to see how the trunk crumbled into almost dust at the ground level. We hadn’t realized how unstable and unsafe that tree was! If we had waited until spring to remove it, it might have fallen during a winter storm. It was tall enough that it could’ve hit my (future) office at the back of the house or the fence and our neighbor’s backyard. In fact, just 1 week later, there was an early snowstorm in Colorado with a lot of strong winds. We feel pretty smart that we proactively took care of that hazard. And because of the termite’s hard work, we weren’t left with a stump to dig out of the ground. Bonus: this may be a great spot to plant a lilac bush next spring.

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