Penn Hills, Allegheny County
After the front goes through, we clean it up
A storm hits a township this size three different ways at once. It can be raining on Verona Road while it is dropping limbs on the ridge and doing something else again down in the hollows. We work the whole of it, and after a real event we triage rather than pretend everyone is first.
The order we work in, and why
After a wide event the phone does not stop, and everybody’s tree is the most important one to them. This is how we sort it, so you know where you stand when you call.
Anything on a structure, a car, or a wire
Wherever in the township it is. Weight sitting on a load-bearing wall is doing damage continuously and getting worse with every gust. Wires are Duquesne Light’s call first, always, and we work behind them. This is the emergency response tier and it runs day or night.
Access. Drives, walks, the only way out
Not dangerous in itself, but somebody who cannot get a car out cannot get to work or to a doctor. We clear enough to open the route and come back for the balance rather than doing the whole yard while the next street waits.
Hangers and anything still loaded
Limbs caught in a canopy and half-fallen trees still under tension. These look stable and they are not, and they are the highest-risk thing left standing in most yards after a storm. We take these before general cleanup even where the yard looks worse elsewhere.
Ground debris and the general mess
Trees already flat, limb fields, brush. The physics here are finished, so it can wait a few days without getting more dangerous. This is where most cleanup jobs actually sit, and it is booked in rather than run at night.
What is left standing
Once the mess is gone we look up. A storm that took one tree usually stressed its neighbors, and the cracked union or torn root plate you cannot see from the ground is the thing that comes down in the next front.
Why the hollows produce the worst of it
Every plan in Penn Hills eventually backs onto a ravine, and that edge is where the serious storm failures happen.
Trees that grew along a hollow edge were sheltered on three sides for their whole lives. They never had to build low anchor roots on the downhill face because nothing ever pushed them that way. Then a wet spring saturates the clay, a gusty front gets at the one exposed side, and the whole tree goes over with the root plate lifting a slab of hillside with it.
What that leaves is not a normal removal. There is a trunk lying downhill, a wall of soil and root standing up where it used to be, and usually a fence or a shed underneath. It gets rigged off standing trees rather than cut and dropped, and the wood has to come back up the slope by hand or by winch instead of out the drive. It takes longer and the number reflects it, but it is a large part of what we do here and it is why we know this township the way we do.
If your yard drops away at the back, walk the edge after every real storm and look for fresh soil lifting at the base of anything. That is the tell, and it means the tree is already partly released even if it is still standing.
The tell to look for
A mound of dirt heaved up on one side of a trunk with a gap opening on the other means roots have torn and the root plate has moved. That tree is holding on by less than it looks. It is worth a call before the next front rather than after it, and it is the single most useful thing to check on a hollow-edge lot.
Fresh soil lifting at the base of a trunk means the root plate has already moved. That tree is holding on by less than it looks.
Chris, on hollow-edge failures after a wet spring
Documentation your adjuster can actually use
Most Penn Hills storm work ends up in front of an insurer, and the difference between a smooth claim and an argument is nearly always paperwork rather than the damage itself.
What you should do first
Photograph everything before anything moves. Wide shots showing the tree, the structure, and where the two meet, then close-ups of the damage. Get the claim opened before the repair conversation starts.
Ask your adjuster specifically about the debris removal limit, because that is a separate and usually much smaller number than the structural cover, and it is where people get caught out on a big cleanup. Our emergency page covers what to photograph if you have already started clearing.
What we give you
Our own photographs from during the work, including the things you cannot see from the ground, and a written description of what failed and what we did about it, in language an adjuster reads without translation.
An itemized invoice separating emergency stabilization from scheduled cleanup, because carriers frequently treat those differently. We are insured and carry PA HIC #163598. More detail on the claims page.
What cleanup covers, and what runs alongside it
On the day
Brush chipped and hauled, trunk wood cut down and taken out, hangers pulled from canopies, torn limbs cut back properly to the collar so the wound can seal rather than left as a ragged stub. Yard raked and blown off. If a tree has to come out entirely, that is a removal and it usually happens the same visit.
Afterwards
Any stump left behind gets ground out, normally on the same trip. Neighboring trees that took a beating often need a reduction or a deadwood pass before the next season. We work all of Penn Hills and the wider Allegheny County area, and past storm work is in the gallery.
Penn Hills, Allegheny County. Where the ground falls away is where the storm damage lands.
Storm cleanup questions
What people ask the morning after.
How long after a storm before you can get to me?
Depends entirely on how wide the event was. A localized front and we are usually there within a day or two. A township-wide event and it can be several days for general cleanup, because structures and wires come first everywhere before anyone gets yard work. Either way you get a straight answer about the day rather than a vague morning window.
Will my insurance cover this?
Often, though it varies by policy and by what the tree hit. As a rough guide, most carriers cover removal when a tree has damaged a covered structure, and many will not cover simply clearing a tree that fell in open lawn and hit nothing. Our documentation is written to support the claim either way. Ask your adjuster specifically about debris removal limits, because that is where the caps usually are.
Can you just take the tree off my house and leave the rest?
Yes, and it is a normal way to do it. Getting the weight off the structure is the urgent part, and the rest of the yard can be a scheduled visit at a calmer price. We will make it safe first and book the balance in with you.
My neighbor has a tree leaning toward my house since the storm. What can I do?
This comes up more here than anywhere. Ownership follows the trunk, so it is their tree, but you have the right to cut what crosses your property line. If the tree is visibly compromised, put your concern to them in writing, because that changes the liability picture considerably if it does come down later. Chris will walk it with you and tell you plainly what can be done from your side, and where the real fix sits on their ground he will say so plainly rather than quote you work that does not solve it.
Do you haul everything away or leave the wood?
Everything goes unless you want it. Plenty of people want the trunk wood cut to length for firewood and we will leave it stacked. Say so before we start, because once it is on the truck it has gone.
The utility already cut through the tree to clear the line.
Standard, and their responsibility ends at the conductor. What is usually left is half a tree with no crown on one side, or a stem cut through and left standing. That is exactly the kind of thing we finish, and it generally needs to come out rather than be left as it is.
Storm made a mess in Penn Hills
Send photos of what you are looking at, wide enough to show the whole situation, and Chris will tell you whether it needs a truck now or a scheduled slot. Anything on a house, a car, or a wire, call rather than type.