Ross Township, Allegheny County
It is on the house right now. Here is the number.
Chris answers, you describe what you are looking at, and you get a straight read on whether this needs a truck tonight or a slot on Tuesday. Base is one ridge away in 15223, so a Ross call is a short drive rather than a dispatch problem.
The first ten minutes, before anybody picks up a tool
Most of the harm after a tree comes down happens in the hour afterward, not in the moment it fell. Do these five things while the phone is ringing and you have already handled the part that is actually yours to handle.
- Get everyone out from under it, including the far side. A loaded stem does not release in the direction it is leaning. Move the kids, the dog, and yourself well clear of the whole footprint, then look at it from a distance.
- Assume every wire in the picture is live. If any part of that tree is touching a service drop or a pole line, Duquesne Light gets the first call and we get the second. Wet storm wood conducts, and the ground around the base of a tree holding a drop is not a place to stand.
- No ladders, no roof, no strap on the bumper. Pulling on a caught tree is how it comes the rest of the way down early and sideways. Climbing onto a roof that is being loaded by something moving puts you on a surface nobody controls.
- Photograph it from the ground, wide then close. Show the whole tree and where it meets the structure, then the actual damage. Your carrier will want it and so will we, and neither of us can get those shots back once the crew starts cutting.
- Then call and describe it. Which way it fell, what it landed on, whether it is still moving, and whether you can get a truck near it. Four sentences and we know what is coming out of the shop.
If you would rather type it than say it, the contact form takes photos and gets a real answer back, not an auto-reply.
Crane, bucket, or a climber: how that call gets made on a tight lot
Ross lots were drawn close in the postwar decades and the trees have had sixty years to outgrow them. That means the machine we bring is decided by the driveway and the side yard as much as by the tree, and it gets decided before we roll rather than after we arrive and find nowhere to sit.
Crane
When a section is too heavy to swing over a roof and there is a spot on the street or the drive to set outriggers. The crane picks the piece, the climber cuts it free, and the weight never travels over the house at all. On a lot where the only drop zone is somebody’s shingles, this is the answer.
Bucket truck
Faster than rigging when the tree stands within reach of somewhere a truck can legally park and the ground will hold it. Good over a driveway, poor behind a house with a fence gate and a hill.
Climber
The tool for everything a machine cannot reach, which on these lots is most back yards. A climber gets into the canopy, sets the rigging, and takes the tree apart in pieces that get lowered on rope instead of dropped. Slower, quieter, and the only option once the work is past the fence line.
Half of what looks like a night emergency turns into a scheduled removal once the weight is off whatever it landed on, which is usually cheaper and always calmer.
The hung limb over the driveway is worse than the trunk on the lawn
Almost everybody has this backwards, and it is the single most useful thing on this page.
A tree that fell all the way down has finished moving. It is heavy, it may have taken a fence with it, and it looks like a disaster, but the physics are over. That one can sit a few days while we get to it.
A limb that tore loose and lodged forty feet up in the canopy has not finished anything. From the ground it reads as parked. It is not parked, it is wedged, and what it is wedged on is the one thing you cannot see from underneath. A gust, a bird, or the tree drying out and shrinking will finish the job on its own schedule. If that limb is over the driveway, park the cars at the curb tonight and call in the morning.
When what you have is genuinely down and stable, it stops being a night call and becomes cleanup we can book like any other job.
While you wait on us
Keep the driveway clear if a truck is coming. On these lots there is often exactly one spot that works and a parked car costs an hour.
Do not move anything you want the adjuster to see, and do not feel bad if you already did. Photograph what is left where it sits.
Leave the saw in the garage. Storm wood under load is nothing like cutting firewood, and the injuries from getting it wrong are severe.
If water is coming in, we can usually get a tarp on the same visit once the weight is off.
Tell me what it landed on and whether it is still moving. Those two answers decide everything else.
Chris, taking a Ross Township call at eleven at night
What your insurer needs from us, in writing
Most storm calls here end up in front of an adjuster, and the claims that turn into a fight are almost never the ones with the worst damage. They are the ones with no paperwork. We work these often enough to know what a carrier actually reads.
Photographs from before the first cut
Ours and yours both. We shoot the scene when we arrive, including the parts that will be gone an hour later, and those go in the file with the write-up.
A plain description of what failed and why
A torn union, a released root plate, a split stem. Adjusters want the mechanism, not adjectives, and a climber who saw it up close can say which it was.
What we did to make it safe and what remains
Emergency stabilization and the follow-up work are often two different line items on a claim. Separating them on our paperwork keeps them separate on theirs.
Ask for the write-up and it comes with the invoice at no charge. Finished storm work from around the township sits in the gallery, and the full scope of what we run at night is on the emergency tree service page. Once the urgent part is handled, a lot of these jobs finish with stump grinding or corrective trimming on the trees that survived.
Ross Township, Allegheny County. From the West View line to McKnight Road, the truck is already passing through most days.
Questions people ask with the phone in one hand
Answered here so you are not reading a website at midnight looking for them.
How long until somebody is actually standing in my yard?
Ross is one ridge from home base in 15223, which is about as short a run as we have. On a normal night a live hazard gets attention the same night. After a front that hits the whole North Hills at once, the calls stack up and we sort them by danger rather than by who dialed first, and you get told honestly where you sit in that line.
The tree is only resting on the gutter. Can it wait until morning?
Usually yes, and we will tell you so rather than sell you a night call. What changes the answer is movement. If it shifts when the wind picks up, or if it is bearing on a load-bearing wall rather than the gutter edge, it is working the structure all night and that is a tonight job.
Do I need to call Duquesne Light before I call you?
If any part of the tree is touching a wire, yes, and before you go outside. Their crews clear the conductor and nobody else is allowed to. Once it is de-energized we handle the tree, including the half-cut stem and the hung section their crew leaves behind when the line is their only concern.
My neighbor’s tree came down on my garage. Who pays?
Your carrier deals with the damage to your property and then decides on its own whether to go after theirs. That part happens between the two insurance companies and it takes weeks. None of it changes what needs to happen tonight, which is getting the weight off the garage safely, so do not wait on the ownership question.
Can you get a crane into a Ross back yard?
Often not into the yard, but frequently onto the street or the driveway with a long enough boom to reach over the house. When there is no setup that works, the tree comes apart by climber and rigging instead, lowered piece by piece on rope. Send a photo of the driveway and the street along with the tree and we can usually tell you before we arrive.
What does a night call run compared to a scheduled visit?
More, because a crew is being paid to come out at short notice with the full kit, and you hear that on the phone rather than at the end. What we will not do is invent urgency to get there. If it can safely hold until a booked slot, you get told that, and you get an up-front number either way before anyone starts cutting.
Describe it and we will tell you what it needs
Call and talk it through, or send a couple of photos from the ground and get a real answer back. Either way you will know whether this is a tonight job or a Tuesday job before you go to bed, and you will have an up-front number before the first cut. More about the township and everything else we run there is on the Ross Township page, and you can reach us any hour through contact.