Emergency & Storm Tree Work

What counts as a genuine emergency

Storms do not keep office hours, so neither do we. A genuine emergency is anything where a tree has already failed, or is clearly about to, and someone or something is in the way. The calls we get out to most are a tree resting on a house roof or a car, a trunk blocking a road or a driveway so nobody can get in or out, a broken limb hung up over a footpath or a play area, a root plate visibly lifting out of the ground, and a tree leaning hard onto a neighbour's property after high winds.

If you are not sure whether yours counts, ring anyway and describe it. Two minutes on the phone usually settles it. Plenty of things look alarming but will safely keep until daylight, and we would far rather tell you that than have you sat up worrying all night. Equally, some quiet looking trees are much closer to going over than people realise, and those are worth a look straight away.

What to do while you are waiting, and what not to do

The single most useful thing you can do is keep everyone well clear. Move cars out from underneath, keep children and pets indoors, and block off the area if you can do that from a safe distance. A tree that has partly failed can shift again without any warning at all, particularly while the wind is still up.

Please do not try to tackle it yourself. Storm damaged timber sits under enormous tension, and a saw cut in the wrong place releases all of it at once. That is how people end up seriously hurt, and it is worth far more than the cost of a callout to leave it to someone with the kit and the training.

If there are power lines anywhere near it, treat the whole area as live, including the tree and anything it is touching, and stay right back. Do not approach it and do not let anyone else approach it. Call 105, the free national number that puts you straight through to your local electricity network operator, and let them make the lines safe before any tree work happens. If somebody is trapped or injured, or there is an immediate danger to life, call 999 first and us second.

What we can do when we get there

• 24/7 callout across Congleton and South Cheshire
• Fully insured with public liability cover
• NPTC qualified and used to storm work
• Trees lifted off roofs, cars and outbuildings
• Roads, drives and access ways reopened
• Hung up and broken limbs brought down safely
• Photos and a written report for your insurer
• Return visit to finish the tidy up properly

Making safe first, tidying up afterwards

An emergency visit is about taking the danger away, not finishing your garden. In the dark and the wet, the job is to get the weight off your roof, clear the drive, or bring down the limb hanging over the path, then stack what is left somewhere it cannot hurt anybody.

Once things have calmed down we come back in daylight, deal with the rest of the tree properly, chip the brash and leave the site clean. Splitting it that way keeps the urgent bill down and means you are not paying out of hours rates for raking up.

Insurance claims and reports

Most home insurance policies cover storm damage to buildings, fences and vehicles, and a good many will contribute towards the tree work as well. What insurers always want is evidence. Before anything is moved we photograph the lot: the tree, the damage, the direction it fell, and the state of the roots or the break itself.

You get those photos, a clear written breakdown of the work, and a plain English report on what failed and why, all ready to go with your claim. If your insurer or a loss adjuster wants something more from us, just ask. We deal with it regularly and it is no trouble.

Who is responsible for a fallen tree on a boundary

As a rule, a tree belongs to whoever owns the land the trunk grows out of, and that owner is responsible for it. So if your neighbour's tree comes down into your garden, it is still their tree and their job to sort, although in practice the two insurers often settle it between themselves. Where a trunk sits directly on the boundary line it is usually treated as shared, which means both sides need to agree before work goes ahead.

None of that has to be untangled at eleven o'clock at night. Getting everyone safe comes first. The paperwork and the polite conversation over the fence can wait until morning, and we are happy to put in writing exactly what we found and where it came from.