The tree is already down. What is left is tons of wood under loads you cannot see, resting on things you care about. Getting it off without a second round of damage is a different job than felling a standing tree — in some ways harder.
The real emergency
A tree on the roof is still crushing it — the load does not stop when the falling does. It comes off in rigged, lifted pieces so the structure can relax. Same-day work, with tarping so the house is weatherproof by dark.
The pinned targets
Smaller targets, same physics. A trunk across a fence is loaded at both ends; cut the wrong place and the halves move fast. We lift the load off before sectioning, so the damage stops where the storm stopped.
The non-emergency
A tree flat on the grass, touching nothing, threatening nothing. It looks dramatic and is going nowhere. Not an emergency, we will not pretend it is, and it gets quoted at routine prices.
Tree on a structure? Call 402-332-2839 any hour. Tree on the lawn? Same number, calmer conversation.
The physics
The root plate can stand back up
A windthrown tree hinges on its root plate. Cut the trunk free at the wrong point and the plate — tons of soil and root — can rotate back into its hole with someone standing there. We section in a sequence that keeps the plate down.
The trunk is under tension and compression
Wood loaded across a fence or its own limbs is a spring. Saw the compression side and the kerf closes on the bar; saw the tension side wrong and the trunk snaps sideways. Reading which is which is the skill.
The load comes off before the cutting starts
On a structure, no piece is cut until it is held — rigged from above or supported from below — so the roof unloads gradually instead of jolting as sections release.
Tarping and board-up are coordinated, not an afterthought
On-the-house jobs run alongside the emergency roofer and the insurance chain. The goal by dark is a weatherproofed structure and a documented claim.
Photographs before the first cut
The tree as it landed is the evidence the claim runs on. We shoot every angle before touching it, and hand you the written scope after.
Down on the open lawn
Routine removal pricing
No climbing, no rigging over a target — often the cheapest removal there is. A smaller tree runs in our published $1,000 to $3,000 range.
Down on a fence or vehicle
The middle of the range
The lift-before-cut work adds crew time and rigging, but is still measured in hours. Most are one-day jobs, cleanup included.
Down on the house
$4,000 – $8,000 territory
Rigged or crane-assisted picks off a compromised structure, coordinated with tarping and the claim. Large-removal money for large-removal work — usually paid, in the end, by the policy.
Every fallen-tree job gets a written price before work starts. On true emergencies that can be a number from photos, confirmed on arrival.
The tree lifted and sectioned off whatever it landed on, no added damage
Photographs of the tree as it fell, before the first cut
Written documentation of the damage and the work for your claim
Coordination with your tarping or board-up contractor
Trunk and limbs bucked, chipped and hauled; the site raked
An arborist's check of the trees still standing — windthrow rarely picks one
Roof, fence and vehicle repair — we remove the load; the rebuild is your contractor's
Trees tangled in live utility lines, which wait for the utility to kill the line
Stump grinding and root-plate removal, quoted as their own line
Storm-chaser pricing — a tree on the lawn is not billed like a tree on the house, ever
One call, one written price, a crew that has done this before: 402-332-2839.
“Michael and team did a wonderful job. The clean up was excellent, our tree covered three other yards, and the neighbors were also impressed with the clean up in their yards.”
This is the one place we flatly tell you no. Homeowners get hurt on downed trees more than standing ones, because a tree on the ground looks safe. The loads are invisible: root plates that stand back up, trunks that snap sideways, limbs pinned like springs. Professionals read those loads; the ER sees the people who did not.
Get everyone out from under the damaged section, call us at 402-332-2839, and call your insurer. Stay off the roof and do not start cutting — the structure is carrying the load however it settled. We coordinate removal with tarping so the house is closed the same day.
When a tree damages a covered structure, removal off it is commonly part of the claim; a tree that fell on open ground usually is not. Your agent knows your policy. Our job is making the claim easy: photographs before we touch anything, a written scope after.
Generally the policy covering the damaged property — yours — regardless of whose tree it was, unless the tree was a known, documented hazard. It surprises everyone. We document the tree's condition either way; that is what the exception turns on.
No, and we will not price it like one. Nothing is being damaged or about to be. We quote it as routine removal on the normal schedule — usually within days. The word emergency should cost extra only when it means something.
The phone is answered any hour and structure jobs jump the queue — the nearest crew responds. After a widespread storm, houses and blocked driveways come first, and we tell you honestly where you stand in that line.
Your choice, priced both ways. The emergency phase is the load off and the house sealed; the wood, the stump and the root plate can go the same day or as routine follow-up at routine prices.
Free and no pressure
Every estimate is free and comes in writing before anything is booked.
How the any-hour response works.
Everything the storm broke but did not drop.
The machine that lifts a tree off a house without touching the roof twice.
The written read on which standing tree is next.
The root plate and stump, after the emergency.
This page spends so many words on tension and root plates for a reason. Every storm season, people who would never fell a standing tree take a chainsaw to a downed one, because down reads as done. It is not. A windthrown trunk holds every pound the storm put into it, and the saw is the release. The professionals' advantage is knowing which side of the wood is loaded — and rigging it off when the answer is unclear.
On a house, the job is bigger than the tree. The removal is sequenced so the structure unloads gradually, tarping follows the same day, and everything is photographed and written down so the claim goes through clean. We have run that sequence with roofers and adjusters since 1997; the coordination is worth as much as the sawing.
And the honest line, plainly: a tree flat on open grass is not an emergency. Nothing about it justifies emergency pricing or a crew pulled off a house job. Companies that bill lawn trees at roof-tree prices are charging you for your own adrenaline. We quote that tree as routine work, and save the urgency — and its pricing — for the calls that earned it.
