Managing Home Maintenance Costs

Using a professional to trim a tree or remove it is the safest method of removing a tree that is too big for your yard or damaged in some way. A Top Cut Tree Service will remove a tree even in close quarters to your home as shown in this picture. They climb the tree and remove one limb at a time, lowering each one to the ground for removal. It is then placed in a wood chipper, to be blown into a truck and carted away.

Branch by Branch Top Cut Tree Service

Each branch is removed in this manner until all that is left is the main trunk of the tree. Even then the tree removal technician is strapped to the tree. He will remove a section of the trunk in four-foot lengths until it is all down and he is standing on the ground. Even the large pieces of the main trunk of the tree are placed in the wood chipper. They are ground into small chips for later use as mulch and ground cover in someone’s garden. This particular tree was over 30 feet tall. It only took them approximately an hour to remove the entire tree and clean up all of the wood chips afterwords.

Customers can also have the stump taken out by a machine that is a grinder. It is moved into place at the trunk. The stump is ground down below the surface of the earth to about 12 to 18 inches below the ground. Once covered up and re-soded, you would never know that there was a tree there in the first place.

Safety is the Top Concern for a Top Cut Tree Service Company

Safety for the technician, safety for your house, and safety for anything immediately around the tree is a prime concern. Hard hats, safety climbing gear, and safe processes are all used to ensure that the removal of the tree is completed without mishap. Many trees in urban areas are too close to homes and cannot easily be removed in the standard manner. The standard approach is cutting them down at the base and then chopping them up. Instead, they must be removed one branch at a time. No damage to the home or surrounding plants occurs.

A good company can manage the removal of a tree with little or no damage to shrubs around or near the tree. They clean up after the tree has been removed. They remove all twigs and small branches along with leaves that may have fallen in the process. This is by far the easiest and safest approach to take regarding the removal of a tree in urban areas.

Save

In our last post we wrote about the drought in California. We were wondering if they were doing enough to Decrease Your Water Usage in the state. We thought we would write a follow-up post. This is about how to Decrease Your Water Usage and save money at the same time. If you use less water, you are helping the water situation. You are also contributing to smaller water bills which saves every consumer money in the long run. This web site is about saving money. Decreasing your water usage is another excellent way to decrease your overall costs for utilities.

Decrease Your Water Usage – Replace Toilets and Faucets

Anyone with an old toilet and an old shower head as well as kitchen faucets can probably save themselves a bundle of money. Decrease Your Water Usage quickly by upgrading to modern units. There may be incentives in your jurisdiction to help pay for the upgrades which will decrease the overall cost of the conversion.

Not only will you Decrease Your Water Usage, decrease your water bill, but you will also be contributing to decreasing the overall impact of the drought. If the farmers cannot produce enough vegetables, the cost also are going to go up for these food items as well

Capture Rain Water

If you live in an area where it rains once and awhile, capturing rain water to be reused can save you money. It can be stored in a cistern to be reused or in a rain barrel to be reused. It will also decrease the water you use and lower your water bill as well.

Keep Your Grass Longer

We all like to have a nice looking lawn that is cut to golf course specifications. But did you know that if the lawn is allowed to grow longer it protects the ground underneath. Also less water evaporates from the soil making the roots of your lawn stronger. Allowing your lawn to grow one inch longer can make a huge difference in the overall health of your lawn. This also means less water usage.

A tree in the front yard or even the side yard of a home can easily be removed in the manner that is shown in this picture. Basically the tree specialist climbs the trunk, cutting off the limbs as he goes until just the trunk remains. There is no need to apply a crane tree removal service in situations such as this. The tree is far enough from the house. There is no danger of anyone or anything being hurt or damaged. The tree does not need to be felled and then cut up. It is basically cut in chunks in place in the air and then lowered to the ground.

If you have never seen this type of tree removal process, it is definitely something to watch. These guys are well trained and well equipped with all of the required safety gear. They use a series of ropes to secure and then lower each limb to the ground. Where it is then taken to the street and inserted into a wood chipper. The branches are ground into small wood chips for use as mulch for gardens and for ground cover. The entire process took no more than an hour!

Specialist Crane Tree Removal

There are situations where a crane must be used. While use of a crane is very expensive. The situation will dictate crane tree removal processes due to safety concerns. Or concerns about possible damage to a home or other buildings. In situations such as this, the limb or the trunk of the tree is held in place by the crane. A chain or rope is holding the limb to the crane. As the limb is cut the crane then will lift the tree limb over the home. Then out to the road where it will be chipped into small pieces. Sometimes large limbs may over hang a house or some other building. They cannot be dropped with out the use of a crane to hold it while it is being cut at the trunk.

Access Some times Requires Crane Tree Removal

If there is no access to a back yard for example, or the tree limbs cannot be carried from the back of the home to the front of the home where the wood chipper is, a crane might be used as well. Sometimes they will cut the limbs and trunk of the tree into small enough pieces, however if this does not work then there is no alternative but to use a crane to remove the tree.

Talk to your professional tree removal company to determine the best course of action to ensure that both buildings as well as humans can be kept safe while this work is being carried out. Always inquire how the tree will be cut down and removed. Make sure you are personally comfortable with the process to ensure that you home and property is not damaged. They also should explain how the cleanup process will also work and what you will have to do at the end of it all.

The California Water drought has been going on for a few years now as we write this post in the spring of 2014. We have been coming to California for the past 10 years. From everything we read, this is a pretty bad situation with lots of reservoirs empty or heading in that direction. The picture on the left is a good example of what they are dealing with.  This was a relatively small reservoir that is completely empty. No water sports or anything is going on now. It is like this all over the state.

California Water Drought – Are they Doing Enough

We are staying in the Palm Springs area of California. Frankly you would never even know that there was a drought in the state. The golf courses look great, the lawns are well watered. The plants and flowers are as beautiful as ever.  We know that the golf courses are converting to non potable water which means it is recycled which is a good thing. However most if not all of the watering that goes on at homes is from the main system. This water is not being limited in any way. You will see water running down the street at times when a sprinkler is not working properly.  The place we stay at waters the lawns at least four times a day if not more. Consequently they are not conserving water.

California Water Drought – What Can They do

They could start by converting all of the old toilets in our complex to high efficient models. These models use one-third of the water. They could convert the lawns to more of a desert landscape. Also increase the water bills to promote less water usage . They could make programs available to decrease the water usage for things like showers and toilets. The amount of water used could be decrease dramatically.

We just don’t think they are doing enough. What do you think about water conservation and the California Water Drought?