Asking For Advice From The Pros - How To Handle Damage From Tree Company

[Dave1960_Gorge]

Thanks for this advice, what I was trying to say about weighing the pieces is I wanted to verify the log weight link that I found here. I'm not saying I'd know the difference done between a 1500 pound log vs. a 15000 pound log hitting the ground, I'm just saying I'd like to verify the accuracy of the link there is all. Since I'm going to buck the whole thing up anyway, weighing the whole thing is as simple as putting each piece on a scale and then adding them all up, trunk by trunk. When I'm actually harvesting firewood here and loading up my trailer in the woods I almost always take the scale not so I can weigh each piece but just because by weighing them from time to time I can make sure more or less overall weight on the trailer. There's big difference between dead and almost dead in terms of the weight I've learned. I also have a hardwood source here that is a city tree contractor and they allow folks to take small sections from their freaking huge pile and put it into vehicles or trailers for burning or woodworking or whatever but they don't allow any cutting onsite so sometimes I take the scale and wobble something over to it to see what it weighs before I hump it into the trailer. Anyway I am just interested in learning how close or far off the link was.

As far as everything else you wrote you were exactly right from what I was able to tell ... they were trying to finish up faster. There is an underground sprinkler system that is probably pretty shallow right below where the tree trunks fell. We don't have septic here and as far as I know everyone's waste water system goes from the front of the house to the street so it definitely wouldn't be above my waste water (I've had the system scoped before so I know for a fact mine doesn't go down that way) and it probably isn't above anybody else's either. So only sprinkler system stuff right below but that whole system has been blown out for winter for some time now and that actually might make damage to it less likely without incompressible water in all the lines. Either way I won't know until I use the system again sometime in Spring. With the tubing the system uses being so thin and so flexible I cant image how the tree trunks dropping down would hurt the lines and none of the trunks hit the heads so we are probably good to go there.

Thanks again for all the advice here!

If it was my company, I would have essentially said the same thing: "we will rig and drop pieces, depending...)" which you agreed to. If you had said you would accept no risk of damaging your landscaping or underground sprinklers, they could have given you a higher estimate based on that, rigging every piece larger than a firewood round. That is how it works.

The higher estimate would pay for a couple days of a guy fixing your broken sprinkler heads or underground water lines plus materials -- and then some. The company may have cracked a pipe in one place or took out a sprinkler or two, or just dented the ground (yes, they did strip some branches off a tree). Fair enough for them to take $50 or $100 off the Invoice for the damage; sounds like it will survive, if lopsided for a few years.

Most homeowners do minor repairs on their irrigation system themselves -- I do all the time. Funny true story -- I bought my house 22 years ago, with an inground sprinkler system (never had one before). I broke a pipe not 30 min after the final signatures, to plant something I had dug up at my old house. I called the seller and babbled about "water gushing out of the ground , what do I do, what..." He cut me off and said just turn off the water at the street, dig up the break and fix it, they have all the stuff you need at the store, plus there is a box of odds and ends in the garage. Not a big deal. Click. So I found the vault, used a vise grip to close the valve (didn't have one of those valve tools), dug up the break, and fixed it. Don't get the smelly blue glue on yourself, messy.