Tree Construction Protection

Avoiding Tree Damage During Construction

Tree damage during construction can be severe. Root zones are often badly compacted, basal roots are often torn out of the trunk and branches are broken out of the trees during construction. Sometimes this damage can be fixed, but it is much cheaper and easier to just prevent it from happening. Many times in a given year we receive a phone call to come diagnose trees or a tree that has been damaged due to construction that occurred years ago. If the builder or developer had only just called, they could have avoided all of these problems.

When a developer or builder is working on a project where existing trees are trying to be kept, one of the first people that should be called is an ISA Certified Arborist.

This works best when we are involved from the very beginning. On some projects architects have involved us in the project before the drawings were finalized. Due to O’Neils involved in these jobs in the very beginning stages we were able to avoid many problems that would have arose due to not having an ISA Certified Arborist consulting on the job.

Often we install tree preservation barriers around the trees that are to be saved before the heavy equipment starts to roll in. We can also prep the trees that are going to be impacted most by the construction by proper root pruning (as discussed in another article on this page) and proper branch pruning to remove branches that could be damaged greatly by the construction.

Pruning also has to be done sometimes to make way for additions to the home such as a two story addition. In these cases the trees would need crown raising or crown elevation to allow the additional story space to be built. All of these things combined to make sure that minimal damage is done to the trees on your property so that you may keep them for a very long time to come.