Storm-work strategies

SeanKroll

Treehouser
Joined
Oct 13, 2016
Messages
12,252
Location
Olympia, WA
Its that time of year around here.

I have to go look at a maple on the deck after a big blow last week.

Just a general discussion thread about storm work tips, tricks, etc.



I keep roofing tar and tarps in stock on the shelf. I've always got some plywood around. Board up and tarp service is sometimes paid by the insurance company.
Last storm I put $1000 on board-up and tarp. I made money, but was surprised that it took about $500 for materials for long 2x4s, plywood, and tarps (house was crushed). I was rolling solo craning out the tree, and boarding up. All started at 2 in the afternoon. Daylight until 730 or so.

To get the plywood up on the roof, I just made a simple stand out of the 2x4's for the plywood. After stacking on the stand. I climbed the ladder once to the roof, and pulled up all the sheets of plywood, and 2x4's (3 screwed together at the end).


I have food delivered to job sites, and try to take away regular daily needs from guys who are working overtime. Might be stocking a cooler and breaking out new work clothes, buying more work clothes, so people don't have to worry about laundry, and you can look fresh and professional.

Having a driving helper hired-in for the short-term for supply and food runs is helpful. Sending someone who isn't a tree-worker to the grocery store, or for more tarps, or to the saw shop, is helpful.



What do you have?
 
Wow Sean, you are prepared. Do you travel far for the work? We keep our storm work local, end of day, workers go home. Also, we are tree people, not roofers. We are not covered under insurance for roofing.
 
I'm with Virginia. I do tree work. I have a quarter million dollars of equipment for doing tree work. If a storm rolls in I need to focus on utilizing my equipment to its fullest. And when I'm waist deep in storm tree work, the last thing I need is to complicate my life by hiring an errand boy to run around tarping roofs. Or worse, exchanging my saw for a hammer and trying to tarp a roof myself. I would rather focus on doing what I do best, which is trees. Let them hire a carpenter or roofer to tarp the roof. Would love to help but I'm off to my next tree job.
 
There has to be a happy medium here somewhere between throwing a tarp down on a customers roof and hauling up plywood and patching shit up.
 
I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and agree that roofing is not included in my scope of work. The last thing I need is a liability lawsuit because someone's grand piano or hardwood floors were ruined by a leaking tarp that I installed. I'm such a tree snob these days that I won't even do hedges any more. Leave that chit for the landscrapers.
 
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  • #7
Largely, I work as locally as possible. Storms are regional. If we get hit, Seattle might not, and Tacoma maybe. Likewise, way north of Seattle might get hit, but I don't want to travel over-night.

I'd thought about the company buying a small, inexpensive camper trailer for an onsite person during storms, as equipment may have been plywood-roadway'ed in, and needed in the same place in the morning.
Seems like a good accomodation for short-term employee housing, if someone comes from far away, and wants to try the fit before leasing something. Finding housing from far away is tough. Traveling folks on a work-cation. AirBNB rental. Dry storage. If a big storm hit north of Seattle or by Portland, I'd maybe stay overnight, self-contained.



The community at the end of the peninsula is 15 miles from a hardware store. Most are closer. Storm season traffic is also rainy season, and holiday shopping season, slowing things down. Having that stuff on hand is useful for my own house and barn.

More than once, three branch stubs poke through a roof, allowing in water damage. 15 minutes for one person with tar and a little piece of plywood, onsite, might mean saving the customer lots of water damage headaches. Will likely become repeat customers.


That was an $8,000 tree, with $1000 of tarping. The 50 year old flew up to help his 83 year old dad. He's good at negotiating, working for a massive commercial builder who deals with big money. I heard him on the phone with the insurance company. Basically told the insurance company what was going to happen. Wanted to hire it all or nothing, Okayed to use the first-bid by insurance. Its was sorta name my price, if I would crane it off (17,000# log out of the house with a 50T, cut from the bedside table) and tarp it that day, starting at 2 in the afternoon. Its was my seed-job for the neighborhood.
Shoulda charged more. Found out the other bid he got was $15k from a bigger, local company.



Being on a roof is a questionable thing, in general. I don't send my guys up on the roof.
 
I'm going to jump on the bandwagon and agree that roofing is not included in my scope of work. The last thing I need is a liability lawsuit because someone's grand piano or hardwood floors were ruined by a leaking tarp that I installed. I'm such a tree snob these days that I won't even do hedges any more. Leave that chit for the landscrapers.

Sued for putting a tarp over a hole in someone's roof. This should be in the cultural differences thread. Lol.
 
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Just got another storm-work call, after getting this morning's storm work approved. Beautiful decay in the maple logs that I'm going to get. Add 'em to the stack. Really want to buy a basic bandsaw mill.





Here, the work is paid by insurance for removal from 'listed property' (structures, cars, some fences perhaps), plus up to $500 for material disposal. The rest is left for the homeowner to contract separately. I wonder how much people build the additional costs (like spars and debris handling into bids). Seems like I've had an insurance agent say to split it up, detailing the $500, for the sake of checking the box, but wanting the client taken care of, wink, wink.
 
We don't really have to many storms that tear houses up but we will tarp hole if necessary. And charge for it.
It is a service provided to and appreciated by the customer.
 
The only roof repair I do is when I have busted the roof up myself.
 
We gladly tarp roofs and bill insurance companies after storms, it's easy money. I never considered a liability aspect of it, although on brief review it doesn't strike me as a concern.


Regarding tricks/strategies, it largely depends on your setup, but the focus is to minimize the earners' non billable time. Having a runner to fetch things is well worth the expense, and can increase the billable rate. Having fuel to keep the machines running is another important consideration, since for us the equipment is what gives us the biggest advantage.

After a bigger storm I'll send someone to Lowes to buy every tarp of meaningful size, within reason. If we don't use them they can be returned, but more often than not they'll either be billed or given to people that need them.

I try to get out of raking the yard as much as possible. Its relatively easy/unskilled work and doesn't pay very well in comparison. Here, people commonly look to save money where they can.

Depending on the situation, we'll upsell non insurance work (removals) while we're there, if there's something needing doing. That's mainly to the customer's benefit, since the insurance covered our mobilization there and a little extra money here or there helps.

The biggest profitability skill I've found for insurance work is to be able to think and ARTICULATE like an adjuster/agent to play the game using the rules to your benefit (which invariably helps the customer/home owner as well.) It's not an us vs them situation, it's a simple game of following the policy/rules.
 
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It good not to have to ask things like "what does listed property mean?", and "what's this about only $500 toward disposal?".



Yesterday's tipped fir split a cedar, and laid it up into another tree, perched above the doug-fir on the deck.
The agent explained that since the split cedar is not on the deck, its not covered, only the fir.

The agent wants it all handled, but without saying we are handling it all.

I know the customer from repeat work, and by my rep, so I suggested we simply take care of it all, and write down "1 fir removed from deck". Make it easy for everyone.




He wants to really retain the upright fir, as it shades his deck and frames his view of water and hills, so this time he's heard what I'm saying about mulch over lawn under the tree, and is keeping the chips, right where the brush is, and where its easy access with hard, flat ground for a change of pace, even no septic!

Had half or more of the fir weight off his deck, and hung the cedar top by dusk, lowering it across the open lawn, squeezed between rigging-point tree and deck, started at 2pm, about to head back to deal with the trunk.



I've found that if you cut a log to the right size to be placed vertically beneath the tipped tree trunk, and use felling wedges between the prop-log and a tipped, but attached-at-the-rootplate tree, you can lift it off the house. Presumable, A bottle jack with an extension log or post will do the same.
 
What would you say that would be adjuster-like?

Thanks.

When I said articulate, I meant defending your position to the insurance adjuster. The purpose/requirement of insurance is to return the insured property to its condition before the claim to the limits of the policy. The main application for us is making the work accessible/doable.

One example is from a storm in 2014, a tree was listing after the storm but not touching insured property. The agent and adjuster had already been out and said it wasn't covered. The listing tree's root system upset the fence (insured property) raising two sections maybe a couple feet at most. The insurance owed to have the fence back like it was before the storm. To make that happened meant removing the roots and leveling the dirt, doing that required removing the tree. I called the agent and adjuster, made my case, and they agreed. That was an $8200 in revenue 2 doors down from a $16k job from the same storm, in an "affordable" part of town.
 
We gladly tarp roofs and bill insurance companies after storms, it's easy money. I never considered a liability aspect of it, although on brief review it doesn't strike me as a concern.
Ding, ding! Same here -- done it a few times, usually for property owners on rentals. Gets them by for a week or two until they can get a roofer out to bid it and get the work done. Expectations aren't high and the insurance co. is footing the bill, so owners don't stress about the bill.
 
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Bump for Eric H-L.


A lady called for some old, big maple preservation after two recent wind storms. She told me that she was getting three bids. My schedule today just filled up, hearing that. I get to it later.


Homeowners need to contact their agents. Some people wait for days. Weird.
Someon


Decide if the homeowner needs to pay up front, or if you can wait for the insurance company to pay. Someone may not have $1000 now to take a tree off their house, but the insurance will have $2500 in week.


Tarps and tar in the truck. IF you can reasonably, safely, do some water protection for the homeowner, WITHOUT losing more work, you will gain work, and get paid for it. I had a 4x12 roof with two pierced spots that made it through the ceiling. Having tarps and roofing tar on hand can make you more of a hero.

I went to get tarps and tar on that two-hole job. By the time I'd gotten back from town, there was someone else working on it. A double-scheduling...property manager and property owner calling different people in a panic. I was solo at that moment. Had I started the cutting, and waited for tarps and tar, or had them on-board, it would have mean an easy storm job and nice, millable cedar logs. Sink a saw in the wood! Stake your claim.
 
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