Bummer about the trees and shed. Had my own run-in with Sandy, trees and a shed.
Hope things work out with your insurance company, every one handles things differently. Ours was pretty good to deal with. The adjuster agreed that it would cost more to repair than a new prefabricated one... so that's what I ended up with. They did pay for tree removal, stump grinding, demo the old one and plopping a new one in place.
Gary
Yikes! They fell at attention! Bummer. At least the insurance took care of it. My insurance company has been pretty cool about it, as well. They basically looked at my pictures (there are many more than what I posted here) and told me to keep receipts.
I'm just going to repair the shed roof. There's only minor damage. I just have to scab the cracked rafter, patch the sheathing, and replace a few shingles, the fascia board, and the drip edge. Shouldn't take more than an hour of actual work.
I guess with the 25 (and counting) consecutive days of snow, combined with warm-ish mid-day temperatures (40's) and sub-freezing night-time ones, are doing their best to nudge the Sandy-weakened trees over. The water melts and softens the ground, then freezes, then melts again, then freezes again; and before you know it, down they come.
I went out today and saw yet another tree ready to topple. It was already resting against the electric, cable, and phone lines. Couldn't have that. That one's gone now, too.
I did consider trying to prop the tree up using a cable or a rope to another tree, but then I decided that was a stupid idea and just cut it down. The wires made the job a bit tricky. It took a bit of thought to figure out how to get it to fall in a safe direction without either parting the wires or killing myself (or both), but it worked out okay.
I guess God really does send angels to watch over fools.
-Rich
luckily its a 1 story and he had a big hedge with a snow drift to fall into. He asks, "Does this mean you're not gonna pay for it?" "No, I'm buying your roof alright, you were trying to protect your property in good faith and made a mistake in judgement, that's covered no worries. Now I never want you to make any error like that again. I can fix anything on your house way cheaper and easier than I can fix anything on you."
These things were huge, hundreds of pounds and often feet thick and yards long. I called up the station and asked them, "Are you guys nuts? When they knock those dams off they're gonna be falling on little old ladies and anyone that can't get out of the way fast enough in 2' of snow." So they came back on and retracted that and told people to stay clear. I probably bought 75 crushed air conditioning units.
Freaking idiots.
