This gum tree towered nearly 300 feet within 10 feet of the back of my house.

By LAMAR THAMES

I have a confession to make. I am a big woosy. That probably isn’t surprising to those of you who know me, but let me explain.

Recently, I have had to hire two contractors for major work around my house. Both were going to cost a significant amount of money (at least to me) and the prospect scared me to death. I didn’t want to make a mistake in hiring either one of them, but I didn’t have any personal experience with doing it. Thus my dilemma.

The first chore was to pick a roofing contractor. Over the years, I have had to pay several thousand dollars for minor repairs to the old roof caused by falling limbs from a giant gum tree in the backyard. The most recent repair was going to be about $1,500. My wife and I decided to have the roof replaced instead, since it was nearly 17 years old and showing signs of wear.

My strategy was to get some suggestions from neighbors, interview a few contractors,

Andy Van Pelt climbs out on a limb to attach the crane hoist to the tree.

get references from them and hire one I felt could do the job. I had already done some research and knew some of the questions to ask.

Two weeks later, I had interviewed nearly a dozen roofers and was more confused about how to proceed than before I started. Each roofer gave conflicting answers to some of my questions, so that line of reasoning was off base. Then my wife said why didn’t we talk to the roofer who did two of our neighbor’s houses recently. That person turned out to be a friend of mine I have known for nearly a decade. Bingo! That is what I was looking for. A person I could trust. I hired Scott Drawdy of D&S Roofing in Orange Park and was pleased with both the quality of work and the estimate he gave, which was neither the highest nor the lowest bid I had received.

Andy Van Pelt pulls a chain saw up from the ground while being safely tethered to the tree.

I had an even greater conflict in selecting a company to remove those big trees. Because they were so big, I was deathly afraid of getting the wrong company and seeing one of those giant limbs come crashing through my roof. With the new roof, I wanted one of those trees out of the way to prevent further damage.

I went through the same scenario in choosing a tree removal company. One company was rejected because they didn’t have enough insurance; another because he looked like a tree cutter (What was I expecting? It is a dirty job); and another because his insurance was in another company’s name. Whew!

Finally, my wife said to trust my instincts and choose the one I felt most comfortable

Andy Van Pelt secures a large piece of the tree to the crane hoist.

with. I settled on Van Pelt’s Tree Surgeons, LLC, because their front man (Cory Durell) was clean-cut, straightforward and the company carried $1 million of insurance. I couldn’t have been more pleased. Cory and his partner, Andy Van Pelt, were professional, competent and extremely efficient, completing the job in a little more than four hours. One other company said he thought it would take a couple of days.

Cory said one of the keys to removing such large trees is to employ a good crane operator. Their choice was John White of White Crane Service.

“You want someone who has experience in lifting big limbs and John does,” Cory said. “I’ve seen some crane operators who would get the shakes when they lift big logs over

The only evidence that a tree was there, which a stump grinder removed later.

the house. You don’t want to see that when you have logs weighing more than a ton.”

White has a computer on the crane that weighs the logs he has to lift and if it is too big, he will ask the tree cutter to cut it again before lifting it. One of the logs on the gum tree was about 3,500 pounds.

I whole-heartedly recommend Van Pelt for any size tree removal job you may encounter. Full disclosure: They did not give me a discount for mentioning them on my web site. Believe me, I asked, but they wouldn’t budge.

The lessons I learned: do your research; get references; ask lots of questions and then go with your instincts.