Hear from Our Customers
After the June 2024 storms tore through Southfield, the city declared a State of Emergency and warned residents that debris cleanup could take three to four additional weeks. That’s the city’s timeline — not yours. When you call us, the work gets done now, not when a municipal schedule allows for it.
Southfield’s residential neighborhoods — Birchbrook, Pebblecreek, Southfield Gardens — are full of oaks and silver maples planted during the city’s development boom in the 1950s and 1960s. Those trees are beautiful, and they’re also 50 to 70 years old. After a storm, a tree that’s still standing can be more dangerous than one that already fell. Saturated clay soil weakens root anchorage fast, and a tree that survived the initial winds may be one dry day away from coming down on its own.
Getting a professional assessment after a storm in Southfield isn’t optional — it’s how you find out which trees are safe and which ones aren’t. Beyond the immediate cleanup, we also provide complete site restoration. No debris left behind, no drag marks across the lawn, no half-finished job. When we leave, your property looks like it should.
We’ve been serving Oakland County for over seven years. Ivan started his career as a groundman in California, built his skills from the ground up — climbing, rigging, pruning, risk assessment — and brought that experience to Michigan when he and his family settled in Oakland. We’re a family-owned business, not a franchise, and not an out-of-state crew that shows up after a storm and disappears.
We carry ISA Certified Arborists and TRAQ-qualified risk assessors on staff, along with line-clearance arborist certification — specialized training required to safely work near energized utility lines. In Southfield, where overhead DTE Energy lines run through residential backyards across the city, that certification isn’t a footnote. It’s the difference between a safe removal and a dangerous one.
After the Governor granted a state-level emergency declaration for Southfield’s storm recovery in July 2024, the demand for credentialed, legitimate tree service in this city became impossible to ignore. We were built for exactly that situation.
When you reach out to us — day or night — the first thing that happens is a real conversation. You describe what you’re dealing with, and we determine whether it’s an immediate emergency or something that can be safely assessed at first light. For active hazards — a tree on your roof, a limb in contact with a power line, a blocked driveway at 2 a.m. — the response is the same: someone is coming.
Before any work begins, we walk the site with you. This isn’t a formality. In Southfield, where the city requires a permit for removal of any tree eight inches or larger in diameter on private property, that walkthrough also establishes what permits apply to your situation and how to move forward correctly. Woodland-area properties have additional requirements, and we’ll flag those upfront so there are no surprises with the city later.
From there, the work is sequenced deliberately — hazards addressed first, then full removal or pruning, then complete cleanup. Our TRAQ-qualified assessors evaluate any trees that are still standing but may be compromised, giving you a clear picture of what’s safe and what needs to come down. The job ends with a walkthrough with you, not a crew driving off while you’re left guessing.
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Storm damage in Southfield doesn’t follow a single pattern. Sometimes it’s a fallen tree blocking a driveway off Evergreen Road. Sometimes it’s a hanging limb over a roofline in Pebblecreek that looks stable but is under enough tension to come down without warning. Sometimes it’s a tree that’s still standing after a storm but has visible root heave or a trunk crack that wasn’t there before. Each situation is different, and each one gets handled accordingly.
We provide 24-hour emergency tree service, storm damage cleanup, fallen tree removal, emergency tree clearing, and hazardous limb removal across Southfield. For situations involving proximity to DTE Energy power lines — which run through a significant portion of Southfield’s residential neighborhoods — our line-clearance certified crew handles the work that other companies legally and safely cannot.
For Southfield’s condo associations and commercial properties along the M-10 and I-696 corridors, our ISA Certified Arborists can provide written documentation of tree risk assessments, which property managers often need for insurance purposes and liability records. Complete site cleanup is included on every job. If your insurance carrier needs documentation of the damage before work begins, we can walk through that process with you before a single cut is made.
Yes. Southfield requires a permit for the removal of any tree with a diameter of eight inches or larger on private residential property. Applications go through the City of Southfield Planning Department under the city’s Woodlands and Tree Preservation ordinance. If your property falls within a designated woodland area on the city’s maps, permits are required for all trees regardless of size.
There is a general exemption for dead trees, though the city may ask for documentation from a qualified arborist to confirm the tree’s condition. For genuinely hazardous situations — a tree actively threatening a structure or creating an immediate safety risk — it’s worth contacting the Southfield Building Department or the City Forestry Division at (248) 796-4634 to confirm whether an expedited or emergency process applies to your situation. One important note: trees in the street right-of-way, roughly within 30 feet of the center line of a local street, are maintained exclusively by the City Forestry Division. A private tree company cannot legally remove or trim those trees without city authorization.
No — and this is one of the most important things to understand after a storm in Southfield specifically. The city’s residential neighborhoods have overhead DTE Energy power lines running through backyards, along property lines, and adjacent to the mature trees most likely to fail in a storm. DTE Energy confirms that tree contact causes approximately half of all customer outage time in Southeast Michigan. When a tree falls near or into those lines, you have no way of knowing whether the line is energized just by looking at it.
Do not approach a downed tree if there is any possibility it is in contact with or near a power line. Keep everyone — including pets — away from the area and call DTE Energy to report the outage and downed line before calling a tree service. Once DTE has assessed the line situation, a line-clearance certified crew like ours can safely remove the tree. This is not a job for a general crew without that specific certification, and Michigan does not require tree companies to hold it — so it’s worth asking directly before anyone starts cutting.
This is where a lot of homeowners get caught off guard. A tree that survived the initial storm winds can still be structurally compromised in ways that aren’t visible from the ground. Root heave — where the root plate has shifted and the soil around the base is cracked or raised — is one of the clearest warning signs. A new lean that wasn’t there before the storm is another. Cracks in the trunk, hanging limbs caught in the canopy above you, and bark that’s splitting at branch unions are all indicators that something has changed structurally.
In Southfield’s neighborhoods, this risk is compounded by two local factors. First, many of the oaks and silver maples in areas like Birchbrook and Pebblecreek are 50 to 70 years old, with aging root systems and branch architecture that carries more failure risk than younger trees. Second, Southfield’s clay-heavy soil holds moisture and destabilizes under saturation — meaning a tree’s root anchorage can be significantly weakened even if the tree looks fine above ground. A TRAQ-qualified risk assessment is the only reliable way to determine whether a storm-damaged tree is safe to leave standing or needs to come down.
It depends on what the tree hit. Standard homeowners insurance policies typically cover tree removal costs if the fallen tree has damaged a covered structure — your home, a detached garage, a fence. In those cases, coverage is often tied to the dwelling coverage limit, sometimes up to 5% of that total. If the tree fell in the yard and didn’t damage a structure, most standard policies limit debris removal coverage to somewhere between $500 and $1,000 per storm event, which may not cover the full cost of removal for a large mature tree.
The documentation you gather right after the storm matters a lot for the claims process. Photographs of the damage, the tree’s position, and any structures affected should be taken before any work begins. If your adjuster needs to assess the damage in person before removal, confirm that before scheduling the crew. We can walk through the site with you before cutting starts, which gives you time to document everything properly and coordinate with your carrier. Given the scale of the June 2024 storm events in Southfield and the subsequent Governor’s emergency declaration, many residents in this city have already been through this process once — it’s worth doing it right.
We offer 24-hour emergency tree service across Southfield and Oakland County. For active emergencies — a tree on a roof, a limb blocking access, a hazardous situation that can’t wait — the response is the same regardless of what time it is. The June 2024 storm hit on a Wednesday night, and the July 2024 storm that triggered the Governor’s emergency declaration produced 60 mph wind gusts across Oakland County. Severe weather in Southfield does not schedule itself during business hours, and neither does our emergency response.
For situations that are urgent but not immediately life-threatening — a large limb hanging over a structure, a tree with visible root heave that hasn’t fallen yet — a same-day or next-day assessment is typically the right first step. That assessment determines the actual risk level and what needs to happen first. Our goal is always to address the highest-risk situations immediately and sequence the rest of the work in a way that keeps your property and your family safe throughout the process.
After a significant storm event — and Southfield has had several in recent years — opportunistic operators move through affected neighborhoods quickly. They offer low quotes, collect a deposit, and in some cases don’t return to finish the work. The warning signs are consistent: no physical address you can verify, cash-only payment demands, no written estimate, pressure to sign something immediately, and no credentials they can back up with documentation.
In Michigan, there is no state license required to operate a tree service. That means anyone can show up after a storm with a chainsaw and call themselves a tree company. The only real protection you have as a homeowner is third-party verification — ISA certification, proof of liability insurance and workers’ compensation, and verifiable reviews on platforms like Google, HomeAdvisor, or Angi. We have a confirmed physical address in Oakland, documented reviews across multiple platforms, ISA Certified Arborists on staff, and carry the insurance required to protect you if anything goes wrong on your property. Ask any company you’re considering for proof of insurance before work begins — a legitimate operation will hand it over without hesitation.
Other Services we provide in Southfield
