Pros and cons of trees near roofs
In a career that has involved a lot of tree trimming, both in doing it personally and overseeing it, I have dealt with a lot of trees on and over roofs. While I don't know how tree planting might be influenced by a desire for a cooler house, in say, North Dakota, here in West Texas, a lot of trees go in the ground with the intention of casting some of that glorious shade on the roof of a house.
Of course the idea is that eventually they will extend their canopies over the roofs of said houses. Frankly, as a guy whose house gets plenty of West Texas summer sun, I think convincing some plant to get between my roof and the sun is just a capital idea.
Close, but not too close
If you think about it, at least as far as shade trees go, a lot of the discussion about exactly where to plant them involves how close to the house they can be placed, without damaging the house.
If you didn't want them to shade the house, other than aesthetics, there wouldn't be any reason to worry about getting them as close to a house as you can, without causing problems. In fact, and since I don't live in a heavy snow/ice area (on purpose), conjecture on my part is that in places where trees often accumulate heavy snow and ice loads, a tree planting discussion might involve where to put the tree so that no large branches ever grow above the house.
New player on the field
Okay, since all of the above is stuff I have addressed in one way or another before, you might wonder what brings it up again. Well, a new player has entered the field, or at least is working to strengthen their place on the field and that player is the insurance industry. Granted, insurance companies have always had some rules about trees over, or touching, houses. However, for as long as I can remember, those rules were pretty basic. No tree contact on the sides of houses, no tree contact on the roofs, with a minimum of three feet of clear space between branches over a roof, and the roof. Additionally, no dead wood overhanging the roof, no matter how close or high it is to the actual roof.
If you think about it, those rules make pretty good sense, and even if insurance companies didn't exist, those particular guidelines would be a pretty good standard to adhere to. As someone who has seen contacting tree branches rub roofs down to the decking, eliminating all contact between trees and roofs makes perfectly good sense to me. Shade on a house is great, damage to one of those ever-so-expensive roofs, not so great.
Companies cracking down on the rules
Okay, here's the problem. For whatever reason, I'm suddenly seeing a lot of insurance companies really cracking down on trees over and near houses. And by the way, some of this sudden enforcement is being guided by completely new rules about what they will allow, that are much more stringent than the old three foot of clearance rule. One set I read, while they used a different way of saying it, states that no branches over four inches in diameter will be allowed to overhang the roof structure. That's not a very big branch, and if that particular set of rules stands, there is going to have to be a lot of harsh pruning, or even tree removals done to accomplish that. Personally, I don't have any four-inch diameter limbs over my house, but I'm growing trees as fast as I can, and hope to achieve that, and much larger as time moves on. I'm certainly not planning on cutting them off if I'm successful in growing them.
My personal opinion is that what's going on now with sudden harsh rules about tree structure over houses is a knee-jerk reaction because of losses somewhere else. With a little luck this sudden burst of heavy tree regulation will settle out, and land on something more reasonable, but only time will tell.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Pros and cons of trees near roofs
