A tree just came down in Pakenham: your first hour, step by step
Get everyone out from under the tree and out of any room it is bearing on. If it is touching a powerline or has ripped the service wire off the house, stay 8 metres back, keep others back, call 000, then AusNet on 13 17 99, and do not touch the fence, the gutter or the tree. If the roof is breached, kill the ceiling lights at the switchboard, get buckets down and lift what you can off the floor. Photograph everything from four sides before anyone cuts a single branch. Then call us on (03) 9022 1371.
The call rings the duty arborist, not a call centre. Between the phone going down and the truck rolling is usually under 20 minutes. What you do in that window decides how much of the damage becomes permanent, and how much of it your insurer ends up paying for.
Five things to do before the truck arrives
- Set a fall zone. Judge the height of what is still standing, add 3 metres, and keep everyone outside that circle. A partly failed root plate lets go with no warning and no extra wind.
- Move the cars. A vehicle parked under a hung-up limb is the single most expensive thing people forget. Move it before you start filming.
- Photograph before you tidy. Wide shots from four sides, then close-ups of the break, the roof, the ceiling and the soil at the base. Undisturbed photos are worth more to a claim than any statement, and the assessor needs to see the tree where it landed.
- Contain the water. A punctured tile roof in a Cardinia thunderstorm puts litres a minute into the ceiling cavity. Buckets, towels, and a small hole poked in a bulging plaster ceiling to drain it, all beat the whole sheet coming down on the furniture.
- Ring your insurer while we are on the way. Most Victorian home policies authorise emergency make-safe over the phone. Getting that reference number on the night removes the argument later.
Storm triage: what you are looking at and how fast it has to be dealt with
This is the table our duty arborist works from when the phone rings at 2am. Find your symptom, read the urgency, and if it says NOW, do not wait for daylight.
| What you can see | What it usually means | Urgency | Typical 2026 cost to put right |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole tree lying across the roof | Live load on rafters and top plate. Tile and ceiling damage is near certain, frame damage likely. | NOW | Make-safe $850 to $2,400 overnight, then full removal $1,400 to $4,500 in daylight |
| Broken limb hung up in the canopy | A widow-maker. Nothing is holding it but friction and a strip of bark. | NOW | $480 to $1,200 to climb and bring it down safely |
| Tree leaning, with lifted or cracked soil on the windward side | The root plate is failing. The tree is already coming down, the timing is the only unknown. | NOW | $1,400 to $3,200 sectional removal |
| Branch resting on a powerline or on the service wire to the house | Live conductor. Anything metal within reach can be energised, including a wire fence. | NOW | The distributor isolates at no charge, then $480 to $1,600 for the cut once it is dead and tagged |
| Split fork or torn co-dominant stem, bark hanging | Failed union. The half still standing is now carrying wind load it never grew for. | This week | $700 to $2,600 to reduce or remove, $600 to $1,500 for a cable and brace where the tree is worth keeping |
| Tree down on the boundary fence, clear of the house | Property damage rather than a life-safety problem, unless the fence is holding a pool area or a dog in. | This week | $580 to $1,400 for the tree, fencing quoted separately |
| Limb across the driveway, nothing else touched | An access problem. Genuinely urgent only if someone in the house may need an ambulance route. | This week | $320 to $480 per crew-hour, usually 1 to 2 hours |
| Bracket fungi or mushrooms at the base of a standing tree | Butt or root decay, often years of it. Not caused by the storm, only revealed by it. | Can wait | $180 to $280 for an on-site hazard assessment before you spend anything else |
| Dead tree standing well clear of everything | Habitat value, low target value. It has probably been dead two seasons already. | Can wait | $280 to $1,400 booked as a normal weekday job |
| Small branches and leaf litter across the lawn | Normal shedding after a north-westerly. Eucalypts do this in every big blow. | Can wait | Free if you bin it, or a $320 to $480 minimum charge for a crew and chipper |
Cardinia Shire figures for 2026. Access, slope and proximity to structures move every one of them. Full rate card on the pricing page.
Tree on the house right now?
The duty arborist answers out of hours. Central shire response is usually 60 to 120 minutes.
What makes the damage worse while you wait
Four things turn a $2,000 night into a five-figure insurance claim, and all four are avoidable in the first hour.
- Water sitting in the ceiling. A plaster sheet holds only so much before it lets go. Drain a bulge deliberately into a bucket rather than letting the whole sheet drop onto flooring and furniture.
- Moving the tree yourself. A trunk lying across a roof is often the only thing stopping the rafters spreading. Take the weight off in the wrong order and the roof folds in behind it. We rig and lift in sequence for exactly that reason.
- Cutting a tensioned limb. A bent limb stores an enormous amount of energy. Cut the wrong side and it whips. This is how experienced people end up in an emergency department.
- Tidying before the photos. Cut the tree into firewood before the assessor sees it and you have removed the proof that it landed on the insured structure at all. Insurers query it, claims slow down, settlements get reduced.
Safe to do yourself, and genuinely not
Plenty of storm cleanup is fine for a competent homeowner with a decent pair of loppers. The line is simple: both feet on the ground, nothing loaded overhead, nothing under tension, and nothing within 8 metres of a wire.
| Task | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Raking and binning small debris | DIY | No stored energy, no height, nothing to get wrong. |
| Hand-sawing a small branch lying flat on the ground | DIY | Fine as long as it is not pinned, propped or bent. |
| Tarping a roof | Call the SES | Wet tiles after a storm are the most slippery surface on your property. SES on 132 500 do this at no charge. |
| Chainsawing a trunk that is propped, pinned or across a fence | Do not | Compression and tension shift with every cut. This is what kicks back and what rolls. |
| Any cut above shoulder height or from a ladder | Do not | A chainsaw needs both hands. A ladder needs one. There is no version of this that works. |
| Anything within 8 metres of a fallen conductor | Do not | The ground itself can be live. Wait for AusNet to isolate and tag the line. |
After-hours callout versus waiting until Monday
Our after-hours storm rate is $320 to $480 per crew-hour with a two-hour minimum, plus travel from Pakenham. A daytime booking for the same tree is quoted as a fixed price rather than an hourly rate, and for a mid-sized removal the difference is typically $400 to $900. If a crane is needed, the day rate is $220 to $350 an hour with a three-hour minimum, and a crane cannot work at night on a suburban block in any case.
So the honest arithmetic. If the tree is on the dwelling, over a bedroom, on a car, blocking the only vehicle exit, or hung up above where anyone walks, pay the after-hours money without thinking about it. If it is lying in a paddock at Nar Nar Goon or across the back lawn at Officer and nothing above it is loaded, rope the area off and book a weekday. We will tell you which one it is on the phone at no charge, and we say wait until Monday several times a week.
When it is not an emergency at all
A tree that has dropped a limb is not automatically dangerous, and a tree that looks scruffy after a blow is usually just a tree doing what eucalypts do. If nothing is hung up, the trunk is sound, there is no fresh soil movement at the base and no bark tearing at a major union, the right call is a hazard assessment in daylight for $180 to $280, not a $2,000 midnight removal. We would rather assess a tree and tell you it is fine than take down a healthy one you will miss in January. We also do not do roof repairs, fencing or make-good plastering: we make the tree safe and hand you the scope so your builder can quote the rest.
What happens on a make-safe, and what happens the next day
Make-safe is the first pass. We take the load off the structure, drop or secure anything hung up, cut the tree back clear of the roofline, clear the driveway so an assessor and any emergency service can get in, and leave the site stable. We do not normally remove the whole tree at night. Two reasons: the loss assessor needs to see the tree in position, and rigging a mature removal in the dark and the wet is how crews get hurt.
The next working day we quote the balance as a fixed price: sectional dismantle, chipping, haulage and, if you want it, stump grinding. You get date-stamped photos from the night, an itemised scope of works, and a written note on what failed and why, which is the document your insurer will ask for. If the claim is the sticking point, read the Victorian tree insurance guide before you speak to the assessor. If several trees on the block are in the same condition, the maintenance schedule is what stops next spring being a repeat of this one.
Send us the photo and we will tell you whether it can wait
Send it now and you get a call back the same day, or phone (03) 9022 1371 straight away if the tree is on the house.
Storm callout questions we get at 2am
How much does an after-hours emergency tree callout cost in Pakenham?
Is a leaning tree after a storm an emergency?
What should I not do myself after a tree comes down?
Who do I call first: 000, the SES, my insurer or a tree company?
How fast can you get to a tree on a house in Cardinia Shire?
When is a fallen tree not an emergency?
More detail on how a callout runs is on the storm response service page, shire-wide response times are on the Cardinia storm response page, and if you are in town the Pakenham page covers the estates we work in most.