When a Tree Comes Down on Your House: What to Do in the First 24 Hours
By Northeast Home Repair ·
A tree on your roof is only the first problem. Water is the second. The first-24-hours steps for Connecticut homeowners: safety, photos, insurance, tarping, and getting the damage assessed.
It usually happens at 2 AM
It usually happens at 2 AM, in the worst storm of the season. A crack, a crash, and a tree that stood in your yard for forty years is now part of your roof. What you do in the next day decides how big the bill gets, because with storm damage, the tree is only the first problem. The second is water, and it starts immediately.
Safety before everything
Safety before everything. If the tree took down power lines, stay away from it and call the utility and 911 if there is any danger. Do not go into a room with a sagging or punctured ceiling. If water is coming in near anything electrical, shut off the power to that part of the house at the panel. Nothing in your house is worth getting hurt over.
Document everything before you touch it
Document everything before you touch it. Walk around with your phone and take more photos than you think you need — the tree, the roof, every room with damage, close-ups and wide shots. Do the same with video. This is what your insurance company will ask for, and it is much harder to put together after the cleanup starts.
Call your insurance company early
Call your insurance company early. Most policies cover tree removal when a tree has hit a structure, plus the repairs that follow, but the details vary and the clock matters. Get the claim opened, get the claim number, and ask what they need from you. Keep every receipt from this point forward.
Cover what you can, safely
Cover what you can, safely. If a hole in the roof is letting weather in and you can reach it without climbing onto a damaged roof, a tarp weighted or fastened at the edges buys you time. If it is not safe to reach, leave it and say so when you call for help — a good contractor would rather tarp it themselves than visit you in the hospital. Inside, move what you can out of the wet rooms and get buckets under active drips. Wet drywall and flooring get worse by the hour, not by the day.
Then get the repair assessed
Then get the repair assessed. Storm damage hides. A roof can look intact from the driveway and still have cracked decking and soaked insulation underneath. Ceilings, walls, and siding near the impact need a real look, not a glance. That assessment is also what your insurer will want to see in writing.
One team from the first look to the last repair
Northeast Home Repair handles the repair side of storm damage for homeowners across Connecticut — the roof and siding work, the damaged drywall and ceilings inside, one team from the first look to the last repair, with straightforward pricing and work done right. If a tree has already introduced itself to your house, call us at 203-585-8641 and we will come look at it.