tree houses......

[budroe69moni]

here's a new one that happened to me today..........
i stopped by a potential customers house to give
a bid on cleaning out a 60' live oak. 1/2 way thru
my rap about the job the customer asks me if i
know anyone that can install a tree house about
15' up. has any had any experience w/ tree houses????
he totally caught me off guard w/ this question. i
explained to him that it had to be done in such a way
as not to harm the tree.....is there such a way possible????
i used to build them when i was growing up but that
was w/ scrap wood out of the shed but that's about it.
budroe

 

[treeclimber165]

Most people just start nailing boards to the tree. With my experience in arboriculture, I'd recommend he find a carpenter who will build the treehouse on anchored stilts, making holes in the floor/walls for the tree limbs. This would be more expensive initially, but would be less harmful to the tree if built properly.

 

[Stumper]

I've worked for one person who had it done the way 165 suggests. It was quite an elaborate tree house/deck. It made accessing the tree easy but I had to avoid dropping anything heavy because I was working over a 'building'

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Tom D. did one last year. Seemed to have turned into an albatross for him though. Way too time consuming.

Find a carpenter you can work with I would think.

 

[kf_tree]

i'd give a prune price and walk away. its not what you do. you will only get burned by a low bid, bad carpenter, kid falling out, etc. theres just way too many variables for you to loose money. " well i wanted a bigger window" then a nieghbor calls the building dept etc...

 

[Tom Dunlap]

I've built three tree houses now. The first was for my nieces in Dallas. If the job were bid out I would guess the value would have to be around $2,500. I built it as a gift The next one came to $4,500. One end of the two beams were attached to the tree with brackets that I welded. The other ends of the beams were supported by 5x5 posts. The third one took me a while to complete but is the most elaborate. Came to about $8,200. I'll put my carpentry skills up against any carpenters tree skills and I'm confident that I'd be ahead.

Building a tree house without "damaging" the tree is not a huge concern for me. Does anyone prune a tree without "damaging" the tree? Every time a live limb is cut off the tree, its damaged. That doesn't stop anyone from pruning and, a lot of the time, over pruning trees. When I drill a hole in to a tree to anchor the tree house I acknowledge that I've wounded the tree. This is taken into account during the design phase.

Nothing would stop me from building more tree houses. The pay is good and a lot less risky than pruning and doing removals.

Tom

 

[Treeman14]

Tom, did you have any blueprints or sketches to work from? Or did you just wing it? I, for one, would be willing to part with a few pesos to get a copy of your design.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I would say that the tree is wounded when pruned, not damaged.

IMO there is a big differance

 

[murphy4trees]

There was a local guy here inn Philly that sold his company to Save-A-Tree. They told me he was building tree houses.. I gave him a call and he was getting 30 and 40K per house.. He was working in Californai and on the east coast. If I can dig up his web address I'll post it..
I think you got to love it... both trees and building. And don't forget to hit-em -up.... for the cash.
God Bless,
Daniel

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Tom reads John's response, cocks his head, strokes his chin and says, "Hmmm...."

When I've started to design the treehouses I consider them to be a deck off the ground. Sometimes the tree house uses the tree as an anchor point, other times I use a post.

The last time I was at Home Depot I looked at a deck building book either by HD or Black and Decker that was pretty complete.

Here are some tree house links:

http://www.treehouseplans.bigstep.com/


http://www.irw.co.uk/peartree/home.htm


http://www.treehouses-by-fairoaks.com/


http://www.treehouseworkshop.com/


If you want to read some good books, do a search on Peter Nelson and treehouses. He has three books in print that are pretty good.

Tom