A massive, aging oak tree overhanging a child’s nursery creates a constant, nagging anxiety during every Chicago windstorm, yet the critical rot is often 40 feet up and invisible from the ground.
ZeroLadder was called to this Mount Prospect home to investigate a homeowner’s suspicion of “dead wood” in a century-old oak tree. Using a high-resolution inspection drone, we performed a “Vertical Canopy Scan,” flying inside the branch structure to see what binoculars couldn’t reach. We specifically looked for “widow-makers”—heavy, detached branches caught in the canopy—and fungal growth at the joints, which indicates internal rot. By hovering inches from the upper limbs, we were able to inspect the “v-crotches” of the tree, looking for the tell-tale cracks that precede a catastrophic limb failure.
We successfully identified a 15-foot rotting limb that was structurally compromised and hanging directly over the second-story nursery window. The homeowner sent our 4K footage to an arborist for an instant, accurate removal quote, bypassing the “emergency” pricing that comes after a limb has already crashed through a roof.
