Who hasn’t dreamed of the most grand tree house imaginable? Trap door, zip line, bucket on a pulley to get your stuff up. Well, for a few lucky kids their dream came true. And, their dad cared enough about the tree to call me in for advice. He didn’t want the dream tree house to be the demise of the tree. There are techniques to employ to minimize the damage to your tree when building a tree house.
The most important thing to do is inspect the tree to make sure it is structurally sound enough to support a tree house. The next most important thing to consider is the attachment to the tree. Best case scenario for the tree is to drill pins into the tree to attach your structure to. If you butt the structure right up against the trunk/limbs future growth in girth of the tree will be deformed and could cause health or structural problems for the tree.
Also, be sure to allow room between the deck and the trunk and frame around limbs in the guard railing.
You’ll probably wind up using cables for additional support, and you should definitely string up at least one cable for a zip line. It is critically important that you don’t wrap the cable around the limb or trunk of the tree. Not even if you use garden hose or lumber between the cable and the tree. This WILL girdle the tree and eventually kill or severely damage the limb. Instead do one of two things:
- drill a hole through the tree 1/16″ larger that the diameter of the cable; run the cable through the tree; and install a u-bolt or compression clamp to prevent the cable from slipping through the hole, or
- pre-drill and install a forged eye lag with wood threads and attach the cable to the eye with a thimble and u-bolts or compression clamps.
This was definitely one of my top favorite projects this year. Rob Soluri of Austin Home Revisions constructed this masterpiece.
Related posts:
- Tree Pruning: volume 3, How to Prune Trees
- My Tree Fell on My Neighbor’s House
- How to Plant a Tree
- Constructing In-Ground Swimming Pools Around Trees
- Tree Struck by Lightning? What a Lightning Strike Really Looks Like.
I'm Keith Brown, owner of Austin Tree Experts. This is my repository of tree knowledge. I hope you find what you are looking for. Let me know if you don't.
Pretty nice pictorial topic.
Sure is an advancement from the way most folks anchor a treehouse to trees. Cheers,
M. D. Vaden of Oregon
Hello Keith,
Looks like a fun project. The turning stairway also serving as a zip line launch is really clever. I’m a little concerned about the bending loads on the all thread rod. It looks like a 1″ all thread, and I have seen that bend when used to support loads in shear. It’s great for tension loading… There are better fasteners available for similar applications. Check out my tree house blog for more info…
I used to install that same zip line kit, too. But after installing dozens of them for people, I stopped using it for several reasons. It was alright, but not great. And it only worksup to about 96′.
Hi Keith. Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge in this post, and also for the compliment! When this project was underway, Rob came home talking about the “cool tree guy” who was making sure the homeowner’s beautiful live oak would not get damaged. I’m glad I finally got to meet you! We’ve built treehouses in the past, always with an eye toward preserving the tree, but you’ve taught us several new tricks. We look forward to working with you again.