I don't have a lot of experience with this, but my instinct is that it may be better not to stake the trees. Trees bend to the wind so the wind does not break them. If you stake them, you may do more damage because as the wind pushes the tree, the bark or even the entire tree can be strained against the wire with which you have staked it . Some things that may help if you are prepared and safe in all other areas: 1.you could prune buds blooms off any shrubs ( the rose lilac etc) You can prune down the blueberries blackberries and even the trees so there is less for the wind to catch. 2. You don't mention where you are, other than zone 5 NE, but you said the magnolia has defoliated. Since my magnolias are just in the process of losing their leaves, but I am zone 4 central NH, I am going to assume a seasonal similarity. If you can, bring the magnolia into the garage, or inside. If it is heavy and its worth it to you you can usually rent a dolly at the hardware store that makes moving large pots easier. 3. If things are going dormant for winter where you are, as I am assuming, you can cut back any perennials. Even if they are still green, they will be going dormant before they can send out new growth - so its okay to cut them back a little earlier than you planned. 4.If you winter prune your fruit trees, you can do that now to limit wind damage. The risk is that the winter will be bad and freeze the new cuts - but my guess is that is a pretty low risk. Depending on how the forecasts progress I may do this step myself. (I have already cut back all perennials in my garden and in my customers gardens) 5. If I am correct that you are in the NE, I would also prepare for heavy wet snow. ANything you would do in your region to prepare for that I would recommend doing. Except maybe wrapping shrubs. I drove through Vermont several times this summer, and the devastation there from hurricane Irene is tremendous. The mountains funneled the torrential rains, flooding streams, rivers towns and roads. I took some pictures intending to post them for discussion; maybe this is timely, but I will start a new thread. We could also call this Hurricane Kelsey: My daughter Kelsey is flying from santiago chile to miami tonight and then to Boston tomorrow after 3 months away. The path of the hurricane is threatening her flights and I think she will be pretty upset to go from spring in Chile, completely miss fall and land in Winter here. Whatever, I just can't wait for her to get home!!

Here's one point about vacuuming extra fine construction dust that no one has made yet & it's key. When I went to buy a new brush attachment at the vacuum store to clean up our construction dust, the staff person educated me about a couple of things. Since the bag in our vacuum was paper, the ultra fine dust will flow right through it. Why didn't I think of that! Even with a thick, cloth HEPA vacuum filter bag, we run the risk of burning out our vacuum because anything that goes into the bag goes through the motor. Once that fine dust hits the motor, it doesn't take long for it to kill it. A Dyson being bagless won't work either, it just coats the inside of the vacuum, clogs & kills it. Here's further info. on that: http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?4407 He added that he's seen a brand new Kirby vacuum cleaner motor burned out after just TWO DAYS when it was used on construction dust. Kirby owners be forewarned! The suggestion of using a Rainbow vacuum is a good one because of the water filer. Of course they cost a small fortune, so I'm wondering if maybe a local rental store might rent them. It's not ideal, but neither is dropping $2K on a top end vacuum cleaner. And Mr. Rings, hopefully it goes without saying that a leaf blower is a horrible idea, unless your goal is to simply spread the dust around. ;-) I'm still figuring out how to clean up our mess, but hopefully the info. I've shared will save some from ruining their vacuum cleaners & causing undue added expense & frustration. Happy cleaning & good luck to all!

"Would this work?" I don't know how well it will work because I don't know how effective your protective measures will be. What I can tell you is (A) the marjoity of hvac technicians are under qualified for the job they perform daily,much less this type situation for which trade schools do not spend one minute on training. (B) your GC is either clueless or doesn't care,otherwise provisions would have been in place long before you brought it up. (C) Internet well wishers can only give you stop gap measures. To pull it off effectively require's educating you on the whys and why nots then you doing the same for your contractors. I truly would love to walk you through the process but it's not possible. If it were I'd get on the net to have people tell me how to play musical instruments,tailor make myself a nice suit,handle all my legal matters and overhaul the transmission in my car,,,,,,,,,in only one day for each. My best advice was in first post. So that you don't go away empty handed,after this is over and it's time to use system,use merv 8 or better filters and be sure to replace them often. Every new or newly remodeled home has collected a lot of dust in nooks and crannies despite best efforts to clean up.

I thought I'd reply to my own thread here for anybody who wants to read it in the future. First, the movers were awful and had had five hours of sleep. Although they were mostly very nice, they got more and more sloppy as the ten-hour day wore on, and so only half of this is their fault personally. The moving company should not have sent two guys to empty 30k lbs of stuff from a moving truck when they had done the same thing for some other family 600 miles away the night before. We bought ramboard as well as ramboard tape. Per some YouTube video I watched, we put painters tape down on the floor and then taped the ramboard tape onto that instead of onto the floor directly. This was kind of a hassle, and I don't know if it was actually necessary, but it worked fine. The ramboard mostly stayed put. We created paths to the major areas of the house with that and I was glad we did. There was no floor damage. We also layered 2-3 folded moving blankets on the front step so protect the exterior tile. This was incredibly important, because they carelessly rammed the hand truck wheels into it every single time to get it up the front step. I couldn't believe how hard they hit it every time – it was loud even through the blankets! – and I was very glad we had the folded moving blankets there. I did have to reposition them several times throughout the day. I couldn't come up with a good solution in time for protecting the interior corners that didn't require installation and/or drilling something into the wall, so we just crossed our fingers. They rammed a hand truck into one corner and it took a 1x2" chunk out of the drywall, but everything else was good. We have an interior full-lite glass door in one room, and they almost shattered it by backing some furniture into it. It was only through luck that my husband was there to say "wait! stop!" and prevent a disaster. We also arranged the small amount of furniture already present to block access to areas that we cared about a lot. We moved living room furniture and boxes to prevent them getting anywhere near the TV, and we also blocked off the kitchen so they didn't have to navigate boxes and furniture around the island and the rest of the kitchen's many right angles. Looking back, my advice to myself would be to find 2-3 people who can just sit in the high-risk areas all day and keep an eye on things. The movers were definitely more careful when someone was sitting in an area, so if we'd had someone stationed by the tight areas, that probably would have helped. All in all we didn't have too much damage, though what we had was indeed annoying, and the ramboard was definitely 100% worth the cost and trouble to set up.