Tree felling abilities

[chet]

There have been quite a few posts from members discussing tree felling. This is more a curiosity poll on my part to see where our members feel comfortable with their felling abilities.

[Corley5]

What's the definition of a "dangerous tree"?  All of them are in some way or another ;)

[Larry]

Finally a real easy poll question to answer.








But then I got to thinking about the 2002 ice storm in Kansas City that split this 36" dbh pin oak down to the ground in Dad's front yard.  Cleaned up the mess and put 3 chains and boomers around the split to hold the tree together until I could get the pro's there.




Can I change my vote? ;D

[Minnesota_boy]

Changing all those "would you" to "have you" could really change my answer.  

I try to avoid cutting trees near any buildings, but sometimes I get "volunteered" as I'm the most qualified available.  >:(

So far I've missed all the buildings, but I got a television antenna this fall.  The next good windstorm would nearly certainly brought the tree down on the house, so the owners were pretty happy and they didn't use the antenna anyway.  

[beenthere]

No vote from here. I never feel completely 'safe' and am not over-confident with any tree. Also, it depends on whose obstacles and home the 'dangerous' tree is near. If there is a risk in my opinion, I will use cable and chain to decrese that risk. I probably don't know all the risks, but have cut many large, dangerous, trees leaning toward buildings and obstacles. So far, so good. And within the last 6 months, I turned down a request to cut some large oak trees that could reach the owner's house, recommending that he seek a professional with a bucket to top them first.

[etat]

A few years ago I was called out to a house with tree limb damage to the roof.  Big ole tree and part of it was over power lines so I called the power co.  They come out with a bucket and a saw.  Couple of guys goes up in bucket and start cutting limbs.  Large dead limb above them breaks off, comes down and misses one of their head's by inches, does catch part of the bucket.  I'm watchin the whole thing.  They come down scared to death and leave.  They come back the next day to finish the job but are more careful this time.  They were EXTREMELY LUCKY.

1975, I was young and dumb.  Worked for a guy who took down or topped big trees close to houses. NO safety equipment, no harness, nothing.  I'd never been scared of squat (told ya I was dumb) and he convinced me I was the one to go up in the trees and cut the limbs. Wasn't hard to do, I could climb like a squirrel.  I'd go up in the top of the trees, rope off the limbs, and cut em and they'd let em down and clean em up.  I did this job for about a year and loved it, even though I had several close calls.  It's hard to predict what a limb will do when you cut it with a rope on it.  We once cut a big post oak right in between two houses.  I'd go out on the limbs and cut small sections so as not to tear up the houses.  Had to hang on and ride when you dropped a big chunk. Best I remember I spent over a week in that tree.  Some limbs you'd cut more on the right side to swing em left, some you'd cut more on the left to swing em right, you'd have to know how much to undercut em so they wouldn't split and you sitting on em.  Cut too much and you'd pinch your saw.  Some you'd under cut and top cut so they'd snap off and fall straight down.  You didn't ever want to cut a big limb so it'd fall where the tip of it hit first cause it could hit and spring back unpredictably. That limb would be capable of jumping a LONG ways, butt first.  Heard about a couple of guys who got killed doing the same thing I was. One, a saw kicked back and split his skull.  Another didn't get out of the way of the butt of the limb and the rope swung it into him and crushed his chest.  I had to be good at knowing how to tie the rope and cut the limb and be out of the way and hold the saw all at the same time.  Again, told ya I was nuts.  Last tree I ever topped part of it was over high power lines.  I was right up over them tryin to tie the rope and cut the limbs so they'd swing sideways and miss the power lines.  Made a misjudgment and dropped a good sized limb straddling the lines.  I'm about 12 foot above.  Balls of fire, big balls of fire started running up and down those lines.  I'm backing away quick and climbing.  I'm scared of the nylon rope.  After a few minutes one of them lines burned in two.  It hit the ground with balls of fire still running up and down it, scorching the grass and jumpin around.  Finally a transformer about 30 or 40 feet away BLEW UP.  The fireworks stopped.  I took what was left of my rope, tied off, and shinned down that tree.  Started to my truck.  Guy I'm workin for wants me to finish the tree.  Says the lines are out of the way now!  I tell em to kiss my rumpus, crank my truck and leave.  I'm still shaking and scared to death.  This was the LAST tree I ever climbed and topped.  Sometimes a customer wants me to cut limbs back from their roof.  If they're SMALL, and I can reach em from roof and cut with a pruning saw fine.  Anything else I say NO WAY and point em to a tree service.  I'll never climb a tree again.  Just too many things can go wrong.  

Again, I don't have a sawmill but sometimes wisht I did.  I like working with wood.  I like cutting and splitting firewood.  I like building things. There's a peace out there in them woods that you can't find nowhere else.  I'm pretty fair at cuttin and throwing a tree.  I started learning at a pretty young age. My granddaddy used to cut logs and drag em out with a pair of mules.  Old Dan and Bob.  Cut with a ax and a crosscut. Never had a chainsaw.  I've still got his crosscut saw.  Gonna hang it on the front porch of the house I'm buildin. He could make the chips fly even when he got older.  His logging days was before my time. He'd loan me his ole double barrel shotgun to go squirrel huntin even before I was hardly big enough to tote it.

IF I'm in the woods cutting these days I want somebody else there.  I want to know where they're at, and I want em watching my back.  Just too many things can go wrong.

[OneWithWood]

I need to clarify my vote.  I would and have felled large dangerous trees in close proximity to my house and/or outbuildings.  I would not be inclined to fell a large dangerous tree next to someone else's building   :
I would tell them to call Chet or Kevin.

[Tom]

Good story, Cktate.  You  might've quit climbing but you can still write.

[Kevin]

The problem I run into is with the ground crew.
When I'm line clearing it's primarily cut and drop.
When I need help from the ground I'm always working with someone new who aren't fully aware of the dangers and I have to keep a constant watch on them.
They'll be standing under the tree talking, turn their back on the tree to pull a rope, tell them to put on a hardhat and they say, no I'm ok, they don't know how to tie knots, just one thing after another adding additional risk to the job.

[Paul_H]

I have been asked to fall problem trees near peoples homes,but I have to decline.I don't have insurance and don't think the homeowners would be covered if a tree was dropped on their house.

I have topped and dropped trees in chunks around my own house.There are some really good tree services around the area that are bonded and do a great job and that is who I refer people to.

In the woods,away from buildings and power lines, I don't mind at all.

[Larry]

When we got a tree service company to take down the pin oak pictured above they had insurance and a license so I was happy.  Dad called about a week later and said they had taken down the tree.  The owner told dad the tree was too dangerous to climb.  They put up a 40' ladder but it wasn't tall enough so they put it in the bucket of the skid steer to get additional height.  Is that an approved method? ???

They managed to rope the limbs down that were over the house and no damage so it all ended well.

[slowzuki]

I was thinking dangerous tree like a hung up tree.  On our new property there was an old rotten elm tree.  About 40 feet of trunk remained, about 34" dia top.  There is paths of destruction in the woods near it from all the heavy limbs it has dropped.

Half way up was a rotten section.  The tree was swaying in the wind and we had to work in the area.  It looked like the trunk would break easily at the rotten section and drop the top on my head.

We couldn't get the tractor in so I saw 2 options.

A box of 12 gauge shells and the gun and shoot the rotten section until the top fell or what we did.

We got 150ft of rope and pushed the loop up high.  We got it rocking then a quiet thud and the main roots broke off and the tree dropped.

The tree was heavy despite having been dead for 25 years we had to use the tractor to move the 6 ft chunks.  

I would not have felt comfortable sawing it.

[Buzz-sawyer]

Right on! (or in Canada..... Bang on!)
I dont even like being under a rotten tree like that VERY DANNGEROUS....
I know a feller (not fella) ;)
 Who was cutting a 28dbh oak which was rotten in the center...total unseen a healthy tree to all appearances, the weight was so intense on the remaining ring on the outside of the tree that the first cut caused the balance to fail and the entire tree dropp straight down in front of him 4 feet ...can you visualize that! 4 feet of trunck vaporizing to dust all that weight falling in front of you!
Don

[Kevin]

They put up a 40' ladder but it wasn't tall enough so they put it in the bucket of the skid steer

That's not professional.
At the very least I would want to be roped into the tree or another anchor point if taking such a risk.

[jrdwyer]

I'm not a professional tree cutter, but a forester who measures and sells lots of hardwood trees. I have found that I can be very accurate in estimating the amount of rot in the butt log of a tree by simply inspecting the stem and sounding it with a hammer or the broad end or an axe. I then know how high the defect in the butt log stops and where to begin measuring the tree for sound volume.  Anyone with a little experience with different tree species should be able to master this skill. It takes only a few minutes to do and prevents a lot of surprise and danger when cutting. And it also makes my tree volume estimates a lot more accurate.

[Jeff]

Thats sorta like thumpin the inside duels with a tire thumper before heading down the road. find those things thatmay look normal that will getcha some way later on.

[jrdwyer]

I did not mean to imply that just knowing the butt log has a certain amount of defect makes it any easier to cut. But anything that can be done to prevent accidents or close calls like the one mentioned above is prudent. I see the stumps and butt logs of the trees I mark and measure after they are cut, and visual inspection with sounding is accurate for me at least 90% of the time. And it is nearly 100% accurate for very defective stems like the previous post. It is less accurate with heavily fluted trees like baldcypress as the sound of rot is harder to hear. And you may not pick up the sound of very small pockets of heart rot in large diameter, mostly sound hard hardwoods like oak, hickory, etc.

On a similar note, I make it a practice to sound large wolf trees when doing chainsaw girdling TSI. I learned this by a close call when a 1 inch deep girdle resulted in the unexpected falling of a wolf beech tree. Thankfully, I am here to tell about it.

[chet]

Years ago I cut a Yellow Birch with similar results. The tree was about 30" on the stump. It had a large green crown with some die back and resprouting, consistent of an over mature tree of this species. Sounding revealed that the tree was hollow, but with the amount of live top, I was sure there would still be lots of good wood.
It turned out when is was putting in my notch, that I cut the only sound green wood. I was barely able to get the saw out, when it fell.  

[Bro. Noble]

It's the little things that scare me.  Cutting trees is dangerous in any situation.The grapevine crossing from one top to another that I don't see.  Springpoles that are hidden by brush.  I know how to deal with springpoles,  but still have got aches and scars from them.  Had a close call with one this week that if videoed could have made the 'funniest video'  show.  I detest that show and see nothing funny about accidents,  pain ,  and close calls.  I'm  not ready to tell about my episode yet but may soon.  There's also a story an acquaintence told me about her brother's death.  She was laughing about it :-/   Maybe I'll tell that too.  

[Stephen_Wiley]

The owner told dad the tree was too dangerous to climb.  They put up a 40' ladder but it wasn't tall enough so they put it in the bucket of the skid steer to get additional height.  Is that an approved method? ???

They managed to rope the limbs down that were over the house and no damage so it all ended well.

Sometimes people get away with something that seems to make sense, but this certainly is not professional work. :

In a 30 year span I owned and operated three tree / arboricultural businesses.

A tree that is deemed 'unsafe to climb' would not be approachable by leaning a ladder into it's stem. None the less the base (metal to metal) resting in a skid steer? (This is a potential accident waiting to happen).

On a tree determined to be unclimbable due to decay. Safest approaches include:  Bucket hydraulic truck or climbing an adjacent sound tree and swinging into the decayed tree (providing one is available).

[Stephen_Wiley]

My first healthy respect for falling trees and being aware of the dangers came when I was 15 years old.

I lived on a farm 12 miles from Stanwood, WA to the west and 12 miles from Arlington, WA to the southeast.  Another 17 miles south near the town of Arlington a fellow with a log house and numerous wooded acres hired me to help him fall, buck and split firewood. (He was in his mid 70's at the time).

We approached a tree with a d.b.h. of 32" and determined that directly in its natural fall path was a 16 '  high stump that was 12' d.b.h., this stump was left behind from previous logging using springboards axes and misery whip to fall.

The tree we were falling had two codominant stems basically making the tree resemble a tuning pitch fork.

After considerable discussion we decided to fall the tree across the old stump.

Leonard (the fellow I was working for),  asked me to get out in front of the tree's fall and off to the side where I could warn him about the travel of the trunk so he would know which direction to escape.

The tree fell over the stump as planned came down apx. 45 feet  to the right of where I was standing.  Leonard quite jubilant came out to admire the falling job. Suddenly, the weight shifted on the stump which caused the tree to stand  back up and then shifted 30 degrees and refell right over me.    I looked at the tree wavering above me began to run right but noticed its fall was exceeding in the same direction so I stopped and the two codominant stems brushed both of my shoulders as I froze.

Leonard, upon learning that all I had was two slightly scraped shoulders, burst out into laughter.  As he began to describe what he saw in the tree's final lay with me appearing to be under and then standing rigid while the stem's brushed my shoulders.

In addition to this valued lesson I now remember and appreciate the memories that I had with this elderly man of  75 in those years. He had attended a college back east where his english teacher was Robert Frost.  Because I rode my three speed (stuck in third gear) Raleigh bycyled up and down the mountainist hills to get to his place, he determined to help me 1/2 the distance back to Arlington one day.

He gave me a rope to hang onto which we then tied to back of his car. He towed me into Arlington on roads which were dirt or had large pot holes. Many times I found myself going through extreme measures to maintain myself and my bike from near catasrophe as we approached and I managed to avoid these pot holes at 45 mph.  All of this of course provided him moments of great laughter.

As a young adult I never took the time to travel back North to see him, I guess I thought chasing girls and other things were more important. I wish now I had one more opportunity to tell him how much I appreciated our time together.

[Tom]

Stephen, that is a good story and you should consider moving it to the "older Folks" thread.  Glad you weren't hurt.  The trip on the bike would have scared me stiff.

[beenthere]

Stephen
That trip on the bike reminded me of a similar one for me. I had a neighbor farm boy who was lucky and had a motor bike. He lived about a mile down a gravel road, and offerred to tow me home one day, so I took him up on it. He delighted in going as fast as he could, and I hung on with the same 'fear' as you did. When I coasted into the yard at home, the very hot front wheel bearings cooled and siezed up solid. The front axle twisted itself loose from the front forks and rolled it right out and I tumbled onto the grass. As I recall, everything was melted together in the axle. All was funny except the realization of how the gravel would have felt if that wheel had ripped out a few moments before.  :
Thought you might be heading to that conclusion with your story, as it brought back memories (as did the forked tree falling with a fork on both sides of you). Guessing that high speed on a bike (J.C. Higgins of about 1953) was not what it was designed for at that time.  

[Stephen_Wiley]

Beenthere,

Thought my story was getting little long so I did not conclude.

After arriving in Arlington (myself in one piece). The bike had some bent wheels and I had bent the handle bars over after one particular 'pot hole' jump. I picked up a hamburger before heading the 12 miles (mostly uphill) to the farm. ended up carrying my bike home.  Had to repack the bearings before using it again, managed to replace some spokes and semi straighten the wheels.

One other problem along the way home stays vividly in my mind, On a few occassions I would encounter a black or grizzly bear meandering. I would watch carefully and respectfully proceed pass the area they had been. But on this particular occasion, a far more frightening animal was approaching me from uphill. I ran as fast as I could (carrying the bike) downhill away from that..................................skunk !!!!!!!!!!!!  :D

Tom,

How do you move a post ?

[Stan]

When I was a lad, the biggest hill around lay between our place and town. You could get your single speed Schwin up to an indicated 50 mph, peddling down that hill. Then the State decided to bypass the town and ridin' down the hill was done on an old dirt track through a hay field. Thats where my front axle seized, broke and dumped me. My nose ain't been the same since. One Navy doctor offered to straighten it out for me, by rebreaking it.  :-/