Getting trees to fall in the right direction

[Mathias]

  I'm getting ready to cut down 3 big old pine trees as soon as I get some halfway decent weather. They are up close to my house, which could do some major damage if they fell in the wrong direction.

  So I was thinking, since I have a tractor will a front loader, I could run the tractor up to the tree with the loader high and up against the tree, putting pressure in the direction I want it to fall, then make the cuts to drop it. That would reduce the risk of getting my roof crushed by it.
 
   Is this a good idea, or should I be slapped up side the head for thinking of doing such a dumb thing as this? :

[Black_Bear]

The tractor will not do you any good if you do not notch and back cut the tree correctly. It is all a function of how much experience you have and how good your insurance is!

Seriously, if there is no other way (cables or ropes to pull the tree, cut from the top down, etc.) this method will get the job done. We used to perform this cut on steep ground when the wood became too big for the feller to cut. The feller would apply pressure from the bottom and push the tree up the slope. I, or another feller, would then cut the tree. It's all in your notch and back cut, .. oh, and the amount of rocks in your head. Not OSHA approved I would guess.

BB

[Ron Scott]

Have the work done by a professional tree service unless you are highly professional in tree falling techniques near buildings.

You could damage the tractor as well as the house. :P

[rebocardo]

A very dangerous thing to do. Many people get killed or hurt doing exactly what you plan to do.

A better plan is to use at least two deadman lines and a winch line down the middle of the two deadmen lines to direct the fall. Plus, the proper notch and wedge.

The lines should be at least 50% up the tree if the tree is 100 feet (probably around 14-20 dbh) tall. If you are talking 200 foot trees, I would get a pro to take them out.

I have turned down jobs with 150 foot pine trees because there is a big difference between a 100 foot tree and a 200 foot tree near a house. A 200 foot tree will have enough weight and momentum to crush just about any house right to the foundation like a knife through butter.

It is simply a matter of 32 feet per second per second and having 2-3 tons of mass gaining another 3 seconds of acceleration before it hits something at 60-80 mph.

I am not willing or able to deal with that kind of mass around people and houses. I leave it to the pros. I had a locust tree that covered three houses including mine. I was very glad to pay someone to come in and do it right with a crane.

The other thing I have noticed about pine trees is the tendency of them snapping in 1/2 (especially vined covered ones) during the felling process or completely uprooting.

[Mathias]

Hey, Black Bear! Welcome to the forum. I'm fairly new here too – do more reading than posting. I don't want to have to make a call to my insurance agent to tell him a tree made a nice big skylight in my roof. I guess I don't have too many rocks in my head...yet.
Good advise, Ron and rebocardo. I don't feel comfortable taking these biggin's down by the house.  I'll stick with areas that can do less damage. Besides, I just bought the tractor. I'd hate to wipe it out right away.
 

[Black_Bear]

Mathias:

What the other two guys said, especially rebocardo. Once that tree starts going it sure is tough to stop.

I've been lurking for awhile myself. I'm mainly interested in just talking (writing?) about forestry or logging. Sometimes my days as a cable pulling, tree chopping hillbilly sneak back into my head.

Good luck with the trees.

BB

[Frank_Pender]

Well Mathias, I guess I will be going against the grain when I mention the following:  I have done several dozens of trees in the manner in which you were thinking in your initial post.   ;D
Only one was a real problem and was easily solved without damaging life or limb.
    However, I have been falling timber for better than forty years and one thing I have learned for sure is: every tree is
DIFFERENT, FOR SURE.  I have also dropped and much larger number of trees with a snatch-block system.  The latter method is the safest by far.  The face and backcuts are very inportant.  I never fall a tree any longer without using the Humbolt face cut.

   The best coulcil is have professionals, experienced and insured fallers get involved.  

[Ianab]

Yeah.. the potential danger is that you are pushing on the tree below it's centre of gravity. If the hingewood lets go for some reason you tend to push the butt of the tree off the stump and then have the tree fall backward, squashing you, your tractor AND your house  

A rope 1/2 way up the tree is much safer, and extra guy ropes are added insurance. The local loggers here use D6 dozers with logging winches for taking down big pine trees in tight spots or against the lean. You need something solid to pull from.
Those dont sound like good trees to practice your technique on.

Ian

[1953greg]

mathias,  simply put,  if you have to ask, dont do it!   sincerely 1953greg

[etat]

I only got one two cents worth here. 8)  If you do decide to go ahead and try it be sure to get someone to tape it  with a video cameras, safely out of the way..  That way you'll have the affair documented.

 In the event it  were it to come over the top of the tractor and flatten your house (hopefully you'd be ok and no one would be in the house), I'd like to buy a copy of the video!

[OneWithWood]

Before I learned how to properly fall a tree ( by taking the cutter courses thru the local forestry council) I attempted to do something similar to what you are suggesting.  I had a 90' tulip poplar close to my house with a lean in the direction of the house.  I placed the bucket of my JD450 ceawler against the tree at the maximum reach on the lean side and applied pressure.  I cut using a Humboldt notch but I notched the tree too deeply.  When I did the back cut I did not know to leave a hinge. The tree did not fall where I wanted it.  It simply rolled down the bucket (the bucket has BIG teeth on it!) and fell towards the house.  It missed the house by inches.   I would not do that again!

[Mathias]

Thanks for all the replies on this topic.

I'm gonna leave it to someone else that is insured to do the job in case one of these trees doesn't want to go where I want it to.

[Mathias]

I was wondering where ya'll got your cutter/felling education from.  :P

[Ed_K]

 Twenty Five + yrs of trial & error. Then I got smart and enrolled in the Game Of Logging. After taking the GOL. I honestly don't know how I survived the 1st 25 yrs  ;).

[Ed_K]

 It only take one wrong thing to happen, and your reduced to being a bystander watching.
Example: I lost a double w/pine today. It went 90 degs sideways into a pond, all because the wood was frozen in 6" and I hit the wedge to hard, and it flew out. The tree leaned back and broke the hinge. The tree was 24" at the base and I had a 3" hinge, which would have held if the wood weren't frozen. I was reduced to being a moving bystander  >:(.

[devo]

Glad to hear you were a "moving" bystander. Its just so easy for it all to go suddenly wrong.

[Woodhog]

Please dont anyone do this....

There was a fellow killed about 30 miles from my woodlot last year,
he was pushing with the bucket and the tree came back on the tractor...

I will not position my tractor within the falling circle of any tree that
I am cutting, even small stuff, eventually something will fall the wrong way, top will break off etc and the piece or tree will end up
hitting the machine and there goes your $$$ for a few weeks....

I use a winch Norse 400 and if anything  needs to be pulled on I make sure the tractor and myself are well outside of the trees length...

Its a dangerous racket.... even if everything is happening normally...

[leweee]

It only take one wrong thing to happen, and your reduced to being a bystander watching.
Example: I lost a double w/pine today. It went 90 degs sideways into a pond, all because the wood was frozen in 6" and I hit the wedge to hard, and it flew out. The tree leaned back and broke the hinge. The tree was 24" at the base and I had a 3" hinge, which would have held if the wood weren't frozen. I was reduced to being a moving bystander  >:(.

Ed.... that sound of sudden hinge failer even makes an experienced loggers heart skip a beat... not to mention " fill your Huggies" : ;D

[Ed_K]

Leweee, Your quite right. Because of this very cold weather, all the trees are frozen in 6" to 8" making it even harder to directional fall. I'm working in a maple bush, so any maple trees have to be missed. Very hard to do.

[SwampDonkey]

I was gonna mention the same hazards as IanAb and Onewithwood suggested. It's really not a good idea to try that method. ;)

[Dan_Shade]

There was a local man killed on jan 27th, last week here.

He was an excavator clearing a lot, apparently pushing trees over with a large backhoe, either that, or he was digging around the tree, i'm not sure.

Regardless, the tree fell back on top of the cab and crushed him.

It doesn't take long for things to get way out of hand sometimes...

[Buzz-sawyer]

The reason mistakes like these are REPEATED over and over again........is that you only get to make them once.........

[SwampDonkey]

I remember two brothers where working with their father and this ONE time one of the brothers decides he gonna use the skidder to shove a tree. Well the tree fell over on the skidder instead of in the other direction. The old man came along with the log truck and seen what they done, and all he told me later when I happened along the job site was, 'I can't teach them young fellers nuthin.' It was good he was a good natured fella because there woulda been a couple heads knocked together. :D Their old man worked in the woods over 40 years and still is. He was one of the original guys that set up our local marketing board over 25 years ago.

[IndyIan]

Falling against the lean is tricky business, my neighbors and I cut a 32" dbh red oak with a noticable backlean.  There was nothing behind it to hit but even with a 80hp tractor pulling on a rope 40' high it was touch and go.  I did the hinge and backstrap method so we wouldn't need to pull until I was all done cutting so no chance of a barber chair.  I did all the fancy cuts, pounded in my wedges and then cut the backstrap, gave the signal to pull....    Nothing.... pull a bit harder... nothing...  I pound on the wedges some more and the tree moves a tiny bit.  Try the tractor again and still nothing.  I did leave a 2" hinge which probably wasn't helping so I trimmed it down to an inch...  Not very much for a big tree!   try the tractor again and still can't pull it...  I pound the wedges all the way in which does move the top slightly but still no go without snapping the rope.  So I cut the hinge to nothing in the middle tapering to an inch at the sap wood.  Finally the tractor could pull it over, but it was very nerve racking and I was glad when it came down on target. 

Ian

[palmerstreeservice]

I know in here the idea of dropping trees whole is very popular but considering we do a lot of in town work and over building like this one, I think it is better to find a company that will come in and piece the tree out.  Even a professional will make a mistake when dropping a whole tree however if you are taking the tree down piece at a time if there is a problem with that then the damage is minimal.  My suggestion in looking for a company is find one who manually puts the tree to the ground either by rope, boom or crane.  Pieces that are cut and left to fall have the chance for kickbacks, twist, turns and with Murphy's Law on thier side something is bound to get broke.

[RSteiner]

As other have said it is a bad idea to push a large tree over.  There are those who use the skidder blade or a dozer blade to do this, their blades are lower than a FEL on a tractor but the mechanics are the same.

The "lean" of the tree or the amount of push necessary to persuade the tree in the right direction is the issue.  What happens is the tree is cut leaving a hinge and pressure is applied to the trunk.  If the machine is pushing low, and 8 feet up on a 100 foot tree is low, the trunk can be pushed off the stump at the hinge.

When this happens the tree falls back on the machine and whatever is in it's path in the opposite direction intended.

When a tree needs to be felled against the lean I pull them over.  Attaching a chain as high up as possible like 80 feet on a 100 foot tree, or at least 60% up the tree.  Using the tractor winch off at an angle it takes far fewer pounds of pull with all that leverage to make the tree go the right way.

Just make sure you use a strong enough cable to pull with, something that you know is not going to break.  When in doubt call some one with the right equipment ands experience.

Randy

[Larry]

As other have said it is a bad idea to push a large tree over.  There are those who use the skidder blade or a dozer blade to do this, their blades are lower than a FEL on a tractor but the mechanics are the same.

There is a safe way to push a tree over with a skidder without pushing it off the stump.  It is taught in Game of Logging using a open face cut. 

I'm not about to describe it over the internet other than to say it works.

[RSteiner]

I totally agree with there being a safe way.  I have been to two of Soren Erickson's training sessions many years ago where he explained the right way and the wrong way to push over a tree with a skidder.

I've seen back hoes used to push over trees that were leaning the wrong way or used for insurance that they would go the right way.

I have two friends who were going to cut two pine trees which were close to the house, one leaned away from the house and one was leaning into the house a bit.  The paln was to chain the two trees together and let one pull the other over.  There plan worked to a point.

The tree leaning toward the house pulled the other leaning away and they both ended up leaning against the roof of the house.  They had fun cleaning up that mess and replacing a little bit of roof.

Randy

[Larry]

I like the pine tree story Randy. :D ;D :D  I can just imagine the look on their faces when both trees started going in the wrong direction.

Most of the time when I'm taking down a tree there are two or three different ways to do the deed.  Sometimes a guy can have a primary plan with a back up just in case....the pine trees want to go in the wrong direction. ;D

[maple flats]

Another couple of bad examples. 1 - I was taking down a tree literally within inches of a building years ago that was not leaning at all. It looked healthy but the homeowner wanted it removed because it was too close to the building. I notched it and all looked good but as I started cutting on the back side and put in a wedge the entire tree snapped at 90 degrees barely missed the building but did take down 6 utility poles when it landed over the road. OOPS!!! Second example was a friend who was taking down a tree along the fenceline to a pasture with no buildings in sight, only his 4 month old 80 horse 4x4 farm tractor. Has anyone ever seen what a new tractor looks like with a sugarmaple landing dead center, not pretty. Broke the transmission mounts and the ears through which the mounting bolts join it and the engine. The only good part is that when the tree snapped and fell the wrong way is that the only thing that got hurt was his pocketbook. Even though it was 4 wheel drive you can not drive each half back to the barn without the other half attached. OUCH!!

[SwampDonkey]

Some of you guys should be on Spike TV's Maximum Exposure :D :D :D

[TreeSpyder]

Loader is jsut force applied for better direction and hinge strength.

i think that the push should be straight to target/ gunned focus of hinge; and off side leans should be handled in turn by the hinge pattern.  A push agansit lean side makes hinge weaker, than same force forward; there is only so much force, it can either steer or force hiing stronger.  So we try to make strong hinge, then let hinge in turn leverage the steering - In Good Wood.  Use a Tapered Hinge to compensate for sidelean, throw to hinge vortex/center/gunned target.

An improper, early closing face, can set that extra force against you.  Like a crossed kerf cut in face closes, the harder you push forward, the harder it pushes back, and the more hinge you have to take.  the pressure built up in that clsoed compression you make stronger with loader is disconnected, so can't steer as tree falls.  If the faces are not crossed, do not close early, the extra pressure of loader push forces extra tension, but now in connected hinge, so as tree falls it does so on forced stronger hinge/connective tissue that held same force as compression of closed kerf did earlier.  Only here it can do some good!

So, Loader force can load against you, in part or full, depending on the crafting of the hinge machine.