# Anyone know of a fast way to clean sticks off lawns



## Ottawatree (Aug 9, 2013)

Craned a double leadered 22" Manitoba maple, a 44" sugar maple, two 8" sugar maples, an 8" balsam, and 13 trembling aspens ranging from 16" to 24" today.. They were at four different sites.. Crane bill including travel time was 9.5 hours, log truck came to 2 1/2 hours, we did all the chipping and it took 12 hours off and on through out the day.. All in all pretty efficient.. Filled a truck and a pup with logs and produced around 40 yards of chips..the issue I have is the raking.. Tomorrow I'm going back to all the sites to cut stumps lower and rake up.. Ill bring one guy with me and the mini loader.. We kept stuff fairly clean in the removal process but the fact is by the time its cleaned up nice ill have another ten man hours into the job and the bill for labour raking up will cost me more than it did to pick up and remove fifty 16' logs.. There has to be a machine to speed this up, make us more efficient and save me money.. Honest to god if something was around to clean up that was as efficient as all the other equipment we have I'd give $50,000 for it..


----------



## KenJax Tree (Aug 9, 2013)

The only way we do it is with blowers,rakes,and elbow grease.


----------



## miko0618 (Aug 9, 2013)

I have a chipper vac that's self propelled. it will suck up leaves, small sticks and saw dust but we STILL have to rake. I agree that there needs to be something to do this. even if it just swept or raked it in a pile, that would be fine.


----------



## treeman75 (Aug 9, 2013)

Shindaiwa Power Broom In Action - YouTube stihl makes one too.


----------



## Ottawatree (Aug 9, 2013)

treeman75 said:


> Shindaiwa Power Broom In Action - YouTube stihl makes one too.



Yeah I've got one.. Good for saw dust and apples.. Not so good on longer sticks..


----------



## miko0618 (Aug 9, 2013)

Ventrac LB540 Power Broom Extended - YouTube

there...I one upped ya! lol


----------



## Bandit Man (Aug 9, 2013)

Ottawatree said:


> Craned a double leadered 22" Manitoba maple, a 44" sugar maple, two 8" sugar maples, an 8" balsam, and 13 trembling aspens ranging from 16" to 24" today.. They were at four different sites.. Crane bill including travel time was 9.5 hours, log truck came to 2 1/2 hours, we did all the chipping and it took 12 hours off and on through out the day.. All in all pretty efficient.. Filled a truck and a pup with logs and produced around 40 yards of chips..the issue I have is the raking.. Tomorrow I'm going back to all the sites to cut stumps lower and rake up.. Ill bring one guy with me and the mini loader.. We kept stuff fairly clean in the removal process but the fact is by the time its cleaned up nice ill have another ten man hours into the job and the bill for labour raking up will cost me more than it did to pick up and remove fifty 16' logs.. There has to be a machine to speed this up, make us more efficient and save me money.. Honest to god if something was around to clean up that was as efficient as all the other equipment we have I'd give $50,000 for it..



I've heard that treeman82 has one. I'm not sure what it looks like, but he calls it a "DF" . :hmm3grin2orange:


----------



## isaaccarlson (Aug 10, 2013)

$50,000 huh? :msp_w00t:

I better get building!


----------



## Simon.O. (Aug 10, 2013)

KenJax Tree said:


> The only way we do it is with blowers,rakes,and elbow grease.



I use those tried and trusted methods too.....and add a good catching mower to the mix of tools. 
I know mowers take up a bit of space, but for me it is fast and I usually have the space on the front deck of my trailer and the I have the mowers too as that is most of my game.
I do a bit of tree work for family and friends and some mowing customers.


----------



## brokenbudget (Aug 10, 2013)

just do what the crackheads do. pull up in a rotted out 1987 chev celebrity 4 door with 6 kids, the wife and some guy you met last night buying a few rocks. take your shirts off and scurry around the yard filling the trunk with the sticks, leaves and saw dust:hmm3grin2orange:


----------



## sgreanbeans (Aug 10, 2013)

tarps


----------



## flushcut (Aug 10, 2013)

Best way is to clean up the mess as the job progresses little by little. I go at big messes with first the Broom attachment for my BMG, push that into piles, grab that with the grapple, then bust out the Grounds Keeper rakes for a touch up, that stuff onto tarps, and finally the blowers.


----------



## imagineero (Aug 10, 2013)

The more guys you have the quicker it goes. It takes us on average 15 minutes to do a full clean up back and front yard, and the street with a 3 man crew. Get the biggest rakes you can find. We use big plastic ones with very stiff tines. Start at the very back and everyone grabs a rake and work towards the front, go over it once only. Layout a 6'x8' tarp where it needs to go and pile it all on there, drag the tarp to the chipper. Once the front and back yards are all raked, we blow them off also, getting all the saw dust out of the grass. That stuff never breaks down, if you leave it on peoples lawns it will be there a long time. Then we roll the truck forward and rake and blow the street off and we're done. A backpack blower helps, or use two handheld blowers at the same time. 

Shaun


----------



## brokenbudget (Aug 10, 2013)

Del_ said:


> I don't see a problem.



well that's no good. everybody still has their shirt on. how un-unprofessional:tongue2:


----------



## TheJollyLogger (Aug 10, 2013)

Raking is a classic case of subjective time versus real time. It's the last step of the job, the mess looks huge, but if you actually put a stopwatch on it it goes faster than you think it does. It kinda reminds me of when I started my first business, I just had a little 5 by 10 trailer with 4' sides. We did mostly fine pruning and would just stuff it and cut it down all day. Last stop of the day was at the dump, and we would have to just start clawing at it until we got down to the "magic branch" at the bottom that would let us slide the whole load out. My groundie always moaned, saying there has to be a better way, so one day I timed it. 5 minutes, but it felt like an hour.


----------



## zapblam (Aug 10, 2013)

All 3 or 4 crew at the back and rock the rakes to a central tarp or to the chipper. After the $$$$ you spent on equip time and the other stuff for that job, your worried about 15-30 min more wage?

And its the last impression the customer notices.


----------



## dominic (Aug 10, 2013)

And its the last impression the customer notices.[/QUOTE]

plus 1


----------



## sgreanbeans (Aug 11, 2013)

Final cleanup is key, many guys leave lots of debris on the yards, we make every attempt to make it spotless and almost always, leave it cleaner than it was when we showed up. I like the big fat green plastic rakes too, cheap and they work well. I have tried them all and the expensive ones wear out just as fast. I like hitting up the garage sales, can pick them up for a buck.


----------



## ozzy42 (Aug 11, 2013)

zapblam said:


> And its the last impression the customer notices.



:agree2:
The perception from the HO's point of view is different from ours .
We look at it as miniscule little PITA part at the end of the job and the crew sometimes wants to just gloss over the big stuff. Seems like no big deal after rigging down a monster with out ever touching a shingle on the roof or breaking one stem on the shrubs,but if you forget to rake even a small little area,it will look like you left a ''horrible mess'' in their eyes.

As for the how to part.We try to stay caught up on the bigger rakings as we go along on bigger jobs so there isn't 2 yds of the crap at the end.I like to keep several types of rakes because you need different ones for different jobs.Plastic for sawdust on fine short lawns and hard surfaces .Metal tines for bigger junk and tall grass.A 5 tine pitchfork turned backwards and used like a rake for gathering thick debris into a pile.


----------



## Ottawatree (Aug 11, 2013)

Anyone ever tried a billy goat vacuum? Do they pick up saw dust?


----------



## sgreanbeans (Aug 12, 2013)

Ottawatree said:


> Anyone ever tried a billy goat vacuum? Do they pick up saw dust?



I had a wheeled one and a truck loader, they work awesome for leaves, but suck (pun not intended) for sticks, the sticks get caught up in the tube and plug it tight and they will not make it up thru the intake on the wheeled unit


----------



## Iustinian (Aug 14, 2013)

sgreanbeans said:


> I had a wheeled one and a truck loader, they work awesome for leaves, but suck (pun not intended) for sticks, the sticks get caught up in the tube and plug it tight and they will not make it up thru the intake on the wheeled unit



very true.....we don't even use those for fall cleanup of leaves anymore around here -- just backpack blow everything to the curb and curbside service comes and sucks it up into a huge commercial unit with a swing boom. 

Grounds keeper has been the best rake for us so far. 

Winching brush has been an improvement -- pile brush onto a large one and winch the pile out, faster and less mess because 10-15 pieces of brush were drug out but only one touched the ground, but you have to pay attention to how you tie the bottom one so it doesn't tear up the grass, skidder cone helps though too.


----------



## ChockFull (Aug 26, 2013)

*Stein Arbor Trolley*

Agree with keeping different types of rakes. Also, this doesn't pertain to big removals because those are a mess no matter what. However one thing I use that helps keeping the mess at bay is the stein arbor trolley. I find myself using it a lot on large properties with a bunch of trimming. The trolley doesn't leave a trail of debris like dragging brush does. I find the only place I have to rake is in the immediate areas we were working. NOT THE ENTIRE PROPERTY! (as without the trolley). 
One more thing. If I'm doing a tree with a few pieces of big deadwood (4-5 limbs) I will sometimes lower them even if I could bomb them out. Just to prevent more of a mess. 
I'm with you though, always thinking of how I can get out of cleanup faster...


----------



## Stayalert (Sep 24, 2013)

Occasionally if the grass is long I'll mow in the area(s) I'll be making a mess of......Easier to rake. As for rakes? I use metal rakes that I modify. I replace the handle with a hockey stick, stiffen up the rake head with an additional metal strip...and always...ALWAYS have a guitar pick with a hole drilled on one of the fasteners.....Musical rakes just work better....


----------



## treebilly (Sep 24, 2013)

raking always has and always will be the worst part of the job. The one thing I got my crew to do is while I'm changing the rigging or tieing the next section off, just walk around and pick up sticks. After a few good size pieces there is a pile they carry out to the chipper. We worked on a 60" diameter silver maple removal today and only have leaves and twigs to rake up ( plus five truck loads of wood). all the wood came down on a rope so they could shove it to a clean area and it would've been raked if they didn't have 250 ' to the chipper. After 10 hours on spurs I can honestly think that they worked harder than I did.


----------



## mattfr12 (Sep 24, 2013)

Alot of times i use a 7ft landscape rake on the back of my tractor if you go slow and don't put it all the way down it wont tear the grass up and almost gets every twig.


----------

