Cement in trees

[mattfr12]

Any you guys ever run into this. Ive had to cut down 3 or 4 now that someone put cement in a decaying trunk. is thier any tips to doing this, tricks of the trade for messing with concrete in a tree? the one i have to do tomorrow has atleast 8 feet of the trunk full. ill try and snap a picture for you guys.

 

[Rookie1]

I went to a house to get some firewood and seen a huge oak next to a house that had about 6ft of concrete in it. It started about 4ft off the ground. Tree cutter ruined two chains before he realized what it was. They had a crane there so they left it in one big piece and trucked it away.

 

[ozzy42]

It sucks .I would guess we all have run into it a time or 2.

The only advice I can give is when re-sharpening and trying to miss the concrete on the next cut is to only sharpen every other cutter on each side until you know for sure you're back in clean wood.Saves a little time in between cuts.

 

[lxt]

I put in my contract a "foreign debris" stipulation, basically states: should I come in contact with debris, for example....nails, barbwire, cement, poles, wire, etc... that work on that particular section of tree shall cease. I also within the stipulation have language stating "I will suffer no penalty for incomplete work due to foreign debris" & so on....

I got burnt once many years ago on a sycamore tree "large" base was filled with cement from 2ft off the ground 20 ft up...yep you guessed it, home owner didnt care & no pay untill all the mess was gone! took me days to cut, axe, cut prybar, chisel, etc... that SOB up & get rid of it......cement filled sycamore is heavy!!!!!!!

good luck!


LXT...................

 

[BlackenedTimber]

Just a thought here...

As some of you may know, the brunt of my work is done in the Power Transmission industry, and I have done ALOT of work with concrete, in fact my (former) company owned a fleet of drum mixers, mobile mixers, and concrete batch plants.

To clean the trucks, especially the mobile mixers, we used muriatic acid. It literally eats concrete. We would spray it on the really messed up trucks, let it sit overnight, and the next morning, hose off the hardened concrete. It will eat metal and skin/flesh/tendons/leather too, but for some reason it doesnt eat plastic. Maybe because plastic is non-organic.

Maybe if you find yourself in a bind, you could saw into the spar as close to the concrete as possible without mangling your chain, and then use a hammer drill to make some holes and fill them with muriatic acid. Since the tree is organic too (like concrete, cause the aggregates and cements in concrete contains carbons) it might eat away at the stump as well, but I have never tried it.

It might work, it might not. It might take a month for it to eat a large chunk of concrete, but I know it does eat concrete up...

Just a thought,

T

 

[Jumper]

In Ottawa I saw a number of Manitoba Maples that had cement in trunk cavities. Real pain in the derriere.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Cavity work used to me considered the epitomy of tree surgery, I've run into it fifty feet up. More often found on high-end properties, or those that were formerly so.

Test drilling is the best way to find where the cavity fill ends, Burning a few drill bits is better then the saw-chain.

 

[tomtrees58]

Any you guys ever run into this. Ive had to cut down 3 or 4 now that someone put cement in a decaying trunk. is thier any tips to doing this, tricks of the trade for messing with concrete in a tree? the one i have to do tomorrow has atleast 8 feet of the trunk full. ill try and snap a picture for you guys.

all the time got to love arborist :jawdrop: tom trees

 

[BC WetCoast]

Rent a cut off saw with a concrete blade. Hopefully, you can score the concrete enough to where you can snap off the stem.

 

[randyg]

I know they make chainsaws with carbide/diamond inserts or something that are intended to cut concrete walls. Not sure if sharp they would do the wood part though? Since when do you rent ANYTHING that is sharp! I do have a long (16 inch or so) carbide tipped masonery bit that will cut through wood and can tell where the concrete stops so as not to ruin loops. Never had any sections to long or heavy to lift with bucket (material handling boom) truck and then set into dump trailer. Been lucky I guess?

 

[pdqdl]

Rent a cut off saw with a concrete blade. Hopefully, you can score the concrete enough to where you can snap off the stem.

We had a 3' dbh pin oak removal once that had a perfect trunk. No blemishes whatsoever.

We couldn't cut it down! It had a 4" core of concrete that we had gnawed all the way down to, and then we broke it off with a chain tied high. It cost us several chains, the concrete down the middle was pretty small and the rest of the trunck was in perfect condition.

Rotten old trunk with a large concrete center: you might not be able to break it off.

If you can expose most of the center, it would be simple to get a larger hammer-drill and pound a bunch of holes through the concrete. Huge risk involved, however, since the core would crumble unpredictably.

Best solution: rent an excavator (or hire one), rip it out fast & safely, including the stump. Load on truck, haul to dump. No problem!

 

[Treetom]

Bid accordingly

I once bid on a 44" dbh red oak, 80-footer, that at one time had an exposed rotted area that was filled with concrete and 4"x4"x9" bricks that were mortered together. Over the years the tree grew over the repair so that when I first looked at it I only noticed what appeared to be clay tiles that covered a hole in the side of the tree. What I discovered after many dull chains and hours of hacking away was a trunk full of morter and bricks that ran from below ground level (where the concrete flowed to) to 14'. We finally got the trunk split lengthwise into two canoe-shaped logs. Inside was enough brick and morter to fill a small trailer. If I'd only read this post before that job.

 

[mattfr12]

thanks for all the replies im glad to know im not the only one who runs into this crap ended up cutting as close to the cement as possible and using a high lift to push the trunk over and move it in one piece. the tree was really rotten so it went over very easily.