Dropping a Few Trees This Weekend Next to the House

[bulletpruf]

Fellas -

I'm not new to chainsaws, but I don't have a lot of experience with falling large trees in tricky situations. I'm currently in a rental house in Northern Virginia and this weekend, landlord and I are supposed to drop two trees next to the house. One is dead, and it has a large limb hanging over the house. Other is a few feet away and alive. Both hardwood.

Landlord is in his 70's, but does have some felling experience. How much, I'm not sure.

Equipment that we'll have - rental towable articulating man lift (not sure of height), numerous saws (I'll have an 020 top handle, 026, 044), chain, rope, John Deer tractor, John Deere Gator, 4 wheelers, etc. Gator has a winch. I'll be wearing chaps, steel toe boots, helmet with hearing protection and face shield.

No plan for anyone to actually do any climbing. I don't plan to get up in the articulating lift.

First things first - I'll get the satellite off one tree trunk Saturday morning and I'll clear all the limbs and other debris around the tree trunks.

I think the limb overhanging the house is the big concern, and I hope we can take that down, piece by piece, with the lift. From there, I believe the plan is to get a chain secured on the trunk fairly high up and then get it hooked to the Gator with some tension. From there, face cut, back cut, wedges, and drop it. But this is where I could use some input.

Any tips on how to do this safely?

Trees in question are the two at the back corner of the house; in some pictures, they're marked with tape.

Thanks

Scott

 

[Del_]

Be sure to get some video.

 

[capetrees]

Someone's going to need to get up in the lift and piece out the overhanging limb. Being a dead tree. i wouldn't use it to run the rope through to rope off and drop limbs. Maybe small pieces into the bucket lift?

After that, rope up high (or chain), probably around the first crotch, attach to the tractor far enough away that it doesn't drop on the tractor or person in it and pull after it's been notched and backcut.
Everything you said already.

 

[arathol]

How big is the tractor? Any experience pulling with it? You'll need something fairly substantial to pull those over, and they won't be light. If one decides to be uncooperative, even the gator might not be able to pull it back the right way. You have a lift, use it. Remove as much of the trees as you can one piece at a time. Cut pieces no larger than you can manage to grab and thrown down from above. If you've never done this before, start small. Even small branches can be deceptively heavy if they are real long. With the trees leaning like that towards the house the more you remove the less you need to pull. If you are going to pull with a rope, make sure its strong enough, not the cheap crap from Home Depot....and make sure its more than long enough, maybe twice the height of the tree in length to get a good pulling advantage and allow you to be well away from where it falls.

 

[bulletpruf]

Someone's going to need to get up in the lift and piece out the overhanging limb. Being a dead tree. i wouldn't use it to run the rope through to rope off and drop limbs. Maybe small pieces into the bucket lift?

After that, rope up high (or chain), probably around the first crotch, attach to the tractor far enough away that it doesn't drop on the tractor or person in it and pull after it's been notched and backcut.
Everything you said already.

Gotcha. Thanks for the input.

 

[bulletpruf]

How big is the tractor? Any experience pulling with it? You'll need something fairly substantial to pull those over, and they won't be light. If one decides to be uncooperative, even the gator might not be able to pull it back the right way. You have a lift, use it. Remove as much of the trees as you can one piece at a time. Cut pieces no larger than you can manage to grab and thrown down from above. If you've never done this before, start small. Even small branches can be deceptively heavy if they are real long. With the trees leaning like that towards the house the more you remove the less you need to pull. If you are going to pull with a rope, make sure its strong enough, not the cheap crap from Home Depot....and make sure its more than long enough, maybe twice the height of the tree in length to get a good pulling advantage and allow you to be well away from where it falls.

The tractor is a newer John Deere diesel with a bucket up front and a backhoe in the rear. 3,000 pounds at a minimum.

Good point on removing as much of the tree as possible.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Bearcreek]

Unless that branch is rotten enough that you're concerned about it breaking off by itself there's no particular reason to take it off before the tree is laying on the ground. Do the tree with the satellite dish first, then the other one. Cut that stump behind it off first and drop it that direction. Be sure you have the proper rope (which is not available at normal hardware stores, FWIW) and pull with the tractor, not the Gator, or better yet, a 7,000+ lb. 4x4, pickup or truck, if the ground is nice and hard. Be sure to get the rope high enough, 10-15' above the first big crotch on the satellite dish tree. Hopefully this is obvious, but make sure the rope is long enough and keep in mind that ash breaks into pieces when it falls, sometimes sending chunks flying quite a ways.

 

[litefoot]

Fellas -

I'm not new to chainsaws, but I don't have a lot of experience with falling large trees in tricky situations. I'm currently in a rental house in Northern Virginia and this weekend, landlord and I are supposed to drop two trees next to the house. One is dead, and it has a large limb hanging over the house. Other is a few feet away and alive. Both hardwood.

Landlord is in his 70's, but does have some felling experience. How much, I'm not sure.

Equipment that we'll have - rental towable articulating man lift (not sure of height), numerous saws (I'll have an 020 top handle, 026, 044), chain, rope, John Deer tractor, John Deere Gator, 4 wheelers, etc. Gator has a winch. I'll be wearing chaps, steel toe boots, helmet with hearing protection and face shield.

No plan for anyone to actually do any climbing. I don't plan to get up in the articulating lift.

First things first - I'll get the satellite off one tree trunk Saturday morning and I'll clear all the limbs and other debris around the tree trunks.

I think the limb overhanging the house is the big concern, and I hope we can take that down, piece by piece, with the lift. From there, I believe the plan is to get a chain secured on the trunk fairly high up and then get it hooked to the Gator with some tension. From there, face cut, back cut, wedges, and drop it. But this is where I could use some input.

Any tips on how to do this safely?

Trees in question are the two at the back corner of the house; in some pictures, they're marked with tape.

Thanks

Scott



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I have dropped hundreds of trees in the woods and I was about to give you a bunch of tips, but I think the best advice I could give is to tell your landlord to hire a tree service. They have liability insurance. You do not. Too many things can go wrong.

 

[Gerasimek]

This reads like an OSHA accident brief.
Call a tree service. It's always sad to read about people that were killed trying to save money.

 

[sand sock]

i think it is easily doable. get a new good solid rope up in the split maybe 15 to 20 feet up.

when you do the open face, the bottom cut needs to parrallell the ground, then open it up to at least 45 degrees. i want some positive pressure on the rope with the heaviest thing you have. then when you start making the release cut. i want you to put plastic wedges in behind the cut. keep cutting and take out the slop, tap , dont beat. little more pressure and repeat.

it looks like you have a recently dying ash . i want you to be careful and watch for falling trash, always watch the upper story/crown of the tree.

the seond tree looks like cottton wood. you may get a little trash, but think your ok.

over on utube, hus qvarna has a really good timber feller s et of vids. its good for b rush up schooling. i try to watch it every year, just as a refresher . when i haven't cut for a few months.

 

[bulletpruf]

Unless that branch is rotten enough that you're concerned about it breaking off by itself there's no particular reason to take it off before the tree is laying on the ground. Do the tree with the satellite dish first, then the other one. Cut that stump behind it off first and drop it that direction. Be sure you have the proper rope (which is not available at normal hardware stores, FWIW) and pull with the tractor, not the Gator, or better yet, a 7,000+ lb. 4x4, pickup or truck, if the ground is nice and hard. Be sure to get the rope high enough, 10-15' above the first big crotch on the satellite dish tree. Hopefully this is obvious, but make sure the rope is long enough and keep in mind that ash breaks into pieces when it falls, sometimes sending chunks flying quite a ways.

The branch is actually rotten enough that I'm worried about it breaking off, and it's certainly heavy enough to do some serious damage, so I think the plan is to remove it piece by piece before we drop the tree.

Landlord has a Chevy 1 ton dually with a big dump bed on it, so that's what I'll recommend we use to pull it down. Thanks for the tip on that.

I'll have to see what kind of rope he has in mind for this job.

Thanks

 

[bulletpruf]

I have dropped hundreds of trees in the woods and I was about to give you a bunch of tips, but I think the best advice I could give is to tell your landlord to hire a tree service. They have liability insurance. You do not. Too many things can go wrong.

He's definitely not going to hire a tree service. He does have a fair amount of experience dropping trees, clearing land, and running heavy equipment, so it's not like Joe Homeowner tackling something that he's clueless about.

Having said that, I certainly recognize the danger here, too, so I'm going to let him handle all the high-risk activity (in the lift, notching/cutting). I expect my involvement will mainly be pulling the trees over with the truck and bucking once we get them on the ground.

Thanks

 

[bulletpruf]

This reads like an OSHA accident brief.
Call a tree service. It's always sad to read about people that were killed trying to save money.

It's not without risks, but we're both mature, in good shape, have some experience with dropping trees, have the appropriate equipment (I'll have to see what rope he plans to use) and I'll certainly be wearing appropriate PPE.

Thanks

 

[bulletpruf]

i think it is easily doable. get a new good solid rope up in the split maybe 15 to 20 feet up.

when you do the open face, the bottom cut needs to parrallell the ground, then open it up to at least 45 degrees. i want some positive pressure on the rope with the heaviest thing you have. then when you start making the release cut. i want you to put plastic wedges in behind the cut. keep cutting and take out the slop, tap , dont beat. little more pressure and repeat.

it looks like you have a recently dying ash . i want you to be careful and watch for falling trash, always watch the upper story/crown of the tree.

the seond tree looks like cottton wood. you may get a little trash, but think your ok.

over on utube, hus qvarna has a really good timber feller s et of vids. its good for b rush up schooling. i try to watch it every year, just as a refresher . when i haven't cut for a few months.

Had planned on a conventional face cut, with bottom parallel to the ground. Well, that's what I would do; I'll discuss with the landlord.

Good points on the process from there -- going slow on back cut, cutting with wedges in place. I suspect that'll be the landlord doing to cutting while I'm in the truck pulling. If so, I'll lend him my helmet; I'm certainly wary of widow makers coming down on someone's brain bucket when we're dropping it.

Thanks

 

[arathol]

If you make the felling cut, 45° with a horizontal bottom cut is not a good idea here. Once the tree starts to fall and reaches 45°, the cut will close and the hinge will break, then you no longer have control. From there the tree will go where ever its wants, including kicking back off the stump.

You want to make the first cut a minimum of 45° down from the top, then using the kerf as a sight make a second cut upwards at 45° to meet the first. This will allow the tree to fall completely to the ground before the hinge breaks, which means the tree is under control all the way to the ground. This is especially important with that dead ash, as it can be fairly brittle and break easily when pulled over.

​

Using the largest possible piece of equipment to pull is the thing to do. Just be careful you don't pull too much before the back cut is made or you'll end up with a barber chair accident, or if the hinge is insufficient or the rope isn't placed high enough you could pull the tree off the stump before it falls. Once again, the longer the rope the better.
Again, with trees like this that are close to the house you'll want to remove as much as possible before dropping the butts. A dead ash tree can come apart if you pull it, with disastrous results. I've seen larger ones than that disintegrate mid-fall when pulled over. Also, removing the dead branches will prevent them from falling on you. Don't depend on the hard hat to protect you, it won't. If a large branch hits you on the head all that the helmet will do is make it easier to identify you afterwards. Its no joke.....

 

[CacaoBoy]

we're both mature, in good shape, have some experience with dropping trees,

When 2 people are working together on a dangerous project, the fact that each has some prior experience means little. Experience working together as a team is essential to safe performance.

Since apparently you cannot be talked out of joining in this project, perhaps the most important thing will be that you and your landlord discuss each step before doing it so you both know what both will be doing. And keep in mind that having 2 sets of hands in a project may multiply the dangers to both people. To have one person actively working while the other functions as a safety observer may help to keep you both alive and intact.

And at the first sign either of you is growing tired, or feeling uncertain about proceeding, that is the time to stop and take a break to regain strength or think through the process, or better yet to recognize that the job is demanding skills or equipment you do not have. A little fatigue can cause a major decrease in the ability to think clearly, and a little fatigue can become exhaustion before one realizes that it has happened.

 

[oldfortyfive]

If it's near a building bring in a pro. It'll be cheaper and less grief that way.

 

[bulletpruf]

When 2 people are working together on a dangerous project, the fact that each has some prior experience means little. Experience working together as a team is essential to safe performance.

Since apparently you cannot be talked out of joining in this project, perhaps the most important thing will be that you and your landlord discuss each step before doing it so you both know what both will be doing. And keep in mind that having 2 sets of hands in a project may multiply the dangers to both people. To have one person actively working while the other functions as a safety observer may help to keep you both alive and intact.

And at the first sign either of you is growing tired, or feeling uncertain about proceeding, that is the time to stop and take a break to regain strength or think through the process, or better yet to recognize that the job is demanding skills or equipment you do not have. A little fatigue can cause a major decrease in the ability to think clearly, and a little fatigue can become exhaustion before one realizes that it has happened.

Excellent input. Thanks for posting.

 

[Cliff R]

When working with dead trees none of the rules apply. Without predictable hold wood they can go anywhere, so make sure you have PLENTY of pull on them in the direction you want them to go. Here I use the winch on my side by side with it chained to a tree. Make sure to nearly double the distance of the fall because a dead tree will have limbs on it that will snap/break loose when it hits the ground and they can travel quite a distance further than where the tree hit the ground.....don't ask me how I know that.......Cliff

 

[square1]

Pretty certain I've seen that exact situation on YouTube Chainsaw Fails video many times
Best wishes!
j/k, nothing there that can't be handled with some careful thought, planning, and the right tools.