High point of the job was when Lewis Tree Service came down the road doing line clearance and stopped to watch for a while.
Jeff- when ya gonna drop the bomb!
DO IT, DO IT DO IT DO IT...............DO IT
$3500 early this year is the most I've bid and won for a single tree, a really huge Chinese Elm. Sub-freezing temperature starts for the whole job. Crew costs ate up most of the profit on that one though, I should have bid $4500. The guy couldn't even get a bid on it from the people who came and looked.
Steeply sloped backyard with no access for a bucket or crane, it towered over everything with leads the size of normal big wood. Over the house, the service lines to two homes, high tension lines in the back of it, and a shed nearly touching it at the base. Working it was a complex puzzle, but most of it was solid and it's height offered good tie in and rigging points.
I wish I had video of it but it was too cold to mess with cameras. After the upper canopy was down the one major lead that I could bomb out of it hit vertically and planted itself about 3' into the yard straight up. It looked like a tree that grew there and was a bit*h to get out.
High point of the job was when Lewis Tree Service came down the road doing line clearance and stopped to watch for a while.
excuse me if you read this before. I been around here for a while and all of us like me tend to retell stories (like Rope's ubiquitous hollow oak tree pict lol). Plus it is not kosher to kiss and tell ....but....
I cut a tree in half for over Ten Thousand Dollars!
It was the biggest Bur oak in the state of Ohio and a little taller than 140 feet (measured). It is over 500 years old by an increment boring in 1980 at 480 years old done by OSU.
It was hit by a severe downshear and a leader crushed the south side of the house. 2 other codom crotches were split too and gaping open in the wind, one was sure to crush the remainder of the house. I am standing there with the ho and she said will you make it safe for me.
How much is your life worth I thought. I will throw out a price that I will risk my life for but still do the job if she says to go ahead. She immediately said to go ahead.
Brought in the best tree crane in the city and one of the top 3 ops, maybe the best....maybe tied all three. Had a very tight pucker goin on when he boomed me 140' to the top and I attached the choker to the maybe 20,000 lb leader. If it detaches....we all go down...the leader, me, and the crano.
It held until I cut it back to laterals and then I did the entire tree to approx the same ht. without snapping one lateral. The tree has a full and lush 70' canopy now that has shed a few 10,000 lb sections (I rigged out) over the 7 years since I did this but the ho's are delighted I SAVED this tree when no one else would have. 3 kids are growing up playing under this 10'dia trunk and play on the swing I installed.
Just visited the tree in the rear of the house just down the hill on my block to check for fractures about 4 hours ago and I still feel comfortable with what I did. I get some people asking "how could you prune that tree that way?" Removal was the ONLY alternative.
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