How Many Guys in a Tree?

[Philbert]

Neighbor was having a large tree trimmed today. Light stuff, cleaning off dead branches before they fall. The outfit looked pretty professional: clean equipment in good shape, PPE, etc. What surprised me was seeing 3 guys working in the crown at the same time: 2 climbers and a guy in a bucket. Is this common? I guess that I have only seen one climber in a tree at a time. Again, this was a trim job, not a removal. Curious what the maximum, safe number of arborists you have ever seen working in a tree.

Philbert

 

[beastmaster]

Depending on the size of the tree and what your doing to it, It's not uncommon to have several climbers in a tree. Especially a large trim. It takes some planning in the tree so as not to have one of the other climbers dropping hangers where you just finish.
I worked with 4 other climbers before in a big trim job. Its can get overwhelming working a large tree by your self. It's nice being able to concentrate on just your section, but it takes a good group of climber to make the tree look the same all the way around.
Removals are a different story. Unless its a widely spaced out tree it can be dangerous having more then one climber in a removal.
Even on excurrent trees, working with two climbers each doing a side and both at the same height makes the job go a little smoother I think.

 

[TheJollyLogger]

We've had 3 or 4 guys up in large pecans or live oaks a lot of times, but they're almost like separate trees. As long as you keep separation and communicate no big deal. I've gone up with newbies a lot too, esp. on crane jobs.

And of course there have been a couple of times when a new guy was taking forever to limb out a pine I was tempted to go ahead and go up and start blocking it down below him, just to get er done...

 

[kaneabel]

Del_ hit it right on the head. My first 5 or 6 trees where it was basic pop cuts and a few small notching I had either my A)30-year experienced old-school uncle or B)My best friend with 7 years experience and familiar with new techniques...it certainly pays off.