JohN Dee said:
Rbtree, do you mind if i re-produce some of these pics on my new and upcoming company's website? Their purpose will be to illustrate storm damage etc..
You have my permission, John. Glad they can be of help.
We finished the oak Sunday. I got no pics of the rigging points as it was dark Sat when we set them up, and raining foxes and hens on Sunday. But we had actually moved the dogwood a bit with asll the tension, so didn't want more on it. And we were worried of the possibility of dynamic or added loading as the tree swung around after cutting it off the stump. So, we found a 16 inch trunked Japanese maple at an appropriate line angle in a neigbor's driveway. We put my truck carpet pads on the tree and wrapped a 7/8th 12 strand sling around it several times, thru a block, added 3/4 dubble braid, and backed the chip truck as far back as possible so the 200 foot rope could just barely be hooked up. I had to squeeze the truck between a holly hedge on one side and picket fence on the other, then squeeze out the barely open door, carefully step over the picket fence, paying delicate mind to the family jewels, and go tie the rope. Matt was elsewhere rerigging a GRCS or up in the tree so I was left solo on that task. Then we got a nice pull with the truck. Now we had three lines, one to hold it back off the roof, this last one to pick it up and swing it over a tad, and the third to swing it as much as needed. But we needed to do no more pulling or cranking after I made the stump cuts. The hinge opened up nicely, but we were in no hurry. We were re-eyeballing the length of the log, a bit worried that, as it swung and dropped, it might reach the silk tree that the tree owner had warned us that if we whacked it, he and we would be in deep shift with his wife. Anyhow, about a minute after I stopped cutting, while we doin the head scratchin, she just swung over, and dropped right onto the wood bed. Weehah....
But all the rigging, thinking, squeezing of wawa outta our wet gloves, cutting stubs off the trunk from on the roof, installing a roof tarp, cutting wood, raking and chipping the leftovers, putting gear away, it took the two of us another 4 hours or so. I'm hoping the customer is OK with upping our fees...it is an insurance claim, and no one else could have done the job even close to as well, if at all.
It was priced at $4000....12.5 manhrs for me, 11.5 for Matt, 8 for my groundie and 8.5 for two Labor Ready guys. That''s only $80 per manhr overall, ouch...for other technical storm jobs, I'm shooting for 200-300 per manhr....at least for the braintrust guys.
