Rotten Maple

mic687 · May 31, 2009

I started a job Friday to dead wood 4 trees and remove a snaped off maple. Started with the removal, the tree had a cavity at the base some live limbs about half way up and loosing bark at the top. I wanted to take it in two pieces to reduce the risk of any hang up in or damage to neighboring trees in the landing zone. Also a hard lean towards the neighbors yard. I vertical cut into the base and found pretty good wood around the outside and a rotten center. Although the base still was still fairly strong I shot a pull rope about 25' up. While test pulling on the pull rope there was alot of movement in the spar and that little voice was telling me dont climb it. Well we rethought our plan and took it in one peice. I did my face cut about 3 foot up from the base and had just started the back cut when it let go no chance to place any wedges. The pull rope giuded it where we wanted and all was well. The spar above and below the bad spot were good solid wood I am glad I went with my first instinct, set a rope and test pulled the spar. I guess my point is don't be a cowboy the life you save may be your own. :chainsaw:

TreEmergencyB · May 31, 2009

good call
almost always go wit your gut!

tree md · Jun 1, 2009

Had a bad Silver Maple like that onetime. Had a large cavity in the bottom but I felt comfortable enough to climb it. I had to get in the top to take out a leader that was over a powerline. Needed to get out to like 5" wood to make it fit. I found a soft spot about half way up. Pulled wet, rotten wood out of the soft spot. At 8" wood there was a hollow I could stick my fist into and I still needed to go 15' or so to get where I needed to make my cut. I wasn't so much afraid of climbing up to that point but did not want to load the limb with tension when I made my cut and be attached to it with it being hollow below. If I could have tied into another leader I would have probably chanced making the cut but all of the other tie in points would have swung me into the lines in the event of the lead failing. I came down, took the rotten wood and showed it to the HO and told him we needed a crane. I was the only one who attempted to bid it without a crane. He threw in two more trees and let me take them all three out with a crane for a substantially higher amount of money.

mic687 · Jun 2, 2009

Yeah there were no real good tip around this tree to much of a swing on everything. I was lucky enough to be able to drop the whole thing.

climber17 · Jun 9, 2009

i had a hollow tree to cut and no way was going to climb it. had the room to drop the whole thing. took a logging chain and wrapped the tree to keep it from blowing apart. when it hit the ground it looked like slab woo from the sawmill.