Tree on house - cutting question

[Raymond]

Your bid stays the same as it would if it was solid and standing up?
You're a good man Rope.

NEAR the same...My bad!

 

[ropensaddle]

NEAR the same...My bad!

Yup just the extra rigging time

 

[Raymond]

I just find if I have to stop and think for a minute it costs a little more.

 

[ropensaddle]

I just find if I have to stop and think for a minute it costs a little more.

Nothing wrong with adjusting for difficulty but fleecing them is sorta lewd.

 

[ozzy42]

A bit o' this and a bit o' that. Mostly balsams and poplars, but we've have a bunch of spruce and even a few maples. Never a small maple though, always a fat one. The surprising thing is the small amount of damage. I've seen holes in the roof, smashed roof edges, bent eves, but nothing major. We took five or six spruce off a small crappy cabin a few years back that had all come down at once in a big storm and there was almost no damage. Even the house where the big maple came down only had a few hundreds bucks in damage. I guess everything is built to hold a whack of snow here so a tree on the roof is no big deal.



Is that why my knees shake sometimes?

Yeah,I know what you mean about the minimal damage.

A big majority of HOs really don't think things out when they safety prune ,or remove certain trees.

They say "remove this tree,it's too close to the house if a storm comes thru".
Same with limbs over the roof.

It is the big trees 40-50 ft from the house that do major damage.They get some momentum going on the way down.The ones close to the house just ease over most of the time.

Same with trimming all the limbs on one side of a tree that is real close to the house,a limb brakes out from the top with no lower limbs to slow it down will cause more damage.

 

[deevo]

The only crane we can get here charges a $400 minimum at a $100 an hour, and there's an hour of travel in the minimum charge, so you're getting three-hours with the crane. Which is lots, but then we'd like to schedule two or three crane jobs on the same day to get our money's worth, but it's very rare that we have more than one crane job per season. We'd be happy to use the crane but the customer would freak if our price jumped several hundred dollars on top of our standard rate. They'd tell us to bugger off and hire someone else.[/QUOTE]

All the ones I've done the insurance company pays for the crane (which is included in our price) Theres a few around here we use, prices vary but it's a lot safer and makes the job go quicker as well. I think a while back treemandan had a pully/block type set up that looked like it worked well. Forget what thread it was though?

 

[stumpjumper83]

Its been my experience with up rooted trees that as you lighten them they tend to stand back up. This will be visible as yor lightening the top of the tree that is on the roof. Once the tree starts to stand back up, keep removing firewood sized chunks till your clear of the house. Always cut the stump off last.

Now if you get one that the branch failed like in the pic posted, or in a case where the stump isnt helping the tree stand back up your going to have to bring in some equipment, or do some rigging or both.

My favorite method is a medium to large telehandler, 6-8k capacity and 4 wheel steer. They get around well and lift a pile. Use the telehandler to lift the tree off the house, then slowly cut the stump, do this part real gentle like as not to upset the tellehandler, then using the extending boom, pivot the tree off the house and set it down.

Second choice is rigging back to several large trees and using the height of the trees and a block and tackle to life the trees off. I don't like this because your high up in a tree putting alot of leverage against the stump of the second tree and if the first tree tipped due to alot of rain and some wind, the second could tip causing more problems.

Again most of the time the tree will lift off itself, and if they dont, cranes, and telehandlers are first choice, and rigging is last ditch.

 

[Groundman One]

Its been my experience with up rooted trees that as you lighten them they tend to stand back up. This will be visible as yor lightening the top of the tree that is on the roof. Once the tree starts to stand back up, keep removing firewood sized chunks till your clear of the house. Always cut the stump off last.

If it the tree gets aroused and straightens up, that's great, but some just lie there like an old politician with no viagra, and are just as miserable to deal with.

This one, for example, didn't stand back up. There was nothing to tie off to anywhere. (I think this was the one we propped up with a bunch of 2x8s. Really sketchy, and kind of stupid, but it worked.)

 

[Mapleman]

I like doing trees on houses. Every job is different and unless you've got a crane, you've got to be spontaneous, figure out the angles, swing, and balance points, and revise your plan as the job develops. Plus, if it's an insurance job, the money is great.

It's kind of like the game of pick-up sticks that you played as a kid, especially when multiple trees are tangled together on the roof. Everything has to be moved in the right order so things don't shift and more damaged is created that what was originally done.

Even when using a crane you need to improvise once in a while. Working with an operator with a light hand on the hydraulics can be really satisfying.

I'm a bit of a rigging freak, so I like setting blocks in standing trees and using my 4 WD to raise and lower trunks. I've learned the hard way when lowering a trunk once it is clear of the roof to make sure you have enough rope so the tree isn't still hanging when you run out of rope. Also, it helps if you're working soft wood as opposed to hard. I usually try to get a crane or a big bobcat if it is a big oak or maple. If I can't get one, I support the trunk with deadmans.

I think big trees that have been blown over into other trees and are over buildings to be especially tricky. Any thoughts on those?

 

[xander9727]

I just use my easy button in situations like these.

 

[Mapleman]

Yeah, I usually send for the sky hook myself...

 

[ozzy42]

Yeah, I usually send for the sky hook myself...

lol

send the noobie to get it out of the truck:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[deevo]

Yeah, I usually send for the sky hook myself...

Thats too funny, we were at a tree on hydro wires on fire call last week ( with my fire dept) and the hydro supervisor told the rookie to go to their truck and get out the sky hook! after 10 mins of looking this poor bugger comes back and says he can't find it? So he sent him back saying what the &*%@ you can't find it its the biggest thing on the truck. 5 mins later comes back red faced scratching his head. Then we all started to chuckle, super says we stopped using them 20 years sorry I forgot to that! Poor guy, oh well they had pull that one on him once!:greenchainsaw:

 

[Groundman One]

I like doing trees on houses. Every job is different and unless you've got a crane, you've got to be spontaneous, figure out the angles, swing, and balance points, and revise your plan as the job develops. Plus, if it's an insurance job, the money is great.

I think big trees that have been blown over into other trees and are over buildings to be especially tricky. Any thoughts on those?

That was what our Friday afternoon job was. A fair sized poplar was blown over into the neighbour's maple, and over the neighbour's fence. (Once again, dig the funky artwork bee-lo.)

So my climber goes up the maple (the brown one), a big tree, and ties off. Then he ties my pull rope to the trunk of the poplar (the red one, A), passes it through a crotch in the maple and I lock it up in the Porta-Wrap. The he removes the top of the poplar in pieces until it's just the trunk resting in the maple. About 45' up. I unlock the rope in the porta-wrap, leave several wraps on it as the trunk is very heavy, he cuts it loose and I lower the trunk very slowly. I'm probably over the weight limit for my porta-wrap so we're doing everything very slowly, very smoothly, no shocks.

My climber is down now and we decide to stop the trunk about two-feet above the fence (B). Now, stupid me is really scratching my head because after we cut a few feet off the base of the tree, the tree is now two inches above the fence. What do we do. The tree is far to big to manhandle, too heavy to push, we're stuck. For some reason we thought we'd be able to swing it or push it clear of the fence. Not a chance.

So we did what any good tree man would do. We locked up the trunk and disassembled the section of fence under the truck, then lowered it onto the ground, cut it up, then put the fence back together. No damage, no stress, everyone safe, but we could have thought it out a bit better. Oh well, we're always rusty when the season opens.

 

[asthesun]

you can remove the lower section first so that the part on the roof just rests there. do a break cut far enough down so it doesnt slam the side of the house, then reach out and jump off what hangs over the roof. this may not be possible depending on how tall the house is and how close the tree was to the house. make sure you keep enough weight on the roof, and not too much hanging off of it or the piece left on the roof will come off.

edit-thats refering to your first post
as far as that one goes^^ i'd say do what you did and tie it off, but then cut the bottom out of it first, instead of lowering it whole. then when its close to the fence, it might be small enough to drag the butt out and lay it down, or reach above the fence to cut your last piece so that its hanging above the fence, then you can let it down on the other side of the fence

 

[TreeClimber57]

Personally, I would go for a crane if you can get one. Much more control in my opinion, less risk of injury or further damage.

 

[Blakesmaster]

asthesun gave me an idea I'd yet to think of. If the tree is small enough you could always anchor it with a rope over the roof peak and tied to a truck or tree on the other side of the house and start from the ground up. Never tried it but I kinda like the idea.

 

[Kunes]

well seeing as your picture. there is this feature in paint called the eraser...haha good luck.

 

[Groundman One]

well seeing as your picture. there is this feature in paint called the eraser...haha good luck.

We use The Eraser on our clients a lot. It's one of our Jedi Mind Tricks.


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