Yesterday's emergency call

ddhlakebound · Sep 21, 2008

I'm sure lots of you guys have done tons of these, but for me it was a first.

We got a call a little before 2pm yesterday from a homeowner who needed help right away. Her boyfriend had taken his poulan to a 55 - 60' White Oak, notched it away from the house, and started his 45 degree back cut until the tree sat back (weighted directly at the house) and pinched his already smoking bar. Told her it would cost double our hourly rate, one hour minimum.

When we pulled up about 45 minutes later (30 some miles away) the poulan was stuck in the tree, and they had a ladder propped behind the tree to maybe hopefully hold it up. I don't know if they'd tried to climb up the ladder and push the tree over or not, but I'm guessing they tried, and luckily failed.

Straight tree, 15" dbh, with 80+% of it's crown on the house side. "I thought that it could only fall the way it was notched....". Good thing that it pinched the saw while there was still enough pie shaped hinge left to hold the tree up, and that yesterday was a very calm day.

Getting it on the ground where it was meant to go was one of the easiest jobs we've ever done, but putting a rope in with it notched and backcut was a bit nerve wracking, just worrying about how much jiggling the hinge would hold up to. Once the rope was in a quick Z rig brought it upright easily, didn't even lock off and reset the Z rig, just pulled it on over 1:1.

We did no cutting on the stump, just used the bad hinge that was already set and had it down in a few minutes, so we bucked it up for them too. Mere minutes later, it was all blocked with the 385 on the butt log, the ne346 starting at the crown. Wish I could get one of those calls everyday....

Didn't get a before pic, really wish I had, with the green saw stuck in the tree and the ladder bracing it up. When we got there we were only focused on getting it down asap. Here are a few after pics.

The bar was apparently so hot that some of the ink transfered over to the stump when the saw got pinched.

And the chain was hot enough to burn it's impression into the stump too.

Left: My partner after taking off his hardhat and chaps. Right: The fella who sat the tree back towards the house.

Nailsbeats · Sep 21, 2008

That guy was awesome, Wild Thang (they are all Wild Thangs to me) and a 45 degree backcut setting up the massively tapered hinge, on his way to Bachelors at the School Of Hard Knocks. Glad you got some tuition for the lesson. I gotta go to the shed and fire up my 2150 just to see what I've been missing.

John Paul Sanborn · Sep 21, 2008

setting up the massively tapered hinge

It might have had some nice spin on the way down too

clearance · Sep 21, 2008

John Paul Sanborn said:
It might have had some nice spin on the way down too

Other than the slanting backcut, nothing wrong with the "hinge" or as its properly called, holding wood. If the dude would have started a wedge he could have probably fell it, no biggie.

ddhlakebound · Sep 21, 2008

clearance said:
Other than the slanting backcut, nothing wrong with the "hinge" or as its properly called, holding wood. If the dude would have started a wedge he could have probably fell it, no biggie.

Yeah, it would have been an easy tree with either a rope or a wedge. It would have cost them half as much if they'd called us before they started cutting on it, or nothing if they knew what they were doing.

I use a tapered hinge alot to offset a slight lean, but usually not quite that much taper. No pre-installed rope or wedges was their first big problem, and than angled back cut the second. On that tree ideally the thick side of the taper would have been the other side, (table and stuff to the thick side, which I asked them to move), but once it came over center it was committed and the taper didn't pull it a bit from it's path.

I brought a bucket of wedges, but once I saw that back cut, the rope was the plan.