Best practices for using a lift near exposed roots or patios

[Lumberjack]

I can’t see enough from that picture to have a full plan, but assuming there’s a bit of room on the far side of the tree from the camera, 10-15 mins in the lift has the tree down with no rigging required.

It’s a rare exception on normal tree work that we’ll climb if there is a lift on site. It’s rare we’ll climb vs mobilizing a lift for it.

The main normal tree work exception I can think of be rigging/cutting the lower trunk that’s too thick for the grapple saw to make.

The main not normal tree work exception that comes to mind is mitigation work, climbing tied off the lift working on a tree on a roof, for example.

 

[Friedrich]

I can’t see enough from that picture to have a full plan, but assuming there’s a bit of room on the far side of the tree from the camera, 10-15 mins in the lift has the tree down with no rigging required.

It’s a rare exception on normal tree work that we’ll climb if there is a lift on site. It’s rare we’ll climb vs mobilizing a lift for it.

The main normal tree work exception I can think of be rigging/cutting the lower trunk that’s too thick for the grapple saw to make.

The main not normal tree work exception that comes to mind is mitigation work, climbing tied off the lift working on a tree on a roof, for example.

i think it‘s not about what is objectively faster. use what you can and have. i don’t use a lift and i don’t miss them. they annoy me tbh.

 

[southsoundtree]

Lifts are great, at times. Quite frequently.

Around here, less so, due to heights and inaccessibility.


Sometimes lifts take up the drop zone, meaning cutting smaller pieces or rigging instead of free dropping.

Mill logs don't mean much to many people.

 

[Lumberjack]

i think it‘s not about what is objectively faster. use what you can and have. i don’t use a lift and i don’t miss them. they annoy me tbh.

We have lifts, a climber, and a rotating telehandler. We pick some balance of what is easiest overall physically, the most boring (repeatable vs heroics and hail marries), and profitable. I thought we were discussing what we would do in the situation, climb vs lift.

We have two jobs currently in progress bid to be able to fell basically every tree, something like 70-80 trees coming out. None of the trees are being felled by hand because we now have a better option that required less hand labor (easier), less man hours (more productive and profitable), and was more repeatable while being better for the customer.

 

[southsoundtree]

More an OP about assess impact and protection with lift use.

 

[southsoundtree]

I suspect spring is worse on root bark.

 

[flushcut]

Lifts are great, at times. Quite frequently.

Around here, less so, due to heights and inaccessibility.


Sometimes lifts take up the drop zone, meaning cutting smaller pieces or rigging instead of free dropping.

Mill logs don't mean much to many people.

But with the rigging you can take bigger pieces into a small DZ.

 

[Flying~Squirrel]

I would be driving to my second job by the time you had the mats unloaded.

 

[Daniel]

I would be driving to my second job by the time you had the mats unloaded.

Exactly... That tree is so quick up and down, it's not worth the trouble of bringing in a lift, especially of you don't own one. On a technical job or pruning jobs where you need to reduce all the branch tips, there's no climber in the world that can beat a good bucket op.

I pruned 4 big trees, (white oak, sycamore, river birch and magnolia) and took three large pieces of deadwood out of another sycamore in a little over three hours over the weekend. There's no climber in the world that could have made all those cuts in 8 hours, especially the reduction and shaping of the magnolia and birch.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

Sorry for the delay in replying.

I trimmed this birch once before using a pole saw / pruner, so I haven’t actually been up in it yet. I guess the initial appeal of the lift would be if I could just reach right out there with the boom, etc. On the other hand it’s a tight area so I would have to contend with that.

Majority of the river birches I’ve done work on has been from the ground. I really haven’t had a lot of instances where I had to do any major climbing and rigging in them. There’s other work on the property that I’m going to do as well, so I may just start off without the lift and climb. We’ll see though, it hasn’t been scheduled yet.

Getting on the roof to piece out some of the lower stuff that someone mentioned may be a possibility. The pitch is a little questionable. Can also piece some stuff out with the pole saws.

If I could get a high enough rigging point that I felt confident in doing a tip tie rig or using two lines and balancing / swinging it might be an option. Or just taking small pieces. Probably going to have to just get into it and fine tune my plan as I go.

 

[southsoundtree]

If you are there already working, shoot a video of your plan.

If you want ideas, that's the best bet.

 

[climbingmonkey24]

Got it done today, went pretty smooth.

For the tops going out over the house and deck we used two rigging lines. My main rigging point was on one of the back stems and then I redirected in that limb we were removing. Put another line in the stem to the right of it (if you’re looking at it according to the picture) and set that farther out on the tops and positioned the main line closer to the the cut end. Made the cuts with a handsaw so I could better control the peel / hinge (didn’t want them to just swing downward).