Rigging and Rot

[guymayor]

The driveway is too crooked for a crane. The trunk of the tree in rigging position is hollow. How can this tree mess get off this antebellum house, without doing more damage?

 

[Jeff]

Install some sort of cribbing/shoring/support under the trunk (properly cut & shaped wood chunks work great) to support the trunk, then remove the brush and branches one at a time, until everything is off the house and all the weight on the cribbing. Then just buck it up.

Personally I've always wanted to try the heavy lift air-bags that firefighters and rescue squads use to lift cars off people.

 

[guymayor]

Thanks Jeff; here's a Before pic, with lines showing cuts on the tree that did not fail, fwiw.

 

[Tree-Taylor]

Buy one of these bad boys

http://treedoctor.ca/images/equipment/LC785_09-GTT-1.gif

 

[oldoakman]

Install some sort of cribbing/shoring/support under the trunk (properly cut & shaped wood chunks work great) to support the trunk, then remove the brush and branches one at a time, until everything is off the house and all the weight on the cribbing. Then just buck it up.

Personally I've always wanted to try the heavy lift air-bags that firefighters and rescue squads use to lift cars off people.

Easy Peazy. What he said. Had a hickory do almost the same thing after an early heavy snowstorm and did exactly that same procedure. Worked like a charm. Otherwise straighten out the driveway.

 

[TreeVB]

Skid steer? Same idea as shaping the logs but the change in tension while cutting won't have any potential to "blow" your support out.

 

[guymayor]

Good ideas, but there looks like a lot of tension on those limbs.

I would definitely spec logging mats before a machine entered the rootzone. Soil compaction is the last thing that tree needs.

 

[Jeff]

Can you use the other tree for some support? Hollow, yes, but not failing, correct? So hang a block in it, then use a combination of driving cribbing under the victim tree, lifting slightly with the rigging on one leader under tension and driving support under it, then cutting it off a few feet away from the house. Move to the next limb under tension and repeat. If the ground surface is too soft for cribbing against, slide mats, plywood or outrigger pads underneath the victim tree to spread out the support forces.