Still no crane!!

Rupe

Rupe

Location
United Kingdom
I've got this little beech tree to take down next week. The company I'll be working for said they would get a crane. I met the crane company guy there so I could check the whole job out and he said no way! Apparently the road is too narrow to put the outriggers out fully, it was also too steep an incline and there were powerlines (fully insulated, brand new ) running along the hedge to the left, that were in his 10m safety zone!

This is why I'm fascinated by all the pics on this forum of you using cranes, buckets etc all the time, near lines aswell. We/I hardly ever get a job site suitable for a crane.

Anyway, the GRCS will get a workout and I'll get paid for more time. There's buildings underneath the tree to the right so it should all be fun.

I've had a go at shrinking the pic, cos I've had some complaints.
 

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That may have been reduced a bit too much, that was 25% of the original. I've tried it again at 50%. Let me know what is preferable and I'll try and stick to that in the future.
 

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It looks like there's plenty of room to set-up a 17 ton, to me!
 

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Yeah me too! But the incline is steeper than it looks in the pics and the power lines can't be dropped without 6 weeks notice and the highways dept. want the tree down next week.
Also the tree leans away to right so a 17 ton won't lift much at that reach. Any way the crane co said no so we'll carry on without it.
I'll post some pics of our progress.
 
Flop it in the road and let traffic wait while you clean it up. An hour maybe? /forum/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
That was my initial thought...but there appears to be a service wire running right thru the zone, im also guessing that the photo angle gives no justice to the actual work area. Probably way too tall and wide to just dump over /forum/images/graemlins/crazy.gif
Isnt that always the first option we always consider? /forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Ummmm! Thanks for the advice. Theres another line crossing the road just past the yew tree behind the beech. Also the tree leans away from, and to the right of, where the pic is taken. Its also a bit bigger then it looks.

The road will be fully closed tommorow so we can do what we like, except drop it.

There no rigging point over the road so most of it will go to the right under the remaining main leader. Theres some buildings there though.
 
heres another pic. I've not shrunk this one though. You can see the main service line to the left, but not the one that crosses the road.
 

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Is there anything on the other side of the road where you can rig a DWT? (double whip tackle) Ive done a similar job where we were able to drop a lot of brush and wood right smack in the middle of the road for quick chipping or hauling. I'm pretty sure we talked about DWT on Buzz board before so an archive search will assist those newer people. If not I can post diagrams and photos.

Dave
 
Just had a read through of the DWT thread and now my head hurts!

No, is the answer, just smaller sappling trees, unless I've missed something! We'll go through a few options tomorrow. Theres some space behind the tree further down the hill and slightly uphill too. Speed line might be possible. The buildings are just wooden sheds and I think we can move at least one of them. The owner of the land and sheds is not the owner of the tree (highways dept) so his co operation needs to be "encouraged!". My hands are a bit tied cos I'm just going in as a contract climber. The actual tree company are supposed to be sorting out all these details.

I'll turn up tomorrow and see whats what, but because we are not having a crane theres plenty of money on it to allow for some chin scratching and cups of tea!
 
Woke up to a howling wind and horizontal rain yesturday but went over to the job and the weather cleared up. Spent half the day clearing the already fallen limb and setting up rigging etc.
Only took one pic in the morning, but by the end of the day we had done quite a bit. There a loads of branches at the back that grow down and through the yew trees so we winched some up and just cut n chucked the rest.
I'll take a pic this morning before we start to show where we got to yesturday.
Still lots to do, but now we've cleard the way its starting to look a bit simpler.
 

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This is as far as we got on the first day. Taken from the other side of the tree(downhill side) We cleared out the stem over the road leaving an anchor point, but the were signs of an internal fracture along the near horizontal section so we had to take it easy. We Used the ancnor point to lift some stuff out of the yew trees then threw stuff by hand the other way.
 

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We then rigged out the top of the right hand stem into the drop zone we had made by moving some sheds. The we rigged out the left hand stem using the right hand anchor point, some twenty feet away and below. As you can see the right hand stem is where the large section came away in a storm so the strength of that stem was questionable but after clearing the top away I could feel that it was still strong enough.
I didn't go home after the second day (turns out theres a girl I know in that village) so I couldn't charge my camera, anyway its all down now and nothing broken. The poeple who live next to it videod the whole thing and are editing it today. Don't worry I'm not going to post that here aswell (its on tape not digitital anyway) Should be interesting viewing for all my friends though!!!
 

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Yeah its anchored a long way below. The Block is in the position I needed but I had a bad feeling about the branch at that point, not sure why. It worked ok for the other branches around that area but when I came to cut that branch off I made a proper under cut (wedge, or whatever you want to call it) then as soon as I touched the top with the saw the whole thing split away as you can see in the pic. The pulley still held but if it hadn't it was half hitched below my right foot and then timber hitched further down so no worries. The red block is just for the higher stuff that I definatly didn't want to drop onto that point.

Oh the sips are good, I've melted the front already while using a pole saw but apart from that there very comfy and light. They match the new tree magic harness also!!!! :)

Just seen the video. Boo! the tree looks real small! I'm sure it was bigger when I was up there. Also they stopped filming after the last bit of brush came off even though thats where the fun bit started.
 
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