Todays morning job

I'll venture the guess that it's not a matter of economy so much as one of maintaining traffic flow during the project. On a bridge as small as that one there's really no way to do just half at a time. I'll bet they're going to widen it a bit in the process. Dang, though, it don't look too bad from here...

Glen
 
Here's a job I did a couple of weeks ago. It was to remove a dead oak that is on the town's property and leaning over a pool area of a house. It stands along a reservoir. The homeowners were very eager to have it removed. The town finally agreed to have the work done.

This is the look from their driveway.
 

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This shows the top. After looking at this angle and seeing the hollow as well as the dead, I decided that felling was the only choice. Climbing it would've meant roping it down on itself. Anyone feel that it was the wrong choice?

The big crotch (Y) was about 80' up. I installed a 5/8" line in that Y with the throwline. Then ran it towards the water where we redirected it to another anchor. We used the grcs to apply tension.
 

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And the after-look from the driveway.

The homeowners watched from their deck. I told them before we started that there was a good chance that the fence could be damage by a lead breaking out of the top when it hit the beech limb. Luckily it went with the top and didn't shoot back. They understood why I didn't want to climb it and were okay with the possible damage. They were terrified that the whole top would break out in a storm and hit the house or pool. They were so happy that it went the way it did, they tipped us.

I was very glad to see the hinge hold as well as it did. Side lean and dead fiber makes me wonder if it will hold long enough. It was another learning experience.
 

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Well, the reason I asked was really because of how solid the trunk was. I was amazed at the density and green fiber considering the amount of tip loss in the top. It was a good feeling when I saw the hinge working. /forum/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
What's up with the bit of holding wood near the back of the back cut....did you bore cut it, and if so how come.
 
The tree leaning away from the fell wasn't enough of a challenge. They wanted more difficulty in toppling the tree so they left some uncut fiber in the back cut.

But seriously, if they did use a wedge, it appears as though it would have been placed just to the left of the step, and the second part of the back cut was made slightly higher there to bypass the wedge, but the cut wasn't quite made deep enough at the one spot and nobody caught it. Must have really increased the effort to get the tree committed to the face and undoubtedly magnified the danger.

I wonder why a more symmetrical notch wasn't formed. It would drastically ease the task by reducing the amount of rip-cutting, if not merely reducing the amount of cutting required to form the notch.

Nice firewood, Mark!

Glen
 
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What's up with the bit of holding wood near the back of the back cut....did you bore cut it, and if so how come.

[/ QUOTE ]

I did plunge it. I wanted to put two wedges into the underside and then finish the strap. That holding wood was just a bit of tension fiber that I never got through before it started to shift.

The other reason for the plunge cut was because of diameter. I would have had to start on one sidfe and walk around to finish. I find it much more difficult to stay accurate doing that. I'd much rather plunge.
 
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I wonder why a more symmetrical notch wasn't formed. It would drastically ease the task by reducing the amount of rip-cutting, if not merely reducing the amount of cutting required to form the notch.


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I'm not sure I follow Glen? What do you mean by more symmetrical?
 
Thanks Norm.

Truth is those pics don't really do it justice. One guy video taped the felling and you can really see how dead it was. Plus you get to see large leads folding apart when it was on the way down.

If there was another tree near by that was tall enough to rope into, I might have gone that route. But since it was 20' taller than the others trees on that side of the fence, I decided that it wasn't a safe choice and the possibilty of damaging the fence wasn't enough to cause me to climb it. I would've had to get real creative and it was getting close to 3:00 when we arrived.
 
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