A bad day with large crane, larger wood, and a house.

[ROOTSXROCKS]

Ive picked up pieces as big as the one out on the street with a lift bucket
But I had it tied off to buffer the shock load. them are some serious heavy pieces, even the little chunk I still have from that tree weighs near 300 lbs and its about 3 cubic feet

 

[superfire]

know with the other picts

looks like there is three people to blame.site foreman, crane operator, cutter in tree. the person who is the one responsible for the screw up is the tree company on site foreman. the on site foreman should have made the crew drop the tree on one day then come back another day to remove the wood. me if i bid a job i would ask the property owner if they want the wood. the thing i am curious about is what was the cutter doing cutting a huge oddly weighted section this big for the piece is L shaped and that seems to me what threw the load askew enough to tip the crane.

 

[a_lopa]

Previously registered member here by the handle Masterblaster was the climber involved i was told by a reputable source.

Hope he has insurance.

 

[Nosmo]

No Injuries

I am not going to put the blame on anyone because I wasn't there. What I am thankful about is that no one was in the house and as far as I know none of the workers was injured.

Nosmo

 

[Cambium]

I guess the oak tree was the only one laughing that day. Wow. Did you see the size of one of the pieces of Oak?

 

[ROOTSXROCKS]

I am not going to put the blame on anyone because I wasn't there. What I am thankful about is that no one was in the house and as far as I know none of the workers was injured.

Nosmo

Thats fair enough, however that 1.5 ton 14'X24" piece of crooked oak tells the story, the climber was tired and ready to go home, over confident in the crane and thought he would save a trip over the house so he could be done with it five minutes sooner.

 

[1harlowr]

The crane op has the final say on anything that crane is asked to do. Job foreman or the cutter isn't the one that is in control of what the crane can/will/should do. My BIL is a crane operator. When he's on site, his butt is responsible for anything that happens with the crane. He has shut down a job lots of time when the foreman wants soemthing done that the crane shouldn't do. I have no idea what happened in those pictures. All I know is the crane operator is in serious doo doo

 

[ropensaddle]

The crane op has the final say on anything that crane is asked to do. Job foreman or the cutter isn't the one that is in control of what the crane can/will/should do. My BIL is a crane operator. When he's on site, his butt is responsible for anything that happens with the crane. He has shut down a job lots of time when the foreman wants soemthing done that the crane shouldn't do. I have no idea what happened in those pictures. All I know is the crane operator is in serious doo doo

That goes both ways with me. I am the owner foreperson, I bid the job, talked with the home owner etc. If the crane op wants me to take it out too big, I will shut him down, because I pay him. I would prefer an operator owner because, he will want to be careful. Lets face it, one or the other or both failed here to have this result. I would again, not even needed, used a crane on that job. If I did for some un necessary reason use a crane, I would have felled that log ,cut into pieces for the op to hoist out. Or cut in smaller sections that once out to street, I could then load with my grapple. I can tell you my grapple truck is a good judge of weight. That log is very heavy, I could budge it but it would likely need cut into 8 foot sections to load. Likely the crane could of handled that size; as well.

 

[ROOTSXROCKS]

I think it is an opportunity for us all to learn, IMHO it was the momentum more than the weight. I could have been smaller or just dropped to the ground first as noted.

I could see trying to save long chunks for milling, but even then that peice was not very straight and pretty oddly shaped.

I still feel the crane operator was less at fault, lest he walk back there and review every tie on and approve each cut. and I just don't see that as expected.

I'd bet it goes to a jury when the insurance companies start to decide liability.

wonder who the homeowner thinks is at fault?

I wonder what made the arborist give the tree a poor health rating and convince the homeowners it was an unsafe tree.

none of the cuts I saw had bad wood in them and the tree was leaved out real pretty, Im thinking some weight taken out of it and perhaps cabling it would have outlasted that house. perhaps another 50 to a 100 years.

personally I would have taken the risk it might fall in order to keep such a big pretty tree as an asset to the property. It looks like it was saved during construction.

Tree guy could have sold a thinning and cabling job and made a decent profit, but he evidently convinced them it was unsafe.
Perhaps it was but I'm not convinced by the photos.

here were I live you would not have been able to pull a permit to cut it without some damn good reasoning and mediation afterward.

 

[1harlowr]

Glad I don't live where I have to get some goverment approval to cut my tree. :yoyo:

 

[ROOTSXROCKS]

Glad I don't live where I have to get some goverment approval to cut my tree. :yoyo:

I understand compleatly, however here I just don't think it is stringent enough here, if we didn't have these codes there would be a lot of nice trees cut by Idiot snowbirds in the name of Hurricane hysteria. the canopy across whole neighborhoods makes a significant difference to the summer micro climate and frost protection with our mild winters.

 

[superfire]

more info

you know what i am getting is a tree company rushed to finish the job and Murphy bit them in the arse. that big of tree needs to be a two day job for safety. it is well known fact most industrial accidents happen after 2:00 pm when the crews are the most tired. i am wondering if the owners of the tree called more then one tree company for a price or had the tree company that claimed the tree was dangerous do the work. i wonder if the homeowners insurance ever checked out the property for possible liability issues. in my area insurance company's come to property's to check for hazards on the property they insure.

:help:

 

[HOGBEAR]

Holy:censored: