I Screwed Up - Felled tree, hit house

[davefr]

OK guys. I need to fess up. I've felled trees off and on for many years on my property with a good success rate. This time there was a 50' Noble Fir within about 20' of my house.

I screwed up my back cut by going too far into the North blind corner to where I only had half a hinge left. House is due South and I was aiming for the lay to be due East.

I pounded my wedges in without thoroughly inspecting the backcut width and it turns out I was encouraging the North side to lift with the only hinge wood being the South side of the hinge facing the house. Now it's obvious why the tree hit the house since that's where the only hinge wood was left. I got cocky because it was such an easy fell and I wanted to get it done quickly. No obvious leaning, perfect lay area, no wind or hung up branches.

Fortunately damage was minimal but it's not exactly natural or safe to buck a tree that's at a 45 degree angle laying on a house.

You only get one chance to make a good felling cut and I got in a hurry. It could have been so much worse.

Next time anything close to a structure gets rigged with lines just to be on the safe side. From now on my felling cuts will proceed very slowly with checks, measurements and double checks made along the way to ensure they're going as planned. (especially when I'm doing the backcut).
I might even pre-mark my felling cuts with a lumber crayon as a sanity check.

 

[Mitchell]

war stories

Just in the last couple years around hear... A friends friend who did not like the prices being quoted had a Davey tree guy in his spare time fall some trees for them. He not only put the tree on the house and car but probably would have included the home owner if she had not moved of her own volition.

I messed up in the bush enough to know anything can happen even without cutting the holding wood off. I watched a long time coastal faller friend, but for the grace of god, damn near destroy the major road and power lines to a section of my city. It was a 160+ fir 4 - 5'dbh with a big sweep 50' uphill of the road. It looked to him [and me] the tree had compensated for its pronounced lower sweep higher up. Unknown to us, it was rotten in the middle. PLan was to fell 90 degrees from the sweep [the sweep pointed to the road below]

That tree sat down on its low side hing wood closing the cut well there was still apx 18" of uncut holding wood on the up hill side; I screemed and waved my arms in a panic for him to stop walking the back cut around as the tree was big enough he did not realize what had happened on the low side. The back cut opened 3 inches on the uphill side with the loudest cracking and snapping sounds of my career. We pounded wedges like fools on the low side, fairly futile effort on a tree that big but it was all we could do.

10 looooong minutes later [and an interesting evolution of comments from "this is bad" to "were fricked," and finally " I'm glad your insured," WHAT, I had come by as a favour!] it fell splitting the difference between gravities felling direction and ours. It knocked 2 100' foot cedars over unto the road but they did no damage and we had them cleaned off in minutes; nothing to see here move along.
Since that day a few years ago I climb or big shot ropes into trees unless the lean is obvious to even a layman.

 

[daemon2525]

[and an interesting evolution of comments from "this is bad" to "were fricked," ]

LOL!!!! That line struck me funny!! Laughing out loud at work!!!
Been there, Done that.