Pine tree drop gone horribly wrong

[3fordasho]

Part time tree guy was in the neighborhood to drop 4 medium size pine trees. The first three went ok but I wasn't around to see how he dropped them. For the fourth and largest I was there to witness the whole debacle. Tree guy brings one of the tow behind lifts and proceeds to take off all the branches up to about 30', the highest the bucket will go, then ties a strap at that height.
Then pulls his truck around back and connects to the strap. He then proceeds to cut a notch, and spends a whole lot of time doing it, I wait for the back cut but he never cuts one. Then goes to his truck and proceeds to pull it over, after a large SNAP here is the carnage:

The tree was supposed to land on the decorative windmill, can you tell what it nailed the middle of?
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The stump tells all:

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Busted water fountain, it also took out a trellis but was cleaned up by the time I got back for pics.
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Why the tree guy didn't ask for the trailer to be moved I'll never know:
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The tree guys regular job? insurance adjuster... I hope his was paid up

 

[atvguns]

Now you know why he is part time cause he would starve to death doing it full time.

 

[3fordasho]

I actually felt really bad for the guy, he's nice enough and the property owner (nutcase older lady) was really riding his a** on this job. That and he dropped and cleaned up all four of those trees on about 2 1/2hrs sleep- not because he was partying, he had leg cramps that kept him up. I watch him on the last tree because I thought I might learn something, turns out I know quite a bit more than him. His main saw is an MS362 so we talked a little about that, he mentioned that he had a 36" bar for a 362??

 

[rwoods]

"The tree was supposed to land on the decorative windmill..." Was he supposed to take it out as well???? Poor guy trying to supplement his income - looks like he needs some hands on training and a good slap on the head. Ron

 

[ShaneLogs]

Wow! At least it didn't go even worse then that!

 

[3fordasho]

"The tree was supposed to land on the decorative windmill..." Was he supposed to take it out as well???? Poor guy trying to supplement his income - looks like he needs some hands on training and a good slap on the head. Ron

No, it was moved for the drop. By the time I got back to snap pics he had put it back.

 

[k5alive]

speechless.

 

[3fordasho]

Wow! At least it didn't go even worse then that!

You got that right. A few of the branches were touching the corner of the garage, no damage though. The trailer was only a couple months old. The tree guy just bought himself a $4000 trailer with little roof damage:msp_rolleyes:

 

[Dan_IN_MN]

Why the tree guy didn't ask for the trailer to be moved I'll never know:

I actually felt really bad for the guy, he's nice enough and the property owner (nutcase older lady) was really riding his a** on this job. That and he dropped and cleaned up all four of those trees on about 2 1/2hrs sleep- not because he was partying, he had leg cramps that kept him up. I watch him on the last tree because I thought I might learn something, turns out I know quite a bit more than him. His main saw is an MS362 so we talked a little about that, he mentioned that he had a 36" bar for a 362??

.

 

[pickwood]

Back in the early 80s-a neighbor called me to do do some roof repair on their 5 year old house.
I went over there and saw a 24" oak tree cut up into firewood. The roof had a nice 8 ft hole in it and 8-9 2x10 rafters were broken and the ridge had a 2 ft sag in it. They had hired a part time /no insurance tree guys and they dropped the tree on the house- no rope- tree just went the wrong way- the HO heard / felt the tree hit the house and looked around the corner and the guys were leaving the area real fast-never to be seen again. They ended up hiring a real tree co on double time(it was on a Sat) to remove and clean up the tree. Fortuanately, their insurance covered the damage.

 

[rwoods]

From the first picture it looks like the tree went exactly where he aimed it with his face cut. Maybe you should direct him to AS --- or maybe not. Ron

 

[J1m]

Did you ask the guy why he didn't bother to make a back cut? Like rwoods said, the face cut is facing the trailer!!

 

[fields_mj]

Did you ask the guy why he didn't bother to make a back cut? Like rwoods said, the face cut is facing the trailer!!

+1 That's the first thing I noticed. The tree went exactly where he aimed it. Not like the wind blew it, or it shifted/rolled, or it got caught on something. While I feel bad for the guy, I don't feel sorry for him. He got paid to do a job, and from the looks of it, he wasn't qualified for the job. Then again, maybe the 2 1/2 hrs of sleep had something to do with it. Personally, I would have "slept in" a little longer and showed up late, or rescheduled if the HO wanted. Better that than get hurt.

 

[RandyMac]

Lack of proper mindset, if he was on his game, there wouldn't be that mess.

I have had my marginal days, I had the self knowledge to pull myself out of the game.

 

[Preston]

As foolish as I use to cut I never did anything like that. The only thing I ever killed was one of my saws. :msp_smile:

 

[CS User]

I have a (dumb) question

The tree was supposed to land on the decorative windmill, can you tell what it nailed the middle of?
<a href="http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/?action=view&amp;current=DSC03302-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/DSC03302-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

The stump tells all:

<a href="http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/?action=view&amp;current=DSC03303.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/DSC03303.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>



First, I'm not a tree guy and I'm smart enough not to pretend to be one.

I see how the face cut aimed the tree towards the trailer. I also notice the face cut slopes to the side; is that part of the problem? If the face cut is not horizontal, perpendicular to the desired line of fall, the hinge will not be horizontal and the tree will fall towards whichever side the hinge/face cut slopes. Is this correct, or am I all wet? I do realized that both wedge cuts can slope in the direction of fall.

 

[fields_mj]

The stump tells all:

<a href="http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/?action=view&amp;current=DSC03303.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d75/3fordasho/DSC03303.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

QUOTE]

Boy, the more I look at that stump, the more obvious the series of events becomes. Looks like he started off with is notch WAY off, pointing pretty much at the house. Or maybe he thought his bar was a little too short for that tree, and was trying to take the notch in 2 pcs. Either way, he then went around to the other side and tried to straighten the notch out some, but was a little shy about correcting it all the way because it would have made the notch way too big. Then, he came back around and made the bottome of his notch a little deeper trying to some how compensate by burying the noze of his bar, but still not getting it far enough around to get the hinge in the right direction. By that point, he had cut so far that he was afraid to make a back cut. On top of that, it looks like the tree had some lean to it to begine with, so he was probably afraid to make any more cuts period and decided to see if he could just pull it over and "muscle" it over to where he wanted it. Of course all of this is just a guess on my part, but I can see it happening on very little sleep.

 

[imagineero]

There's no need to read too much into this one, nothing to do with lack of sleep or leg cramps. The guy just plain and simple had no idea what he was doing. I am a certified and insured full time tree worker, but I've gone out to contract climb for other tree companies and been asked in all seriousness "do you cut the wedge thing on the front or the back?". When I hear a question like that, I pack my gear up and leave.

That there is a basic fall. Simple face cut, simple back cut. I turn up to work fit for work which means rested, in good health and sober... but competent tree guys could probably make that fall half asleep and completely drunk. In Randymac's case, he probably has.

I'd say put the guy through the ringer.

Shaun

 

[Gologit]

There's no need to read too much into this one, nothing to do with lack of sleep or leg cramps. The guy just plain and simple had no idea what he was doing.

Shaun

Exactly.

 

[fiasco]

Regardless of (lack of) competency in tree felling, why was the trailer left there? You got something that rolls or can get moved by one or two people in the "oh sheet" zone, it gets rolled waaaaaaaaay out of the reach of anything James the Narcoleptic Tree Cutter could possibly do.

But yeah, I'm looking at that stump and see a notch about four times as deep as it should be pointed at the trailer and no back cut. But I wasn't there, and I can't say a damn thing about making trees fall in the correct direction.