Old school method
Without seeing your actual clearances it is difficult to direct you exactly, not knowing how much prior experience you have in trees in this situation. My experience has been to remove trees like you describe climbing the same for 22 years now. No bucket truck. Working only off the tree using the tree as a support to rig the same to the ground. Since you have a bucket or boom truck this makes it much easier and safer as you are more out of the way. You have to have some idea regarding potential stretch in your ropes that you utilize while lowering large pieces I have fell and lowered peices 18-24 inches dia. and as long as 12 foot to the ground just to salvage the wood in that length. There are a few rigging tricks; and miscalculations are to be avoided at all costs. In your case I would probably use a 3/4 inch dacron polyester bull rope and lower three to 5 foot sections of the tree. As it gets lower you might have to lower 24 -30 inch long sections. Knowing how to secure your ropes is the trick, and I assume at this point that you know your knots. This will require knowledge of knots that will hold under the stress of the jerk when these heavy pieces fall approx.3-6 feet depending on the slack and the stretch. Be sure your ground guys are on their toes ready to stablize to avoid springing back and hitting either your bucket, the house, or the wires. The momentum from these large pieces can be unbelievable. You will need one man holding the bull rope with it wrapped around another tree once or twice so as to gain enough friction to hold this much weight with sufficient ease. Hopefully he will already be savvy in how to manage bull ropes in this manner. If there isn't another tree available you must utilize the trunk of the tree you are cutting which is a little trickier. You will need at least one other man, two preferably, to hold guide ropes at proper angles so as to quickly stablize the chunk of wood when it falls. If there are no limbs available to serve as a crotch to lower from, then you are required to design one in deep at about an 80 degree angle measured from the horizontal. Care must be taken not to leave any sharp edges in this crotch, rounding the edges for the protection of the bull rope. This crotch should be at least 8-10 inckes deep to prevent the rope from possibly disengaging should the log bounce . In situatons like this it is exremely important that you have another man on a separate handline that is tied to the bull rope for the purpose of maintaining a slight amount of slack in the bull rope just before it falls. Keep this rope pulled taunt just below the bottom of the notch. Make flat cuts and on the larger sections use wedges to relieve your bar. When you have cut through then carefully push the section off the top. Be sure to give all your groundies the heads up. When this peice falls it should be immediately stablized and the further they can be from the tree will give greater leverage in this stabilization (long guide ropes). Once you understand this whole process it is actually easier than it was for me to type. It is however very detailed and you should understand it completely before you begin.
If your wires are electric service, cable or phone, sometimes you can use a rope to carefully pull and secure those lines over gaining 3-5 feet of working clearance . Dont overlook the fact that when the peice drops the stabilization ropes could be pulled into the wirelines and cause a problem. you must calculate for this and avoid at all cost.
Where there is a will, there is a way. And if you're the type of guy who is willing to center cut 65 feet of oak if necessary, I thing you will find this method much better.
Challenges like the one you describe are my cup of tea. Wish I was there to give you a hand. Cutting the old school way has been a good life. At 52 climbing is still a blast. Have fun and be careful especially with your knots. Hope this helps. :rockn:
