Removing a dead hardwood spar...

[Blinky]

I have 3 dead spars, 2 oak, 1 hickory, all about 13"dbh... they are very dead... no safe way to climb them, no good climbing trees close enough to lower from.

If they were live I'm fairly sure I could drop them where I want them with wedges but I'm thinking that won't work with dead wood. I have to miss a house which should be easy enough except one of them leans toward it slightly.

I can probably get a rope on them about two thirds of the way up.

I've never felled dead trees against a lean before. Any suggestions on how I should approach these guys?

Chip

 

[l2edneck]

Lift

 

[l2edneck]

Lift......

Price for a lift or walk away...........

 

[Doctor Dave]

I have 3 dead spars, 2 oak, 1 hickory, all about 13"dbh... they are very dead... no safe way to climb them, no good climbing trees close enough to lower from.

If they were live I'm fairly sure I could drop them where I want them with wedges but I'm thinking that won't work with dead wood. I have to miss a house which should be easy enough except one of them leans toward it slightly.

I can probably get a rope on them about two thirds of the way up.

I've never felled dead trees against a lean before. Any suggestions on how I should approach these guys?

Chip

First off, make sure that the wood is sound where you are going to cut. I would check the root crown too. Throw a line in them, and cinch it up with a running bowline. Then, if the wood is reasonably sound, just face it and cut it. I wouldn't pull too hard, just enough to get it going in the right direction.

I don't want to brag, but I got a 16 in. by 35 ft. pine stub (from a take-down) to go over 90 degrees away from it's natural lean. It was live and sound, but the principle is the same. Take a small face, leave plenty of holding wood, and pound in two small wedges (doubled). That will probably do it. In my case, I also cut out the center, and left a chunk of holding wood three times thicker on the upside of the lean.

 

[Ryan Willock]

I have delt with a lot of trees like that over the years and depending on how dead they are I am normally able to rope them over. Just remember that the deader a tree the less flexable the wood fiber for the hinge.

 

[Blinky]

An update...

... Just remember that the deader a tree the less flexable the wood fiber for the hinge.

Yep, you could definitely say that!

I took these down today and the one incident was with one that had a thoroughly rotted root crown. I came up to waist height to face it and after backcutting and wedging (I left about a fifth diameter of hinge) I trotted downrange to haul it down... It didn't come right down. Fortunately I had the bull rope setup on a z-haul because I really had to crank on it. The hinge never gave but the roots finally did... I pretty much could've dispensed with the saw and just pulled it down. There were mushrooms growing out of the base just under the surface.

Turns out these trees are in a low area with two septic fields next to and on slightly higher ground. The roots were completely rotted by water and septic effluent.

Thanks for your help Doc and Ryan. Red, I appreciate it but the customer is on a fixed income and a lift was never an option... it woulda sunk in that muck anyway.

I've got another much bigger spar to remove this weekend... it's solid enough to take down in chunks though.

Thanks again.
Chip

 

[Kneejerk Bombas]

Blinky, you brought up a great topic, tensioning and pulling over a dead tree. Dave and Ryan danced around the real issue, while Redneck just looked up and wondered what was going past (over his head).
A dead tree quickly becomes weak at the base. Depending on the tree, it might take two, three, four, maybe more years.
Once the bark is loose, the tree is weakly attached at the base.
A rope set high, and about 500 pounds of pull, should break it free from the roots. Which way it falls, once it cracks free, is dependant on the lean.
I've seen posts here, where idiots climb trees like this, without a clue what might happen. So is tree work in the US.

 

[Doctor Dave]

Blinky, you brought up a great topic, tensioning and pulling over a dead tree. Dave and Ryan danced around the real issue, while Redneck just looked up and wondered what was going past (over his head).
A dead tree quickly becomes weak at the base. Depending on the tree, it might take two, three, four, maybe more years.
Once the bark is loose, the tree is weakly attached at the base.
A rope set high, and about 500 pounds of pull, should break it free from the roots. Which way it falls, once it cracks free, is dependant on the lean.
I've seen posts here, where idiots climb trees like this, without a clue what might happen. So is tree work in the US.

I did a take-down on a 100 ft. dead grand-fir a week ago. I knew that it was killed last year due to bark beetles. It was solid as a rock, and I also uncovered the prop roots with a shovel and whacked on them. I didn't climb below 6 in. diam. and topped it there (there were drying cracks through the bark and into the wood at that point, too). I didn't feel as a safe as being in a big live tree, but I was in my comfort zone. I guess the key thing is to really think about what you are doing.

 

[old timer]

comfort zone

i am great beliver in instict " if it does not feel or look right walk away and take ten " return and rethink the job,bet it looks diffrent this time this is my comfort zone yours old timer

 

[Blinky]

i am great beliver in instict " if it does not feel or look right walk away and take ten " return and rethink the job,bet it looks diffrent this time this is my comfort zone yours old timer

It's interesting you should mention that here. I can't remember which thread but the best piece of advice I've gotten from this forum was to take a few minutes and review everything before commiting to the climb or the cut or whatever. On this very tree I had it rigged and ready and decided to look at everything again from a few angles. If I hadn't done that, I would've dropped that tree very close to, if not on top of a concrete septic tank head. I moved the bull rope to a different anchor about 15 degrees away. I was thanking the arboristsite.com community while I moved it.

 

[Doctor Dave]

Blinky, you brought up a great topic, tensioning and pulling over a dead tree. Dave and Ryan danced around the real issue, while Redneck just looked up and wondered what was going past (over his head).
A dead tree quickly becomes weak at the base. Depending on the tree, it might take two, three, four, maybe more years.
Once the bark is loose, the tree is weakly attached at the base.
A rope set high, and about 500 pounds of pull, should break it free from the roots. Which way it falls, once it cracks free, is dependant on the lean.
I've seen posts here, where idiots climb trees like this, without a clue what might happen. So is tree work in the US.

I climbed a tall dead grand fir recently, and wrote about it here. I did make sure that it was sound first: I checked the root crown and prop roots (excavated), and the stem was quite hard all the way up. I doubled my flip line onthe skinny, relatively smooth trunk and reallly had to kick my spurs in hard; I kicked out once with one leg but felt quite secure. I topped it at 6 in. and chunked it.

Sound safe? I believe that it was. I also knew the time of death (one year earlier by a bark beetle). I was worried abouta root or butt rot; I've seen it before in grand fir; I had someone call me about removing a much bigger one leaning over a cabin, but the sapwood was already punky. I said no, and it fell on the cabin before anyone else took it down (they could have rigged it from an adjacent Doug-fir, or rented a crane). The prop roots of that tree had basically melted away due to rot.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

I said no, and it fell on the cabin before anyone else took it down

When you tell a client no, do you tell them why? Do you advise them on how it should be or could be done?

Have you ever had someone come back to you and blame you for the damage, becuse you refused to take the tree down?

Just curious - I'm not a tree guy.

 

[Doctor Dave]

When you tell a client no, do you tell them why? Do you advise them on how it should be or could be done?

Have you ever had someone come back to you and blame you for the damage, becuse you refused to take the tree down?

Just curious - I'm not a tree guy.

Yes, Yes, and No. I said that she should contact a local logger who might put a cable on it from a skidder and fell it while pulling it over, or that she should get a tree service to piece it down. She apparently contacted the logger, but he had better things to do. I don't think that the tree service ever came out.

Too bad I hadn't gotten to know the tree guy I know now at the time; he would have gotten it done. I refer jobs to him that require a crew. Around 2-3 months went by between the time she first called me to when it fell. At the time, I speculated that the tree could kill a climber on the first big drop because it looked like it had been dead for 3-5 years, a long time for a decay-prone species like grand fir. I stayed away for that reason and the fact that I don't have a ground man. The tree would have to have been removed by rigging a healthy fir nearby to lower the trunk in pieces (It was around 24 in. by 110 ft. tall, and leaning over the cabin on uneven ground). After it fell, you could see that the prop roots were mush. :jawdrop:

 

[TheTreeSpyder]

i think we should make a distinction between dead(or froze)-lost hinge elasticity; and decayed-loss of elasticity and firmness. Wedging also needs firmness for it's push/lift.

Even without elasticity you can still use the push phase of hinging; but not with loss of firmness/ rotted.

Mike makes a good point; must consider whole tree including anchoring. And the more you force the hinge stronger/ the more that depends on the anchoring. We've even seen where water pipes break underground on the back side of a fall when forcing a hinge hard in a healthy tree, and the roots shift underground while wrapped around pipes etc.

All ways look overhead; especially on dead stuff, fer widowmakers to become dislodged. There is a story about one fella getting killed from a widow maker while wearing a helmet. The branch came down behind his helmet catching him across neck/shoulders and messing up spine. So, if suspect i walk away or roll a towel up and place across back of neck for a lil'extra assurance.

i have, in times of younger/dumber increased anchoring to ground with guy line system; then 'lightly' climbed. Preferably Tip'd to another support; once this was a bill board; a few times with no over head support it was to 2 trees by separate lifelines. No rigging off them trees unless to another tree/ other support. Also, would make wide faces then race thru back cut so they couldn't really close or pitch very far on hinge etc.; all so there are no real added forces on questionable tree.