Shoddy Tree Work

[treeman82]

Fellas. Today I was driving back to a job and saw something that really intriuged me. I have seen this several times in the general area. Somebody goes and "prunes" a big old maple tree with co-dominant stems. They completely remove the crown from one of the stems. They get probably a good chunk of wood out from that stem and then come down. When they leave for the day (I would assume?) there is a pile of brush and wood stacked at the base of the tree or around there. There is also a BIG (10 - 15 foot long) maybe 2' diameter stub where they removed all the branches. The stem is usually going up over a house or driveway or something. I would think pruning / cabling would be a much better solution, but whatever.
I see at other places around the same area removal problems. People get trees removed, but (depending on diameter) the trunks get left standing anywhere from 5 feet off the ground all the way up to 20 - 25 feet in height. No branches or anything like that, just devoid sticks.

What is goin on with this? I drive around and say to myself, "what the ?????"

 

[Jumper]

There is a tree , or what is left of it, en route to the first place I worked. Looks like it was a very large ash with a five stemmed series of trucks. Well someone obviously took a lot of time and effort to remove all the foliage, from 20 feet upwards, but left these five stupid looking stems, none of which is less than 15 inches in diameter. Dunno if they thought they might grow back??? This is really ugly, out front og a half million buck waterfront home.

 

[Toddppm]

Just reminded me of a guy down the street that had a White Pine with maybe 4 trunks 20" diameter each. I don't know if he was the one who cut them or not but they were topped off at about 35 ft. high and stayed that way for about 2 yrs.?? I guess he was waiting for them to bush back out, he finally took em down earlier this yr.

 

[kf_tree]

it wasn't me , i never cut in westchester.

 

[treeclimber165]

one possible reason?

When I worked for a local city forestry division, we maintained about 20,000 trees in the city, mostly old laurel oaks. Trees slated for removal would be stripped out during the regular pruning schedule, leaving all the big wood standing. Every Friday, a removal crew would hit the list of stripped out trees using a bucket truck, dump truck and our 18 ton crane truck with 60' of stick (some of you call it a boom truck). All the big wood would go from the tree to the dump truck without touching the ground. This also freed up other men/equipment to stay on the pruning. No need for a chipper truck and crew to load wood.
Sometimes they would get behind on the removal list and the 'stubs' would stay standing for 3 weeks or more. Some residents or stooopid tree companies would 'trim' private trees in the same manner because they saw the city doing it!


Another possibbility is that they didn't have a big enough/sharp enough saw for cutting 15" wood and didn't know how to use a file!

 

[kf_tree]

i think it changed now, but in parts of new jersey when removing a side walk tree you either had to do the stump on the spot or leave the stick 5 foot high so its not a trip hazzard. no flush cuts if you were not grinding the stump.

 

[Treeman14]

Some people simply cannot afford to have a large tree completely removed. I've done several jobs where we left a large trunk standing just to save them a few hundred bucks.

On the other hand, I've also had people tell me they want to cut the tree down themselves, and how much would I charge to clean it up. I try to politely tell them it would be cheaper if I cut it AND cleaned up.

 

[rahtreelimbs]

Shoddy tree work!!!

A few years ago someone was doing similar things to maple trees, topping and downright butchery. I saw this on at least six occasions. Still the best was a home owner trying to prune a tree with a circular saw. Rich.

 

[treeman82]

Brian, it's not like these stubs have been sittin there for a week or two or three. We are talkin more along the lines of months / years here. No less than 6 months. It looks really dumb.

 

[Jumper]

The sticks I am talking about have been there since at least last October. These people do not lack money-they just lack the apparent ability to spend it to finish the job, or pure laziness???

 

[murphy4trees]

I actually took the top out of a 95% dead ash today, leaving the stick at about 35-40'. It stood within 10' of an oak and maple on either side. All three trunks were coverred with ivy. Customer said up front they liked the look of the trunk and wanted to leave it.
Missing top is almost completely hiden from ground view by adjacent trees.
Looks good and I understand leaving some snags is good for habitat.
And that is very unusual to do around here.
God Bless All,
Daniel