Stupid me...

[MJR]

When my family moved back to NY we bought a house that had 59 Hybrid Poplar trees and an old Ash. I have a very strong dislike for Hybrid Poplar and took them down over a course of a summer. The Ash tree should have came down but the family loved the rope swing. Then one night while I was enjoying some of KY’s finest lighting hit the Ash. I should have taken it down then but didn’t because of family politics. Then last fall I took a picture of a deer in front of the tree and rot could be seen very clearly. The picture haunted me all winter. Besides you couldn’t see the rot from our deck. If you can’t see it, it is not there right? Well I decide to take it down and the family was on board with this decision. The tree was not safe. The tree is about 9’ around, rotted, about 12’ from the house, with a huge limb over hanging the roof. I was worried about the tree spitting and the limb hitting the house. I secured the limb with a logging chain to the main trunk. I placed two commercial ratchet tie downs on the main trunk, one about 10’ and the other about 4’. About 30’ up the tree I placed a logging chain and a ¾” rope and hooked them to the tractor. I checked the trunk with the metal detector and waited for the wind to stop. Then finally a week later, on my wife’s birthday, the weather was perfect. My wife and kids were at the beach and the neighbors were at work – perfect. My friend jumped on the tractor. I put in a good wedge and started to walk the saw around the tree. The tree started to go over and then it happened. The tree lifted about an inch on the cut then started to come back. Mind you, this is where my house is. The tree made a small jerk and balanced on the stump. I gave it everything the Husky had and the tree went down. The big branch I was worried about landed about two feet from the deck and some small branches hit the deck with no damage. Come to find out the logging chain broke. The weight of the tree snapped the back-up rope but slowed the tree down enough to stop it from coming over. Nothing but dumb luck, I should have limbed the tree. Man, I feel stupid…

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[Sprig]

Man you are sooooooo lucky, glad the outcome was okay! In retrospect this is what happens when people depend on chains that are too small, they just do not take shock loads in something that size (next time maybe 2" welded link choker chain eh! ).
Btw, I don't think I'd trust that chain again except for very light duty, probably stressed out and you won't know till used again!

Great pics and thanks for sharing this tale with us, hopefully it will get people thinking ahead before attempting similar projects.



Serge

 

[MJR]

Pride told me not to post this, but I was hoping it would get some people thinking. No one wants to admit they screwed something up they feel confident at. All but the two lengths of new chain went into the metal reclaim dumpster. Luck will never be a replacement for skill.

 

[olyman]

mjr--speaking of bad chains--been to diff auctions--and some people!!!!--ive looked at chains--and you could see the links were stretched--and they paid good money for those chains--same thing will happen to those chains--that happened to you----