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rbtree

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Better later than never:

Thanks to Andy, we were called to remove 80 feet of a hemlock which failed onto a multi-million dollar home, from the snow load.

This is at Lake Tuck, near Duvall, where there was 2 feet of snow on the ground or more, from 6 different snow events.

The roads are barely passable, even with 4wd, even after their private gated community has been plowed twice. So, a crane was out of the question.

We arrived late today. Mike Oxman climbed the snag, set a block, and cut off a couple pieces. The line was fixed to a porta wrap. I had set a line in a well positioned cedar. Mike jugged up it, and set another block, which was set to be retrievable from the ground. Our static line was rigged, and I tied it to the 25 foot portion of the tree overhanging the deck. We tensioned it with each rope, and I cut it free. They lowered it down neatly.
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I had accessed the roof via a 32 foot ladder, tossed my lifeline over to the tree and pulled myself to it, via a 45 degree steep section of roof. Then, I'd gone across the main roof and tied a mid line to the tree, and thrown it to the ground opposite the side we'd be attempting to lift the tree. It was tied back to keep the tree from swinging sideways too fast when we lifted it.

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Mike had been concerned that the tree on the roof might move a bit, so he had tossed my another line to tie past where we cut the overhanging section off. He'd run it around the cedar at 30 feet. Turns out the tree stayed put, so we pulled that out and retied it closer to the top, and tossed it over the roof on the same side as we'd be lifting, in case we needed to help the tree swing clear of the house. I got the static line back and tied it 25 feet from the tip, and tied the butt line back to the 30 foot snag. Then I came down, and we tried to lift the entire remaining 45-50 feet off. No luck, the line angles were too extreme, and the tree is weighted down with the snow on it, plus a branch or two could be stuck in the roof.

So, we'll go back tomorrow. There's a perfectly placed hemlock which we'll set a block in and another static line, attach that line to the tip, and remove the first static line and tie it to the butt, where it will be well placed to lift the butt up. We'll get rid of the line and block at 30 feet in the snag. We'll attach the Hobbs lifting/lowering device to the hemlock so we can lift each line in unison. The back line will still allow us to control the sideways movement. It should hang clear of the roof and be able to be neatly lowered to the ground.

It may be raining tomorrow, but I hope to be able to be up the snag, taking pics and video of the operation. I'll get Andy to replace me while I'm filming.
 
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And the helmet stays on! Nice action shots of some great one handed thugging. It looked like the big guy was playing with it and having a good time. He must have that hat screwed down real tight though.:)
The Dan abides... dude. It looked like in the first pic the white line went to a dead branch but that don't make sense. I think I could see the pulley for the butt line? It looked like if somebody was ####ing around Ox would have eaten it though he looked good to go hanging out on 2 lines ready to move. Did he have spikes?

We just did a simular thing the other day but with less than desirable results. The hard part was the rigging ( I should say time consuming cause it don't have to be that hard) but once you start cutting it goes pretty quick. I will post The Dan's new tragedy , it sucks for somebody but not so much for me.
Good job dude.
 
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Yup.....I hesitate to call the ANSI rulemakers idiots as they are not, but there is absolutely no way that those cuts can be made with two hands on the saw...nor is there ANY reason to do so. Period.
 
Yup.....I hesitate to call the ANSI rulemakers idiots as they are not, but there is absolutely no way that those cuts can be made with two hands on the saw...nor is there ANY reason to do so. Period.

C'mon, Mikey could have hung upside down!

Good work for a bunch of old farts!
 
OK, so, as I said we'd do, Mike climbed the hemlock and set a block. I'd thrown a line in at 60 feet, from the roof, and Mike set the block, through a retrievable. But I felt it wasn't high enough to give us a good line angle, so asked Mike to climb up and set the rigging higher, which he did.
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Meanwhile, I'd been on the roof, removing much of the branches, and making sure there were no stubs under the trunk. Threw them off, and tossed a second line to the ground, opposite the side we'd be lifting.
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Eric and Mike moved the GRCS to the live hemlock, and I cut in the hobbs to the snag. Then I climbed the snag, shot pics and filmed, while directing Andy and the homeowner to hold tension on the back lines while Eric cranked the butt up, and Mike the tip. She came off easy and smooth as could be.
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Granted it was a small top, but it was 59 feet long....and we'd cut off 27 feet or so that overhung the deck. The snag was 40 feet, so the tree was ~125 feet tall.....and maybe 16-17" dbh. That's one spindly tree!
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They grow tall at Lake Tuck!! Some firs are approaching 180 feet!! Few are over 28" dbh.....

We'd not started till nearly 12:30, as we hoped the drizzle would let up. Mike drove the wrong road, got stuck in the deep slush, so Bill, the homeowner, had to go pull him out. Just as I put the cameras away, and cut a few sections out of the snag, it commenced to rain. It took us a fair bit of time to derig the trees, and put the gear away. Got done as it was getting dark....

We'll go back when the snow is gone to clean up the brush, and probably remove another hemlock, which is right next to the failed tree.
 
Thanks for sharing the photos!

It's really nice to see rigging done well. It's one thing I wished I had learned better from my papu -- he used to own a trucking company, and I've seen the "after" of some pretty amazing things he did with just one other helper and a bunch of ropes.

He was well into his 80s one day when I pulled in to go fishing and found he had half the driveway dug up. He was going to put in another old water heater as a culvert, but since I was there with my pickup we went the precast place and picked up a 10" concrete culvert. He had a plan in his head how to get it out of my truck involving ropes, but I saw a friend with a telephone company boom truck pulling out of another friend's place, and flagged him down instead :) While it made the job a lot quicker, I really regret not having Papu show me what he planned to do to move that thousand pound piece of concrete by ourselves.
 
Man, that's a lot of moss on those limbs, and so close to the house, that's not good.
Youve heard the old addage you can tell north by wich side of the tree moss grows on. That rule does not work very well in western Washington trees get thick moss all the way around the trunk quite often. As usual great pics RB
 
They grow tall at Lake Tuck!! Some firs are approaching 180 feet!! Few are over 28" dbh.....

Ain't it nice to have that room to spare ;)

Around here the ropes would be at a 40* angle :laugh: if I was lucky and had a cottonwood near by.

the old addage ... does not work very well in western Washington ...

cuz it is raining 3 out of 5 days?

As usual great pics RB

So true!
 
Beautiful rigging! Enjoyed your pics and comments! Thanks. both lines on each of the top were controlled with not 1, but 2 lowering devices(hobbs & GCRS?) correct? And I thought I've seen it all. :clap: The third line(blue) was being held by yourself on the roof? or was that crotched on another tree on the opposite side of the house? so 3 ropes, one man on each.
 
Its pretty sure to be up there around a ten. That's a ten! You get points for stopping to re-rig , you went OVER the skylight ( alot of people would try to go under and you would lose points for that),and well hey, you got there right?
That roof looked a little hairy, I couldn't see what the ground was like ( snowy and rocky?) but the route to the roof looked like you were cheating death. I have to see that again but if you did that with no rope I would be amazed.
 
Oh I guess the roof climb wasn't so hairy if you had the ladder rreal ssteady aand yyou ttook yyour ttime. :) You got to feel your way up.
 
So I see the butt tie on the log on the roof. Its all wrapped up a few times, the eye has a link?
I hate to get into an "I do it better" thing and I won't but let me know your thinking and your set-up there. It looks cool but is it?:cheers:
 
So I see the butt tie on the log on the roof. Its all wrapped up a few times, the eye has a link?

Looks like a clevis from my chair. In the other rope trades thay call that wrap a "high strength tie-off" I've read a number of years ago. Rock climbers use it often. The key is that the connector; eg clevis, carabiner... has to be able to lie flat against the log or coil.
 
Ya I don't get Dan's question about it. Makes perfect sense to me. If not for the clasp it would be a knot, right? That would be rope to rope which would become an issue of heat. With the weight of that log I think you would need the cooler metal. Plus in that wet and cold who wants to untie a knot after in handled that weight. Personally myself would be struggling with the lid from my coffee cup in that weather.

I am not at my cable connection so no vid for me at the moment but for now the still pics are good enough to see that log being lowered from the roof. Spared no rope or chances on that job. What do you do with all that wet rope? I can only image it's strune for miles all over your shop.
 
Ya I don't get Dan's question about it. Makes perfect sense to me. If not for the clasp it would be a knot, right? That would be rope to rope which would become an issue of heat. With the weight of that log I think you would need the cooler metal. Plus in that wet and cold who wants to untie a knot after in handled that weight. Personally myself would be struggling with the lid from my coffee cup in that weather.

I am not at my cable connection so no vid for me at the moment but for now the still pics are good enough to see that log being lowered from the roof. Spared no rope or chances on that job. What do you do with all that wet rope? I can only image it's strune for miles all over your shop.

Yes you do, stop playing. If you can explain why it makes sense to you you should be able to understand my question. Truthfully, It don't to me AND truthfully ( this may come as a shock) I don't know everything. I can see a lot of theory involved in this ( cause I kinda know why it was done) but in my mind its 50/50 either like that or with a knot.
In the pic the clasp looks small. It looks like the weak point. Repeated use loks as though it would cause faster wear and the rope he was using looked fine for the load plus a knot.
I can see how it might be possible to overcome some of the pinpoint wear by using a fat clasp and of course if used properly should work. Adding links in rigging like that is something I have shied away from. I think it an interesting topic.I don't know if that set-up is rated better or not. What is it called in arborist terminology?:)
 
Yes you do, stop playing. If you can explain why it makes sense to you you should be able to understand my question. Truthfully, It don't to me AND truthfully ( this may come as a shock) I don't know everything. I can see a lot of theory involved in this ( cause I kinda know why it was done) but in my mind its 50/50 either like that or with a knot.
In the pic the clasp looks small. It looks like the weak point. Repeated use loks as though it would cause faster wear and the rope he was using looked fine for the load plus a knot.
I can see how it might be possible to overcome some of the pinpoint wear by using a fat clasp and of course if used properly should work. Adding links in rigging like that is something I have shied away from. I think it an interesting topic.I don't know if that set-up is rated better or not. What is it called in arborist terminology?:)

I stated my case and will wait for rb to come back and give us the real reason for the metal. But in the mean time what about the theory of untying the wet rope?
 
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