http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2012/03/20/how-to-fell-a-tree/
lol, I like how he just looks at the tree for a while.
Why would you chop down such a big beautiful tree in the first place? What a dumb a##..
*added* it is creepy how, throughout the video you hear the wood creak...
Yeah, I wouldn't cut something like that down unless it was already dead.
I'm surprised the house structure was still standing, must have been built back in the day.
First, due to it's size and proximity to houses/cars/etc., I'd seriously consider taking it down in sections... otherwise, I'd tie ropes to it, and put the tree under tension with a come along, before I dropped it. You don't cut a tree like that unless you are alone in the woods and you don't care which way it goes. Additionally, it looks like he screwed up the notch too.
>pro
You have my number:)
>pro
That averages $500 a tree here. I've had about 10 or 12 removed by pros ...either huge oaks or very tall pines. When the tree is in a close situation, they use cherry-pickers to dismantle it a branch at a time then take the trunk down in short segments. Even then, stuff can easily go wrong.
Due to the hurricanes taking it upon themselves to remodel my once heavily wooded yard, over the course of the last 10 years I have dropped about 50 trees on my own. Most were not quite as large as the one in the video but about a dozen were in that range with two or three even larger. I'm not counting smaller trees under 10 inches in diameter and/or 30 feet tall as they are light/small enough to be man-handled. Of that 50, I've had 3 or 4 go rogue on me ...one coming close to destroying my new backhoe. Scares the piss out of me every time.
Jason you never been to the South eh?
You own your own backhoe?
Seriously? You like to dig holes that much?
>backhoe
Actually, I'm just now on my 3rd one. Over the last 25 years I've worn out two, each with well over 3000 hours logged on them.
>why?
It's easy to get large scale excavation done, just pick up the phone and I can call in excavators, pans, bulldozers. But try to get a little trench dug and you have to kiss somebody's a## to get them to show up.
I've used them for construction, commercial property maintenance, landscaping and tree removal. After the hurricane, the 2nd backhoe literally paid for itself ($25k-ish) in just tree removal and re-grading the yard. I also have my own boat ramp and use it to handle the trailers while launching or hauling out.
Quoteliterally paid for itself ($25k-ish)
Ah..it must be a small one then...THAT I could see being very handy. I think the most-used handy piece of equipment Dad owns is the forklift. We use it for *everything*, moving screening wagons, pallets, and using it as a platform to stand on when we need to get to something high up. I remember when we had to redo the roof on the house, he had me drive the thing 4 miles into town because we don't have a trailer hefty enough to haul it.
I made him pay for my chiropractor visit the next day.
>small
Yeah, I like the 25-30 horsepower 4WD models with hydrostatic transmissions. For the type of tasks I do, a full-size backhoe would be too large to get in where I need it to go. For larger jobs, the small ones will work fine ...just take longer.
Here's a pix of trusty ol' backhoe #2 in the backyard after Isabel. To add perspective, I'd estimate that tree in the foreground is about 18 inches in diameter in that section of the trunk. That pine was about 70 feet tall and *not* the largest to fall. The Feds would haul away the downed trees after the hurricane for free but you had to get them to the roadside for pickup. I pushed ten 18-wheeler loads of tree trunks and large limbs to the road with #2.
Don't get me wrong; I love trees. I think we should plant more and cut less. People that go out in the woods only to clear them to plant grass so they can mow it p##s me off. But sometimes trees need to go and I become a tree killing SOB on a rampage. Chainsaws, dozers, chains, winches, frontend loaders, whatever it takes.
And the only real lesson there is that unless you are in the middle of the woods, where you don't care where it falls, is you use ropes/cable/chain/winches/come-alongs to ensure it falls exactly where you want it to. Most of the time there is really no reason for it to go anywhere else, if you put tension on it. People who don't are usually just lazy and don't want to admit it. They say stupid things like, they couldn't get a rope around it high enough, they didn't have a strong/long enough rope, etc. These dumbassses also eventually say things like, 'I can't believe it fell on my house'.
But that dude is an idiot and it was probably his first tree. Your first indication of this is that he is using an axe. You don't cut down trees with an axe. You use a saw. If you don't have a chainsaw, then you will need a big old fashioned double handed saw... but you need a saw to make the final cut. Why? Because this is how you cut down a tree...
1.) spend time looking at the tree to figure out if wants to fall in a certain direction. (This is primarily a case of 'lean', and in some cases, wind.) If it does have a preferred fall line, then hopefully this is a safe direction, and you encourage it to go that way.
2.) you cut horizontally about 2/3 through the tree in the direction you want it to fall.
3.) you make a second cut below the first , up at about a 45degree angle until you intersect the horizontal cut, and the notch falls out. (if its a big tree, you may need some wedges, so you don't bind the saw up as you cut into it, or you may have to notch it progressively deeper.)
4.) when you are ready to drop it, you go to the back side, and make another horizontal cut slightly above the top of the fist horizontal cut on thefront. Again you may need wedges.
5.) if you roped it off and the tree is under tension, at some point you will hear it start to crack and you will notice your cut expanding. Then you pull the saw, kill the engine (in case you trip) choose one of your predetermined exit routes and get the hell out in case the trunk kicks out and kills you.
So in other words, it shouldn't fall backwards, if you a.) correctly deduced it's natural lean, b.) notched the other side, c.) roped it under tension, d.) made one thin final cut on the backside, and used wedges. The dude in the video only did 'b', when the very minimum is 'a', 'b', and 'd' (without wedges).
>$500/hr
...and that's why I make the big money:)
My friend, I am a hyper competitive control freak, with a severely addictive personality, an obsessive compulsive disorder, and no sense of moderation... and if I wasn't ADD, I would have probably taken over the world already:)
In other words, if it takes skill, knowledge, experience, strength, courage, coordination, and enormous balls, because there is an element of risk to it, and there is an illusion of control surrounding it.... I'm absolutely drop jawed fascinated with it:)
So, yeah, chainsaws. I love them:)
Yes, guns, chainsaws, and heavy equipment top the charts for unleashing destruction, motorcycles and helicopters top the charts for mechanized travel... and of course, there is nothing like a huge dog sled team if you want that feeling of hanging on to something for dear life:)