Colorado Man Killed In Large Wood Chipper

[trlong]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( <font color="blue">If I hear, "gee, that's a lot of money just to take down a tree" one more time </font> )</font>

John,

Thanks for all the expert comments and advise. If any of your customers really knew what planning, expertise, equipment expense, and risk went into taking down that big old tree beside their house they might think twice about such a complaint. Maybe you should point them to this forum if they really wanted to know what can happen, even if you are experienced and careful. Or, maybe you could retire by just letting them know where they can rent the chainsaw and chipper themselves and then take out an insurance policy on them /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif.

Seriously, thanks for the reminder of that little bell. It rings frequently when I'm in the woods cutting, or doing various work with the CUT. Most of the time I listen and back off. I read this forum to remind myself that it should be 100% of the time that I slow down and re-think when I hear the little bell.

Tom

 

[BarryinMN]

Sounds like I have a chuck & duck.

I stopped running it solo after I lifted a 30' pine into it & it took it in one bite - large bottom branches bent & snapped on the way in - motor never slowed down.

Bought it from a junque dealer in non running condition. Lindig 16" wide drum powered by 5 V belts to a Ford 330 V8. Has a huge flywheel blower & eating drum. Bought it because the bearings were perfect & thought a replacement engine would be cheap enough. A little wiring & battery the thing purrs like a kitten when not eating. No safety features that I can see. Takes 5 mins to spin down a little less if I let it spin the shutoff engine as well. I run it between 2400 & 2800 rpms. Any slower & the chute plugs with chips.

Turns out it has a Forestry exemption so no trailer tags are required /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I needed a chipper to clean up the larger over 3" farm saplings in 2002. First job was in the big city mulching a relatives 60+ foot pine tree. Did that myself over 3 afternoons. 12 yards of mulch. Since then it's been on the farm & I wait for 2 or more persons to help feed & 1 to hold the throttle steady.

I would think a head first into it would eat an arm but stop at shoulder. Feet first would eat everything because leg bones are larger for a stronger pull. Either scenario is lethal as medical help is 30 mins away.

In any case being pulled in the field, it throws a 6000 lb tractor around like a toy.

Nice thing is nobody wants to borrow this machine /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( "gee, that's a lot of money just to take down a tree" )</font>

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gifI kind of wonder just what the going rates are around here. When I bought this place, there was the big, old weeping willow tree, shown in the attachment, that I wanted to get rid of, and another tree right in the corner of the yard (I'll post another picture) that needed to go. I sold my chain saw when I moved back to town, so I decided to call a few places from the yellow pages and get some bids for removing them. The first guy I called said he'd remove both, and treat the stump in the corner so it wouldn't come back, for $200. I have no idea how his prices compare to others, but it was cheaper than I expected, so I just asked, "When can you do it?" and didn't even get any other bids. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Bird]

This attachment is the second tree that was removed. A four man crew took out both trees, ran them through their chipper, cleaned up the yard, and were gone in 2 hours. They cut both very close to the ground, and then I called a fellow the tree removal guy recommended and he came a few days later with a stump grinder and ground the willow stump well below ground level for $75. Like I said, I don't know how their prices compare, but I was certainly happy them.

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

Tom - Thanks for the kind words, I wish all my customers were just like you. I'm glad you listen to the little bell too - I'm going to redouble my own efforts to listen to it.

Barry - Yep, that's a chuck & duck all right, and it sure sounds like a beast. I will say that some LARGE outfits like Asplundh, and to maybe a lesser degree Davey and Bartlett, use them, mainly in their (power) line-clearing operations. One thing about c & d's is that they are FAST, especially for the smaller types of branches that result from the extensive trimming that they do for the power companies (especially Asplundh).

In fact, I believe that Asplundh has their own brand of that type of chipper that they call the "Whisper Chipper" (but whisper it doesn't). That was a good one about "at least no one is going to want to borrow it". /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

But don't be afraid to use it, just keep giving it the respect it demands. They have their place, and I'm not going to "slam" it. Just watch out for big chunks getting kicked back at you, avoid getting yourself "involved" with the pieces being chipped, and always try to feed from the side. And no gloves.

Bird - When a price sounds low to the customer, it probably is. I'm not big on "oh that's too high, or that's too low" because of the inherent subjectivity. I will say that I would have quoted around $600 for that job. $200 / (4 guys x 2 hrs. = 8 person hrs.) = $25/hr. per man, and that's his gross. Sounds like he was a little "hungry", as we say. You definitely got a great deal. Compare his hourly gross to the stump grinder's, which sounds as if it was about 3 times higher.

 

[trlong]

Bird,

I don't know what the mindset is in your neck of the woods. I do know that CT_Tree... is in an area where rules, reg.'s, and especially, litigation are significant fact of life. Lots of money can be made in CT but also plenty of lawyers ready to take it all away if you don't CYA (spent 8 "formative" years down there and came back "up-home" as soon as I could get away).

Years back, even up here (before the flatlanders took over) I happily paid $800 to have an ancient Maple taken down that was 7 1/2' on the stump, split by lightening, and threatening to come down on the house. The guys that did the work had the right equipment (lots of $'s), the right skills (not a twig dropped near the house), and left me with more than $800 worth of log-length wood, stacked where I could cut and split for the following winter's heating. Dang, hated to see that beauty have to come down but dreaded every night with high winds, with it hanging over my bedroom /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Guess a lot of the cost of this work depends on where you live and how many competent folks there are around to do the work. I have an old friend who still lives in N-NW CT and worked for an Arborist/Tree Service there, for a while. He often relayed how well the owner knew his business and how skilled the owner was (maybe he worked for John..?). Even with that, he relayed more than one incident where a line, cable, whatever...let go when least expected and nearly took some one's head off at the neck. If competent, these folks are worth a pretty penny and still running the risk of serious injury, no matter how cautious.

Please excuse my rambling. It's snowing hard and I'm not going into the woods alone today...I'm tired and that little bell is ringing, big time.

Tom

 

[Bird]

John, $500 or $600 was what I was expecting for a price, so he really surprised me when he said $200, and naturally, I didn't ask any questions, make any comments, do any "negotiating", etc. other than asking when. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif Of course, I learned that he lives pretty close here, and he said that he'd stop by one evening in a week or so (and would call first) one day when he finished another job a little early. And he did, 6 days later, which of course was just fine with me.

And yep, the guy with the stump grinder ($14,000 machine) was making a lot more per hour since he wasn't here 30 minutes. Of course, he may be paying the tree removal guy a commission for the referral (which would also be just fine with me). When I asked the tree guy about a stump grinder, he told me he had a friend that he thought would do it for about $75 and I told him to have the friend call me, and he did a few days later, then showed up about 10 minutes after he called. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Needless to say, if I need any of that kind of work done in the future, I've got their business cards and will sure be using them. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[CT_Tree_Guy]

<font color="blue">Even with that, he relayed more than one incident where a line, cable, whatever...let go when least expected and nearly took some one's head off at the neck. </font>

Tom - My brother worked with me for a couple of months, a few years ago. I remember the first job we did together - it was on a Friday, the 13th. We were felling a pine tree, and a large "widow-maker" landed just a few feet away from us with enough force to kill either, or both, of us. He looked at me and said "Good lord, how come you're still alive?"

Honestly, it's partly pure dumb luck, no matter how careful you are.

My friend Bryan, the logger, puts it another way. "When the mailman makes a mistake, someone gets the wrong letter. When we make a [bad] mistake, someone gets killed".

So, as the Sergeant used to say on "Hill Street Blues" - "Let's be careful out there".

 

[SkyPup]

There is no doubt that the logging industry, fishing industy and mining industry are the most hazardous employment from a morbidity-mortality aspect.

 

[Henro]

<font color="blue">
Relying on the safety bar and reversing mechanism to keep from getting killed is really just the about the same idea as making sure your brakes work, or your steering linkage doesn't fail at high speeds. A mechanical failure can often kill you, it's really just that simple. </font>

Hi John and all,

Thank you for the kid words... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

My background is heavy industry...we have always stressed safety so if I sound like a fanatic you at least you know why /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

That safety bar is more like an air bag than vehicle brakes. It should be a last resort protective measure, not something that is depended upon regularly.

Anyone that finds he needs to trip that bar even once should step back, and ask what he needs to do so that he never trips that bar again other than for the purpose of testing it to be sure it is functional.

Familiarity breads contempt as they say...there have been many industrial accidents (non fatalities) where the injured said they did not realize the danger because they had been around it so long it just seemed benign. Who knows what those who lost their lives were thinking?

Never put 100 percent trust in a safety feature. It WILL fail sometime, somewhere. It MIGHT fail at the moment you need it most. The more moments you need it during you life time, the greater the risk that you might meet that protective device at its moment of failure...

Be careful out there...our tractors and other mechanical devices do not really care much about us...