Felling a tree for the first time

[Defective]

OK...maybe not quite done ranting...

Exercise for the student: What does a tree weigh? What does your vehicle weigh?

Hint: I have personally seen an F150 fly. (No...it was not my truck & I did not help chain it to the tree...)

Second exercise: What is the load rating of your rope?

Heck with it...I'll answer this one. 3/4" nylon rope has a safe working load around 1400 pounds. Think back to the hint two paragraphs up. The truck weighed between 5 & 6 thousand pounds.

Third exercise: How tall is the tree? Do you know how to measure it?

One of the primary safety rules in felling trees is quite simple. Allow no-one to remain in range of the falling tree. Clear the area before you start cutting.

 

[davidseaquist]

MY tractor weighs 10,000 lbs I was 30 feet further that the tree would reach if it fell towards me. IF the tree fell naturally towards its natural direction would have crushed all of our landscaping or fell towards the home. I used some 3/8th chain and 1/4' chain rated for 3,500/10,000 lbs and some straps rated for 2 1/2 tons My tractor has rops/fops [ a cap ] and the 72" loader was towards the tree. I was willing to let it damage the landscaping I was just trying to prevent it. David

 

[D7E]

Being a logger and a tree surgeon i should not encourage this but it's just common sense , Anyone can drop a tree , Look at the lean , Which side has the heavyest canopy and what can it hit . If you are able to take branches off the heavy side that helps ,Using a tractor to pull is fine if you rope is long enough ,Or even pushing with a loader (depending on height)
Doing it manually with wedges works if you know how to make your sink and leave a hinge and generally know how to cut , If you're not a clued up chainsaw user leave it alone " A blunt saw is the worst killer "

 

[ragkar]

A couple years ago I felled two seventy foot dead oaks on my property. Now I always wanted to stand back, yell 'timber' and watch a magnificent giant fall to the ground. Well it didn't work out that way.
You're wearing ear protection because of the chainsaw noise and it takes several seconds to realize that she's falling. There's only time enough to switch off the saw, put it down and run away on one of the 45 degree escape routes that you had planned out for yourself.
All the while you're praying that it's falling as predicted. Oak weighs 46 pounds per cubic foot and I figure that those trees weighed about three to five tons.
Well both trees fell as planned but I'm glad that I don't have to do that again. I expect that if I had the trees chained to my nearly a ton pickup and the tree fell the wrong way, it would have yanked the pickup who knows where.

 

[VABlue]

My lot has too many scrub pines to fell on my own. Some of them, the worst of them, lean towards the house or fence. Those are the ones I want down today, but don't have the experience to safely cut and have them fall where I want them to. Which means that I'll have to bring out a tree service to do it right. Too much money right now... The others I'll do myself because I don't care where they come down. Most of those will get caught up in other trees on the way down, anyway...

 

[ding2520]

Another way to stay safe.....

 

[EddieWalker]

A few years ago I was cutting down some small to medium sized trees at a house I owned. I was on the last tree, and had done about ten of them without any problems. This last one was gonna be the easiest due to it's natural lean and 12 inche diameter. Nothing to it. I notched it away from the house and as I cut it, it started to lean where it was supposed to go. I steped back to let it fall nice and easy, and it tricked me. As it started falling, it twisted on me and went from leaning one way, to the exact oposite. I never saw this before, nor even expected it.

The tree was now falling on top of the house. It was all in slow motion and I just stood there and watched. Somehow, it cought a branch of a tree I saved and came to rest about four feet above the house. It really was a matter of inches that saved me!!!!

Eddie

 

[turnkey4099]

I have been cutting firewood (6-10 cord/year) for 30 years currently and a couple back when I was a kid.

Defective is correct. Don't use rope is the best policy. If I have to pull or even just stabilize a tree, it is wire cable and chain. If you must use rope, do not use that old rope you have hanging in the shed. New, or near new only. They deteriorate just hanging there to say nothing of the damage/abuse they have had in the past.

Pulling a tree is a shaky proposition at best. The instant (and I do mean instant) a tree starts to move you loose tension in the cable and that tow rig had best be moving fast. Rely on the cable/chain to keep it from falling where you don't want but don't expect the tow to keep pulling it after the first few feet.

Last one I pulled I had my cable 20 ft up, tied off to a very firm deadman, hung four 5 gallon buckets of water in the middle hoping they would maintain the pull. It sorta worked, maintained pull for the first few feet but then gravity worked slower than the tree. At least it did not fall on the house.

With all my experience I won't try to fall a tree that has any chance of damaging anything important. That is expert time and that I am not. The above one, I knew could hit the house, I was trying to avoid damaging a fence - it didn't work.

Harry K

 

[GaryBDavis]

Source unknown

 

[schmism]

Source unknown

thats likely "caption this pic"

(in reality im cutting wood off my truck that was squashed after tornato rolled through... or hurican Katria hit or ......)