Funky tree removal method

[Richard]

I had an Oak tree that was 1/2 dead/alive in the front yard. It was tall enough that it could possibly have hit the (new) deck had it fallen towards the house. In fairness, the dead top would have been the offender and maybe done some damage...maybe not.

It was surrounded by some other trees, so had I cut it in virtually any other directioin, it would slice the limbs off something or another. Then of course, in the last direction was my well head.... not a good angle either....what to do?

I could chunk it down however, I don't have the lift to get terribly high. I DO however, have a nice backhoe/loader (industrial).

I failed to mention, this oak tree was maybe 10" diamater going up the trunk and "only" 30 feet high. It also had dropped many of its branches. Not all of them...but the point is, it was more like a 30' pencil with some new branches sprouting out (3' long) and it did have a couple older branches but by & large... think pencil.

If I could only lift it and CARRY it out

I placed my bucket against the tree with the bottom lip of the bucket about 4' off the ground. I then took my trusty grade 100 chain with choker on one end and choked the tree with it and laced that through the hook on top of the bucket. I didn't want the tree to fall over.

Next, I wrapped the chain around the bucket and around the BOTTOM of the tree where it hit the bottom of the bucket.

Dealing with a tree...I'll admit I was nervous.

grabbed my chainsaw and cut a notch. Started the back-cut however, left a healthy hinge so I could get into the machine to see if I could easily snap the hinge. I applied some pressure... nothing happened so I stopped.

Got back out, cut more of the hinge and suddenly, the tree simply dropped about one inch as it rested on the now, stump.

Being totally nervous...because I only have one shot to get it right and probably a zillion chances to mess it up... I jumped back into machine and gently lifted.

The tree raised up and shifted just a little to the side. Everything held its position.

Excited... I backed up more and the vertical lean of the tree shifted more. Not a whole lot, but enough to make me think... I need to get this down asap and not dilly-dally.

As I backed up more in my driveway, the sideways shift of the tree meant that had I rolled my bucket forward, the top of the tree would now be angled towards the very deck I was trying to save. I had to back up more... jockey the angle of the backhoe to move the laying angle of the tree.... oh, ****.... there is my car in the front yard, exactly where it needed to be IF the tree had not shifted in my bucket.

I need to angle a bit more to dodge my car.

Angled a little more... raised the bucket to clear the bottom end of the tree from the ground (I had bucket as low as I could and tree was dragging the cut end) and I simply rolled the bucket forward, laying the tree down like a baby

I was going to simply drive foreard with the tree in a "spear" positioni however, with the off center angle of it, I would have other trees/car to dodge... so I cut the tree in half. I drove past the cut part (canopy) keeping the lower part attached to my bucket and indeed, moving forward with it as a spear. As the back end of the machine passed the canopy, I reached out with the backhoe and pinched the trunkline of the canopy and carried the entire mess to my burn pile.

Other than the bottom of the tree sliding over about 12", the plan worked to near perfection however, that 12" slide was enough to keep me worried and ready to drop this thing on the good trees had the need risen.

All of this took maybe 45-60 minutes or so (inception, finding chainsaw, cutting, disposal).

I left a 3 1/2' stump in the ground so I can try to wobble it out in a year without having to dig a larger hole today to get the rootball.

 

[czechsonofagun]

Makes for very intensive reading. Do I understand correctly you did something like a half caber toss with your FL and an oak tree?

Rather impressive!

 

[Richard]

I had to look up caber toss... if I saw it correctly (pole in hands and lift both hands to launch pole forward) then I'd rather call it a caber carry since launching it was the last thing I wanted to do

I'll admit I've never seen/heard of this technique before and probably for good reason.

I knew however, that the tree was small enough that my machine had the brute force to carry it with no problem (something like 6,000 lb lift on front bucket)

What would mess up that logic though would be the leverage of the tree extending out so far vertically.

I figured as long as it was vertical, it was less of a problem since....well...it was vertical and that would apply the weight downward.

When the tree slid and angled over though, I knew it had some leverage agasint me. Having carried larger ( twice? the size) trees and them extend out sideways, I wasn't terribly worried about this one causing any side to side instability. Nor really, any torquing of the bucket. It wasn't THAT big although it would have put the bump on the noggin had it hit me in the head.

The entire time I was fooling with it I tried to keep in my mind that this (novel ways to carry trees) is how people can get killed so do my best to minimize those issues and if done successfully, it might just work.

 

[20 20]

The entire time I was fooling with it I tried to keep in my mind that this is how people can get killed .

I think this line said it best :thumbdown:

 

[VABlue]

Sounds like a job well done... With a serious pucker factor! Where are the pics?

 

[/pine]

C'mon...you gotta be kidding...that much drama and no photo evidence...?

 

[maybar]

Photos, pictures. Remember the word "inception". That's when the photographer left the job site.

 

[Richard]

to be honest, I did think about taking some photos of the process.

I thought (feared) they might document:

A) stupidity
B) brilliance
C) manor of death

Since it was two out of three being negative, I kept my mind on task at hand. I was so focused on "will this work" that by the time I would have gone to retrive the camera, the bucket was chained and the tree severed, sitting vertical on the hinge after it broke.

At that time, it was really too late (dangerous) to leave and get the camera. My only thought was to get it on the ground and not cause any harm.

On my way home today, I thought about going back out to measure the stump. I got to thinking and am not sure that it's 10". It's not 4" but... might not be 10.

Probably not significant at this point.

I DO have the carcass on my burn pile if anyone would like a picture of the remains.

I might add... there is no way I would have tried this with a smaller machine. My backhoe weighs right at 16,000 pounds (Cab version) and I've lifted many things MANY more times as heavy as this tree/pencil.

Still.... I kept my eyes looking up and around. Was good feeling once it was clear of house and car and heading to the ground.

 

[SPIKER]

seemed to start out like the last words of BUBBA "HEY WATCH THIS!" ya dropping trees (esp dead or ones with dead branches) is dangerous.

then I saw the DIA you were talking about. even 10" is not too big for an oak but would make good fire wood. 30' I think I would have scaled half way up put a decent notch then chained & snapped ot off with the tractor and then did the bottom half same way notch and pull towards the opening plenty far away. also using GOOD rope tie both above & below the notch to keep the top half dropping right by the base with proper slip knot you let he rope free up some and the top slowly drops down after the snap.''

Mark