Felling a tree for the first time

[davidseaquist]

I had a dying pine tree in my yard, it was 60' tall and forked half way up twisted and leaning toward my home. I asked a neighbor for advice and read up on the Internet, about .com:forestry and a fiew other sites. I learned that you can push a small tree over by hand use wedges to turn a tree, or pull a tree with a tractor, or come along etc. where you want it. I climbed up the tree on a ladder and tied a strap as high as I could reach hooked the straps to chain I hooked the chain about 90' long. I hooked it to my tractor and backed up and put some tension on the tree. My wife was concerned I would destroy the landscape or hit the house she told me she would be very upset if I destroyed anything. Than I put by three dogs in the kennel and made sure know one was around. I put a notch cut in the direction I wanted the tree to fall I went on the back side and did a straight cut leaving a 5" hinge. I pulled on the tree with my tractor trying to get it to fall 180 degrees form the direction of lean, it fell 90 degrees from the direction of lean in between a bunch of landscape we had planted, no damage to anything except to the ground cover. IT was a bit of luck and god than helped me on this one. I kept peace in the family. What methods do you use to fell a tree and have yuou ever been lucky or unlucky felling a tree. Sorry I did not take any pictures. David

 

[zeuspaul]

Thirty years ago I cut an eighteen inch maple for a neighbor. I tied some 1/2 nylon rope to the maple and a nearby tree. The theory was the rope would pull the tree away from the house as she fell.

She fell toward the house as I predicted....the rope snapped and sprung back wrapping itself around the legs of my friends wife..she fell over.

Luckily the tree wasn't as tall as I thought. The top branches just skimmed the house doing no damage.

Trees are VERY MASSIVE!!!

Last week one of my neighbors was topping a tree. He tied his UTV to a branch to pull it in the direction he wanted it to go. The branch ended up pulling and lifting the UTV onto two wheels!

Zeuspaul

 

[pat32rf]

1/2" nylon is pretty marginal for tree work. 3/4 is a lot better. If you are using poly rope 3/4 is minimum, especially if you are using them as safety ropes where you will want to change the direction of a moving tree. Its a LOT better and easier to get the tree going in the right direction first.
Cut your notch in the direction you want it to go- doesn't have to be that deep. Then apply tension and do your back-cut. Just make sure that the rope is long enough for your pull vehicle to get out from under the trees path, or rig a pulley so you are pulling from the side. Once it starts to fall you will have trouble keeping a tight rope. (On a tractor you won't be able to do it)
If the tree is leaning the wrong way to begin with you should get a pro to help.
I stood back and watched a young friend cut a poplar a coupla weeks back. Sucker was over 80' tall and almost 24" at the butt. Twice the size of anything he had ever cut but he had done a lot of reading on how to do it. He used a plastic wedge and had the tree fall exactly where it should. We were clearing his building lot and wanted to use the tree to support the side of his driveway so if he had been 20 degrees off it wouldn't have mattered, just been harder to pull into place but he gained a lot of confidence in that one perfect cut.....

 

[George2615]

My neighbor helped me fell a dead 60' pine that was also leaning toward my house. We used a portable winch that strapped around another tree away from the house. I wrapped a chain around the dead pine about 25' up (as far as I could reach off a ladder). Hooked the chain to the rope winch and as we cut we kept applying tension with the winch. It fell right toward where the winch was pulling from. He said he got the winch from a tree service friend of his and that was how they did it. I'm sure any winch would do as long as your are past the point where the tree will fall so it doesn't come down on top of the winch operator.

 

[marimus]

A farmer near me died, felling a tree in the middle of his field. It was just last week too. Apparently, he tied straps part way up, notched the tree, cut part way, and then pulled it down with his tractor.

That last part is what killed him.

Sad thing is, nobody can understand why he pulled it down, instead of just cutting it, as there is nothing at all around it for 100's of meters in any direction.

 

[john_bud]

Farming and forestry are two of the deadliest occupations.

 

[LBrown59]

U can only fall it one time.

 

[tallyho8]

And,
U can only fail it one time.

 

[Defective]

I dropped my first tree in 1976.

I've been at it fairly regular ever since.

I will NOT give advice about felling an awkward tree. I will occasionally offer to do the job myself. At times I will strongly recommend calling in a tree service with equipment to take it down from the top.

One thing I will NEVER do is try to PULL a tree over. It either goes where I aim it with careful cutting and wedges, or it goes where it wants & I clean up the mess.

OK...done ranting now...

 

[sandman2234]

Putting tension on a rope with a vehicle, and then parking the vehicle can be dangerous, to say the least. Make sure the vehicle is capable of moving faster than the tree will fall, and can keep the rope tight till the time it hits the ground. Never fall a large tree or arkward tree without help, and somebody to call for help should something go wrong.
David from jax