Tree fell wrong way this morning

[Warbird]

I was helping a buddy clear some land around his new building site this morning.  He needed to clear a 30' swath around the site.  The site has the concrete pad poured, the basement walls, and they are just starting to frame the exterior walls.  The area that needed clearing had a whole bunch of cottonwood in it, ranging from tiny up to 8 - 10" diameter.  Not large, by any means but big enough to kill you.

The area behind the house is up on an embankment with a sheer wall about 12 - 15' high from the base of the pad.  We were cutting one of the larger trees, near the edge.  I knew there was a good chance it was going to fall toward the house, so cleared out the 2 workers (his family) before we cut it.  Well, it went the way it wanted to go and landed right on the house site.  Thankfully, it didn't damage anything but it did take an extra half hour to clean it up.  There were some tricky cuts involved in getting it out of the site.

Just a reminder to stay on your toes and keep the area you're felling in clear of people.  I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't made his folks get out of there.

[Banjo picker]

Glad there was no damage...we all get in a bind ever once in a while...Tim

[beenthere]

Glad you are ok.

Toss a rope into the tree, or get it up there somehow, to put some pull in the direction you need it to fall. Then don't have to take the "chances" (as much). 

I have one sitting right now that is about 8" diam, leaning to the shed, but gonna put some pull on it anyway. Should be able to use the GOL techniques to get it to land right, but small trees are tougher to manage than larger ones.

[Warbird]

Yessir, they are.  At first, I felt kind of stupid because I had walked this younger guy through all the basic chainsaw and tree felling safety stuff.  Then we go and drop one right on his future house.   :  Ah well, it was a good learning experience on how to be very careful.

[DouginUtah]

Another "Tree fell wrong way this morning"...

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50349282-76/tree-north-ogden-falls.html.csp

Not much detail.

[Kevin]

I knew there was a good chance it was going to fall toward the house

That was your gut feeling telling you not to try it.  ;D

Just wondering why you didn't take steps to prevent it?

[Okrafarmer]

Another "Tree fell wrong way this morning"...

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/50349282-76/tree-north-ogden-falls.html.csp

Not much detail.

Sorry, I didn't realize you had trees in Utah!  :D :D :D :D

Kidding. I knew you had a few.

[Warbird]

Just wondering why you didn't take steps to prevent it?

I did.  In how I made the cut.  But I didn't have wedges and I'm not a master tree feller.  Also, his dad said if it did fall on the house site, it wasn't a big deal.  I made preparations for it to fall the wrong way but figured we could make it go the way we wanted.  I believe we caught a gust of wind going the wrong direction, combined with the slope of the hill, that was all she wrote.

[Magicman]

I always use wedges, even when I know which way it's going to fall.  Then a gust of wind can't make the tree "set back".  I've found that if it ever sets back, you are generally in big trouble if the tree has to go in a particular direction.

I just got a set of wedges from Bailey's that are grooved and can be double stacked without slipping.  I've even used them.   ;D

[Banjo picker]

We cut lots of dead trees along the ROW for the Hwy dept....Its hard to read a dead tree...They will weigh more on the shade side.... and are prone to snap at the hinge when you try to use a wedge...esp if you get a little wind....I am trying to get the dead ones before they get too far gone...much safer that way....Tim

[Okrafarmer]

There is always a limit to what wedges will do, too. Somewhere, sometime, gravity just takes over. Unknowns such as wind and invisible inner defects can also prove problematic. Ropes, wedges, etc. are your best friends when it really matters-- there's really no substitute for a rope. Except maybe a chain. Whenever a tree is leaning toward a building  I don't want to hit, I prefer to cut it 90degrees to go down sideways away from the building. I rig a rope or chain up in the tree and tie off to another tree or solid object exactly opposite from the house or obstruction and it allows the tree to go down 90 degrees to the hold rope. This works pretty well with trees the size you were talking about. With really huge trees, you have to use more care and engineering.

[DanG]

If I have my chainsaw with me, I also have my rope and a "fling-string" with me too.  I've been bitten in the butt by fickle trees too many times to trust them if there is any doubt at all.

[SwampDonkey]

There are also falling levers. To be quite honest the only cutters I've seen use a wedge or lever was a guy training woodlot owners that cut mostly the winter's wood.  : Ok, Ok I do know a couple of low production fellas that use them on occasion out there on thinnings. Mostly what you would hear around here for a response to using them is "what do I want that for?" and blow it off like a house fly sitting on his nose. :

[Okrafarmer]

Most of the trees we take down are within a felling radius of a house or other obstruction. We mainly use a rope, and in extreme cases we use a continuous rope puller or pull down with a truck.

[Kevin]

Felling levers are only good on small trees.
A push pole works better than a lever.
A wedge is the best way to lift a back leaner.
This video is wedging a cedar that was held up by a small branch from an adjacent tree, a wedge brought it over.
You can see the tree hit the other tree when it was cut and then it stalled out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSoz8nfK7w4

[SwampDonkey]

Yes, you are more than likely to be right on all counts Kevin. My uncle always used a push pole for persuasion purposes. He always horse logged. Dad would just hook up the skidder cable on a leaner. We never cut wood around buildings. But, most of the time we were never worked up over where the tree landed too much because we had flat land on the farm and a skidder that could get to the trees we wanted. Many areas we never even got to in my limited time in the woods. Worked handy to fields and never skid further than 800 feet or so to where it was loaded. Mostly half that distance.