Dale's urban logging adventures.

These trees are bigger than they look. Look at the house. It's two stories tall.

I'm taking them all down for $400.00. I expect it to take 12 hours. Nothing to write home about the financial department, but I need the wood.

Six of them are just the right size for a little project I'm doing in the city. My customer has a grape arbor that is rotting.  The vines are quite heavy. The logs from the 6 smaller trees,  will be used to hold up the vines. I'm leaving several Y-shaped branch crotches.

The larger logs will be used for a project at the farm. I'm using large gabion pillars as the corner posts of a new building. Wooden posts will be inserted into the top of the gabions,  so that I have a nailing surface when building the roof.

This tree job is producing a good supply of firewood for one of my customers and the raw materials for two other projects. I always like to be paid to gather needed resources.

I'll post photos and links as these projects progress.

The job is almost finished.  I had to do some other work for part of the day.

In order to avoid dumping fees, I had one of my customers come for free firewood. Firewood gets unloaded at the customers home and the branches get hauled to the branch dump, a short distance away,  where they are dumped for free.

Three loads were hauled this way, with brush on the bottom and firewood on top.

I striped the bark off of some of the pieces that I'm keeping.

Nine thinner logs not show, went with the customer who is having the grape arbor rebuilt.

I do wonder sometimes if folks really think about what type of tree to plant . I wonder if those trees were chosen because they were cheap to buy when other trees may have been more expensive to buy but cost nothing or people would pay you or your desendants for the wood ?

David

These trees completely blocked the southern sun from entering the windows of this house. They are an extremely fast-growing variety.

I counted back 10 years in the growth rings. The largest tree was only 3 1/2 inches in diameter at that time. It is now 18 inches. If these trees had been allowed to stand another 10 years, it's likely that it would cost a couple thousand dollars for removal.

Large coniferous trees don't belong in an urban environment, so close to buildings. They destroy homes and gardens. The wood from them is seldom used for anything other than burning. It costs far more to remove them than is ever realized for any resource they produce.
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The strip of soil between the two properties is about five feet wide. It's a perfect spot for fruit trees. We get plenty of rain and the sun exposure is great. They may consider espalier pruning.

This week, I'm removing a giant overgrown hedge. It well produce about 40 small logs ranging from 4 inches to 12 inches diameter.

Since most lean toward a house and garden that is to be preserved, I've had to employ my full set of McGuyver skills. I call this a log fall puller. The weight of these logs, has already taken most of the lean out of the tree that it's pulling on. As I make the cut, the logs descend. This keeps the rope tight.

The third photo shows a rope that is strung between the tree being cut and an apple tree. The log weights are set up to adjust the angle of pull. The yard where the trees are falling to, has only two trees suited to the job, so for most pulls, I adjust the angle.

Dale : Thanks for sharing ! The last couple of weeks i have been re-experimenting with the Mors Kochanski Flip flop winch- The operating theory is
if I am both prepared and cautious I should have no need for it ! Big AL

I had no takers on the large logs,  so I had to cut them all up for firewood. 12 of the smaller ones will be used to build a grape pergola.

 My customer took some action shots with an old phone,  while I was cutting wood at the top of a tree.
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The tree to the left of the ladder was too skinny for me to place the ladder on it  while falling the top. I roped it to the largest tree,  and then cut it from a safe distance,  with the pole saw.

 It was directly over the roof of a shed.

 Firewood is brought down in 32 inch lengths and it's later cut down to 16 inches. I finish each cut, leaving just a little bark uncut.  The wood is torn loose and tossed to a safe zone, away from fences and buildings. I've removed some pretty big trees, a block at a time.

I always try to steer my customers clear of using big evergreen species for new hedges. I counted back 15 years,  to show how big these trees were then.  My hand is covering the small trunk that existed 15 years ago. Once these trees break through the canopy and have full sunlight, there's no stopping them.  They grow very fast.  Not only do they cast a huge amount of shade, they represent a big clean up expense when it comes time for removal. It cost my customers $3000. By the time I was halfway done, I realized that I should have charged even more.

 I processed about 15 tons of material from this row of trees, using only my cordless electric equipment.