Once the tree is on the ground, the real work begins. It does not take long to trim off the branches, cut the trunk into manageable pieces, and get them off of the property. All of this only took five minutes.
You might ask, how do they get the rope so far up in the branches. Before I tell you, let your imagination create some wild ideas, like having a trained racoon.
It is actually quite simple but requires some practice to develop the skill and no one has to leave the ground. The arborist uses a “throw line”. It is a special cord attached to a weight (about one pound) and a container to keep the cord untangled. I said it was simple, well you just throw the weight over one of the large branches high up in the tree. If you miss, just pull it back and try again.
The next step is to use the throw line to pull a much thicker and stronger line up over the branch and back down to the ground. The arborist is the guy with the blue hard hat. Notice he is not the one doing the hard work, he is the one with the skills to throw the rock and operate the chain saw to get the tree falling in the right direction. The one with the big muscles specializes in pulling the rope in the right direction when he is told to.
It only took 10 minutes to take down the second tree. That includes taking it off of the property and raking up all the branches. The two stumps were neatly trimmed off at ground level. Their efficiency is impressive. Maybe they wanted to finish quickly because it was starting to rain or because the boss was there. They were getting paid to get the job done, not by the hour.
What experiences have you had with contractors?
Interesting post, thanks for sharing. It’s a bit fascinating to watch people do things we would never in a million years do our self…. especially one that seems difficult and they make it look easy.
It’s very interesting to watch them take a tree down. We had a tower pine tree that partial fell during a hurricane so the main part had to come down. I figured the crew would be here also the entire day but like you mentioned, it was down within minutes! To watch them toss the rope over was amazing and of course Lia said she wanted to do that. LOL. Awesome videos Doug!
When they took down the 118 foot tree in my back yard, it certainly took WAY more than 10 minutes- it was a lot closer to 5 hours.