I had an interesting call a couple of weeks ago. A local yaywho..(That's southern for dummy) came by my office said he had a problem. He had contracted to remove this huge tree right next to a house. He took his saw, with a 16" bar and sawed all the way around, and the tree didn't fall.:Banghead:Banghead
He WAS cutting it from the top down in small chunks, but, his bucket truck blew a hydraulic line, and he couldn't find the right parts. He'd tied a cable to the tree, and tried pulling it over, but w/o any luck. He stuck the bucket truck in the lady's backyard and had ruts 2' deep.
He wanted me to bring the 50 ton Grove down and lay the tree down. I drove down to scope the situation out with him. The driveway up to the house was about 7' wide with steep banks on either side. After getting to the top of the hill, it made a hard 90 degree turn into her carport. The tree would be there on the left. There was no place to set the outriggers unless we jacked the entire rig up about 3-4 feet. It would be possible, BUT highly improbable.
IF I could get the rig up there...WHERE would we lay the tree? There was no place, except where the crane was sitting. SO, I asked the guy..WHY don't you just tie the cable back on it, apply tension and cut it down? He informs me..because his saw isn't big enough.
So, IF I get the crane set up, and hooked to the tree, what would we do? He wanted me to just yank it off the stump.
Nope..Ain't gonna happen. You'd HAVE to saw it into. AND..if you're gonna have to saw it into, why don't you just saw it into and let it fall? Seemed to me to be a LOT cheaper to get a bigger saw.
He seemed to think I could shake the tree back and forth until it broke off. If you want to get in trouble with a crane, start pulling sideways. Then we'd have the crane AND the tree over the top of the house. This was ne of those jobs I preferred to just drive away.