Tree Work

[PopcornSutton]

I have a large Maple that has 5 main trunks from about 3 feet above ground. They spread out and the whole tree is big. Plus, it is now big/tall enough it poses a danger to my house. Several years ago, I used an extension ladder to get as high as I felt comfortable with, and threaded a 3/8 cable around all the trunks and used clamps hook a come-along to pull the slack and tension the cable, then put 4 cable clamps on it. Gave me a little piece of mind then.

The tree does give a lot of shade to the house in the summer, blocks the hottest part of the day, so I would like to cut this back in both height and width to a reasonable size. There is a rental company close by that rents towable manlifts, and I can get it close to the tree to work. Is there a method for doing this, thinning out branches and cutting them back?

A neighbor hired a few guys and cut one of his trees back similar to what I'm thinking, it looked kind of ugly when he was done (early spring) but the tree sprouted out a great amount of foliage and it looks great, just smaller.

Picture of my tree.

 

[kbuhagiar]

Have you considered hiring a professional?

When you add up the cost for the manlift, the time and effort on your part, and the safety issues, you might want to rethink your approach.

I've always left the tree work to the pros, even back when it was a substantial blow to our budget.

 

[four.cycle]

Hire a pro.

You don't have that much insurance.

 

[PCustoms]

This isn't a DIY pruning job IMHO

Call a pro arborist (not a guy with a chainsaw), he can advise if the tree has any issues and can work around them as needed.

 

[kbuhagiar]

If I might add...

A tree with that much character, and which appears to be a central part of your homestead, deserves to be serviced properly by a professional. Don't take any chances.

 

[CraigStu]

I say go for it. Do a bunch of careful study. Are all branches situated so that, when they fall, they miss your house? If so, look from all sides. Use that ladder to wrap some of that flourescent tape around branches where you will cut. Remember that you will need to arrange your cutting so the falling branches miss you and the lift. Also, so that once they are down, you can still move the lift to get to the rest you need to cut. I have used a 50ft lift to do similar but was just kind of stripping one side of a tree vs trying to make it look nice. Will a 50ft lift get you high enough? So far that is the max height I have found in towables. Beyond that they are self propelled but need to be delivered on a trailer. This raises the prices a ton.

 

[PCustoms]

I say go for it. Do a bunch of careful study. Are all branches situated so that, when they fall, they miss your house? If so, look from all sides. Use that ladder to wrap some of that flourescent tape around branches where you will cut. Remember that you will need to arrange your cutting so the falling branches miss you and the lift. Also, so that once they are down, you can still move the lift to get to the rest you need to cut. I have used a 50ft lift to do similar but was just kind of stripping one side of a tree vs trying to make it look nice. Will a 50ft lift get you high enough? So far that is the max height I have found in towables. Beyond that they are self propelled but need to be delivered on a trailer. This raises the prices a ton.

What about if the tree is internally compromised, and he cuts the healthy tree but leaves the weight on the dead side?

Personally every large maple I've cut into has had some degree of rot. 2 years ago I lost half a tree, whole side came down at 10pm in a late winter storm. Tips of the branches hit my truck, and further would have caused real damage to vehicles or the house.

Crotch of the tree was rotting 8' down due to a bark inclusion, you would have never known it until the whole thing peeled off. Beautiful healthy tree, 30" DBH and probably 80' tall with a nice even canopy. Most of it became firewood, I saved about 36' for sawing

 

[PassnThru]

Be aware that 'topping' a tree can be very detrimental to the tree if not done properly. Actually many say you should never do it - but that's an opinion that's above my pay grade.
A lot of mature trees have been topped on my street and many of them ended up in big trouble years later. My neighbor had 5 of them topped by two guys with a pickup and ladders and now all of his trees are gone. On one the trunk rotted out enough to fall completely over. Many had severe rot in the main branches where they cut at and they could no longer be trusted so they were taken down. The only one left is the one at the back of the yard next to the power lines that he didn't touch. It's huge and hanging in there.

 

[pcmeiners]

Shame it is a Maple, had two different Maple in my yard, both split in storms but they were away from the house. Trimmed them both a couple times just by climbing. Now I would rent a lift. You could trim it in a couple hours, cut up the remains into moveable sizes in a couple more. No set procedure but drop pieces not entire limbs

 

[PopcornSutton]

Thanks all, I'm soaking this in.

 

[kaymccampbell]

That big, that close, that configuration. Mark's tree service would be turning it into logs n chips. Hopefully your predominant wind is away from the house.

 

[PCustoms]

@PopcornSutton how much is that camper with the leaky roof insured for?

 

[Hank11]

Thanks all, I'm soaking this in.

Pay an insured pro tree company to do this. The manlift idea is asking to be killed. I am serious.

 

[ericm]

I have a large Maple that has 5 main trunks from about 3 feet above ground. They spread out and the whole tree is big. Plus, it is now big/tall enough it poses a danger to my house. Several years ago, I used an extension ladder to get as high as I felt comfortable with, and threaded a 3/8 cable around all the trunks and used clamps hook a come-along to pull the slack and tension the cable, then put 4 cable clamps on it. Gave me a little piece of mind then.

Usually the way pros do this is to thread an eye bolt into each branch and string cables between them. If you wrap cables around the branches the tree grows around the cable, and that then becomes a weak point.

The tree does give a lot of shade to the house in the summer, blocks the hottest part of the day, so I would like to cut this back in both height and width to a reasonable size.

That's a tree worth keeping, and worth spending some money on. Get a professional arborist to advise on what to do, and then have them or a tree service company do the work. If you want to save some money you can let them drop stuff and you can clean it up. But most companies are set up to do the chipping and that's low valve/low cost compared to the guy climbing the tree, so you probably won't save much.

 

[ATC]

Be aware that 'topping' a tree can be very detrimental to the tree if not done properly. Actually many say you should never do it - but that's an opinion that's above my pay grade.
A lot of mature trees have been topped on my street and many of them ended up in big trouble years later. My neighbor had 5 of them topped by two guys with a pickup and ladders and now all of his trees are gone. On one the trunk rotted out enough to fall completely over. Many had severe rot in the main branches where they cut at and they could no longer be trusted so they were taken down. The only one left is the one at the back of the yard next to the power lines that he didn't touch. It's huge and hanging in there.

This!

Also, many "professionals" are just going to chop off the bigger branches and collect the check from you.

Please watch at least the first 20 minutes of this:

 

[jhelrey]

You have to be careful with trimming Maples because how they dry out and can rot.

 

[Codyboy]

You have to be careful with trimming Maples because how they dry out and can rot.

That and there's a ton (not hyperbole) of energy twisted up in that tree.
Ive cut down a loy of trees but would not do that one.
Pruning, yeah sure. Cutting off a huge branch? Nope.
Call somebody that knows what they're doing.
Not even kidding.

 

[Stuart in MN]

You need a qualified arborist, not a tree trimmer from Craigslist. It'll cost a lot of money but you get what you pay for, and it won't turn into an online fail video.

 

[jclem40c]

spent 25 years working for the county highway dept trimming back along the roads in the winter months. experience says that this is a job for professionals not weekend DIYers. Two things I can tell you #1 you only get killed once and #2 you would be amazed at the amount of damage a tree can do to a house. Your smartest decision would be to hire a qualified and insured arborist. you will thank me in the end. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Shiftless]

I’ll pile on the recommendation for hiring a pro.
I have a smaller cedar tree (about 40 feet tall) on our property that gets professional arborist trimming every 2 years or so.
Hire a pro and get your tree reduced a little at a time.

 

[PopcornSutton]

@PopcornSutton how much is that camper with the leaky roof insured for?

The camper 50 feet away from the tree, is insured, and the roof is just fine due to having it replaced a few years ago. Knowing it would be a time before it was used again, the tarp is just protecting it from the elements. Thanks for staying on topic.

 

[PCustoms]

The camper 50 feet away from the tree, is insured, and the roof is just fine due to having it replaced a few years ago. Knowing it would be a time before it was used again, the tarp is just protecting it from the elements. Thanks for staying on topic.

It was going to be.

Good luck.

 

[Jeff Ivers]

Many years ago, I made the decision that I would never have a maple tree closer to the house than the height of the tree plus a safety margin. The reason is that I have personally observed how many maple trees have fallen on houses. Although that is a beautiful tree now, I would hire a professional to remove the entire tree. In my case, a few years ago I hired a pro to remove an elm that was showing signs of disease and too close to my shop. It was worth every penny.

 

[Old Man Roger]

That's a biggen.

 

[Kaizen]

I will drop any tree as long as there is nothing in any way it could fall. That cable thing you did before (if still there) adds some level of problem to this job.
You could rent a large lift but if you tell them its for tree work they might not allow it. As an example, I have 3 1-2 foot pines and one is dead from beetles. The others have never been great so i called a tree guy with a boom truck and asked him how much to just drop all 3 of them.
I got a price of 1400 a few weeks ago. He will limb it going up and chunk to coming down.
I actually bought a grapple hook and tossed it up on the dead one and tied it 100 feet to a winch in the direction i wanted to drop it. Went up on a 12 foot ladder knowing that is how far i neeed (drone measurement). Put it under tension then i saw stress cracks all the way up there tree. Remembered a local guy that died taking down a rotten centered tree and called it. I'll spend the money on this one.

 

[PopcornSutton]

I studied this tree for months. Since this tree consisted of 5 "trunks", I looked at each one individually and came up with a sequence of cutting them down before getting to the main one that overhung the house. So I bought some new bull rope rated for 11,000 pounds. First thing I did was anchor the overhang truck across the yard to the base of a big oak, wrapped a 3/8" chain around the oak then used two come-a-longs and tightened it down. I then started taking down the other trunks one at a time. With everything out of the way, I put a second rope up in the overhang trunk and hooked it to my L2550 Kubota. I started my cuts, kept tightening the ropes with the comealongs and my wife on the tractor. Those ropes got awfully tight before the tree gave up and down it came.

 

[logical]

An ice storm took care of mine, but it was 300 feet from the house.

 

[racecougar]

We've employed that method (cable pull with anchor tree) successfully a number of times around here. Typically for trees with a bad lean or rotten core with dead branches overhead. It works great.

 

[ATC]

I push ‘em

 

[Plump]

I AM a professional (municipal) and I'D call a professional. As many have stated.

Make sure you go to your state's list of Certified Professional Arborists and find someone close. They may have a solution that fits your situation better than just hacking away. Careful pruning can be a benefit for sure, but they would be able to tell you about structural problems that a "guy and a chainsaw" won't identify or care about. Hacking away at that tree can cause more problems just down the road, too.

Unfortunately, poor pruning and/or planting caused the problem in the first place with the multi-stem issues that you now have.

BE CAREFUL. And remember, trees grow. If it's not a Hazard Tree now, plant one or two appropriate trees now to help mitigate if your tree needs to come down completely in the near future. It's always tough to remove an older tree, but one that causes or is identified as a hazard, isn't worth safety of your property or life.

 

[racecougar]

I AM a professional (municipal) and I'D call a professional. As many have stated.

Make sure you go to your state's list of Certified Professional Arborists and find someone close. They may have a solution that fits your situation better than just hacking away. Careful pruning can be a benefit for sure, but they would be able to tell you about structural problems that a "guy and a chainsaw" won't identify or care about. Hacking away at that tree can cause more problems just down the road, too.

Unfortunately, poor pruning and/or planting caused the problem in the first place with the multi-stem issues that you now have.

BE CAREFUL. And remember, trees grow. If it's not a Hazard Tree now, plant one or two appropriate trees now to help mitigate if your tree needs to come down completely in the near future. It's always tough to remove an older tree, but one that causes or is identified as a hazard, isn't worth safety of your property or life.

Review post #26.

 

[thammel]

A tree story.... My parents had a house built in 1956. Planted a small locust tree behind it...,maybe 20 feet away. Fast forward to about 1990. The tree had gotten really huge and posed a danger to the house. So we're gonna take it down. Start with the chainsaw and of course it starts to lean the wrong way....toward the house. We stop. Get the rope out and a come-along/winch. Start pulling in the opposite direction. Finally it comes down and we save the house. I hugged my father like never before! We were so happy. We'd also had a friend who was really strong - a bricklayer from Poland - helping us. And that's not the end of the story. Now, my dad was about 74 at the time. I would have rented a stump grinder. No....he's not gonna do that. He spent probably months digging a huge hole to get the stump out. He did finally get it out. One of his last big accomplishments!

 

[Jagmandave]

I just spent $1500 to have the pin oak in my front yard trimmed up, dead stuff removed etc by a pro. There were a couple of limbs I wanted him to take down but he said no, they were healthy limbs and weren't a problem. This tree is probably 60 years old and about 100 ft tall.

So I agree, have the right guy do it....talk to several firms don't just hire the guy driving around the 'hood looking for work. Mine brought a 5 man crew, a bucket truck and a chipper, he also climbed up and tied off the limbs before he cut them and the crew on the ground lowered them slowly.