Yes, I am impulsive and a risk taker; it’s the story of my life. Somewhat remarkably, most of the time the outcomes are not only not bad, but often they’re actually the best decisions I ever made. Like the time my neighbor told me that the university had eight houses they were going to give away, and that I should take them, and he’d move them for me. Umm, sure! Not that I had a clue as to what was involved…
This little fiasco is an exception. It happened over at my cluster of rentals, those those same moved houses. I had no plans to take this tree down that morning; I was over there doing something else, when I looked up at that dead pine and said to myself: that should be easy to drop down in the middle of the big common yard there. What could go wrong?
(These are the comments I left at YouTube about this video):
There’s a back story to how I dropped this tree on that house, which was one of my rentals, and did very little damage. It was a pretty skinny pine that died three years ago. I figured it would be quite easy to drop it into that large yard between these two rentals. I put up my 24′ extension ladder on it and tied a pull rope on it as high as possible. I assumed one person would be able to pull it readily as I cut through the bottom, having cut an angled piece in the direction I wanted it to fall. The rope I had on hand was pretty modest, but certainly strong enough for one or two people pulling on it.
The problem is that the branches near the top of the live pine next to it were all tangled up with the dead tree. As I cut through the bottom, my puller helper pulled with all his might, but the top of the tree was too tangled up. I went over and pulled with him. Nothing doing.
So I hooked it to my truck and tried to pull it, gently. But the skinny rope just broke. Now I was in a serious pickle. The tree was totally cut through, just sitting on its stump. And we invariably get a pretty decent breeze here starting about noon or so.
The tenant whose car was parked there turned out to be out of town until late that night, but I couldn’t just leave that tree loose like that.
I went and bought a stout rope. But I didn’t dare lean my tall ladder against the tree. So I got my 12′ pruning ladder and reached as far as possible to tie the rope. But that wasn’t very far up, as I had already cut the tree pretty high up.
At this point I had no choice but to try to pull the tree again with my truck, knowing that the rope was tied much lower than it should be. And I knew that the odds of laying it down where I wanted it to go were pretty low. I rather anticipated a fiasco, which is precisely why I asked this person to take a video of it with my phone.
Once the tree came off its trunk, the rope slacked and it fell over on the house.
I got the tree off the roof pretty readily. I cut all the upper branches off, pried it up on a chunk of 4×4, and then yanked it off with my truck. I had to patch a couple of shingles and replace an 18″ section of siding, the end of the gutter and the downspout. All easy fixes.There was no damage to the car. And the tree is gone.
Thank you, I needed that chuckle this morning. A perfect start to a Tuesday.
“You’re gonna have to pay us extra, Anderson. We pruned the house too.”
If I would try that, the truck bumper would have come off and went through a window on that house.
We had a significant storm over the weekend that felled a lot of branches and some trees. Yesterday morning I received a text from, literally, Karen, that included her address in the tony neighborhood across the main road from me. It included a picture of a downed tree, and asked “Bryan” for a bid to remove it. A wrong number.
Feeling ornery, I replied: $23,946.94 plus trailer fee of $1,500. With tax that is $27,228.22. Let me know. Thank you!
Karen: Just double checking that the price is 27k??
At that point, I revealed I am not in the tree business and that she had a wrong number. I should have added that I have a pickup and a chain saw, and that for $27K I’d be over in ten minutes!
This is why I insist on being handed a copy of a certificate of insurance before anybody gets to touch one of the trees on my property. Ask me how often that stops a job from proceeding. Quite frequently.
One of the best things about working only on my rentals is that I don’t have to worry about such things as being licensed, bonded and insured, although I do of course carry insurance on the houses as well as a million dollar umbrella liability policy. But if I screw something up, it’s my place.
In all my years as a homeowner and landlord, I’ve never filed a single insurance claim. You’d think that would qualify for some sort of big discount, but no. I had an impulse to self-insure my rentals back when I started, putting the equivalent of the premium payments into a fund. I wish I had done so…I’d be way ahead, and have enough to cover a catastrophic loss.
The idea of being a contractor and pleasing (and dealing with) customers is anathema to me. Over the years neighbors have asked me if I’m available for this or that. Nope!
It’s the same working on cars. Occasionally, someone will ask (or beat around the bush) if I’ll fix their car. Almost always, nope! Good friends or family…sometimes, but they know ahead of time what can go wrong and that I may not be the guy to deal with it.
I find that many people don’t understand the fact that I can fix brakes on on an old hobby car does not mean that I could fix a complicated wiring issue on their modern daily driver. Or even want to. And for free as well.
But they would never dream of asking their corporate account friend to do their personal taxes for free. Its an odd double standard.
It took me a long time to learn that helping people with cars usually
ended up with being called about anything that could possibly go wrong
with a vehicle and/or blamed for the same. As an example: close on a
decade ago A co-worker was looking for an inexpensive car for occasional
use, and I, thinking I was being nice, offered to help. After finding a 1987
Caprice Wagon in excellent shape and under 100k on it we went to take
a look. It was as good as it looked in the ad, only option I remember was
A/C, which worked ok but needed r12. Paint was faded but interior was
mint. She liked it, and the deal was closed for $1700. I then changed all
the fluids for her, tuned it up, charged the AC, sanded and touched up
the paint and generally went over it with a fine tooth comb for the cost of
the materials. I had no ulterior motives, btw. So for about 2k she had a
great fully serviced and pretty bullet proof car. She was enjoying for a
few months when I get a call that some friends of hers want to borrow it
to go on tour, being used as a band rig.
Of course I explain that they will likely abuse it, etc, etc “don’t be
surprised” and all that. Afterwards it was never quite right and I got
the impression that she considered it somehow my fault. I had helped
friends out like that a few times, but that was the end.
Any news on the Studebaker?
My Studebaker? I have to do an update on the fleet but long story short I got it running and driving. The transmission appeared to operate ok but had some seriously weird notes when driving. I hate dealing with automatic transmissions so passed it onto the next owner (with that disclosed). If it were a manual I would have sorted and kept it. I have a different classic in the garage now which ironically needs more work.
Paul,
Back in the early 1980s I was dating a lady who was a Deputy Comptroller of the Treasury, in charge of all nationally chartered banks. I owned and operated an antique car restoration shop in Suburban Maryland, just outside Washington DC.
We used to attend various high-level DC parties, often black tie affairs. I would often drive one of my Rolls-Royces, as I also owned a Rolls-Royce limousine service. Inevitably, word would get around as to what I did for a living (Who owns the vintage Rolls parked outside?), and multiple politicos and high level corporate men would corner me and want to talk car stuff rather than the boring topics circulating around DC.
This used to infuriate my partner, because she felt I was going to these high-level parties and talking about getting dirty working on old cars, rather than staying in the boring conversations she was trapped in. She didn’t realize that no matter what I tried to do to keep the topic in line, these guys weren’t having any of it! And sometimes they would ask me to find them a collector car for investment purposes. I always turned down those requests.
The one exception was a guy who was a presidential speechwriter and subsequently the assistant Secretary of State under Al Haig. He drove as his everyday car a 1953 Packard Patrician sedan. He asked me to find him a 1950s luxury car with factory A/C, as his wife was now pregnant, and they wanted a fairly reliable car with A/C.
I owned a bright red 1955 Cadillac Fleetwood 60S sedan, loaded with all options including dual carbs & A/C. It was a low mileage car and was very reliable. By this time I had been servicing his Packard for a few years, and knew he was dedicated to keeping the car serviced and reliable. So I sold him the Cadillac. He never had any problem with that car. When the Packard started having problems due to severe levels of Pennsylvania body rot, along with another child on the way, he asked me to find a replacement for the Packard.
I showed them a very low mileage 1954 Chrysler New Yorker sedan, loaded including factory A/C. I knew the car because I serviced it for quite a few years, and felt it would be a great addition to the collection. So for the next 20 years she drove the Cadillac and he drove the Chrysler as everyday cars, having them serviced on a regular basis. In 1993 we sold the Packard to a car collector from the Netherlands who drove it in a big cavalcade of European cars from Washington DC to Chicago, then all the way to the Pacific ocean via rt66, before shipping it back to Holland.
My friend retired about 15 years ago, moving back to the Philly area. He died a few years later, but I understand she still drives that red Cadillac around town, and the eldest son has the Chrysler.
Nice to know they ended up in good hands.
Minor damage, still cheaper than paying a pro. We had pretty massive destruction from
the recent winter storms at our house in Suburban Portland, with several large trees
down and a bunch of dropped limbs. I took care of everything myself except for a tree
that had broken branches hanging over the neighbors property. Even though they were
small and would have done no real damage if they dropped, I paid $1200 dollars to have
a pro do it to avoid having to hear about it forever. And it would be forever, based on
past experience.
Reminds me of a story that a neighbor told me about my house’s previous owners.
We live in a 1920s-era house that was originally built with a detached wood-frame garage. The garage was evidently in poor condition, and the previous owner decided one weekend to pull it down by strapping a chain to the garage’s beams and pulling it with his pickup.
He asked a neighbor if he’d like to help. The neighbor immediately said that the chain looked too short, to which the guy replied that he’d designed it so that the garage will fall in on itself. Well… it didn’t. The whole thing fell on his truck instead, denting the roof and breaking the windshield. Makes for a good story, but I’m glad I wasn’t a part of it.
Luckily the damage was minimal, and as you said, you own the properties.
There’s a lot worse outcomes readily available on YouTube, as you undoubtedly know!
Now that our own trees have gotten so much larger in the nearly 30 years we’ve lived at the same house, we call in the professionals for tree work.
The price of taking down trees has gone up a lot, although it’s probably just temporary due to the home improvement surge caused by so many people staying home. Ten years ago I paid $500 to have a Tree of Heaven taken down. A few months ago I was quoted $3K for the same species tree of similar size. It can probably wait for the next recession.
20–30 years ago I took a few down myself, sometimes w/o drama but once I bent a chainlink fence rail and, worse, once I ripped the AC power line anchor away from the wall.
Oh, dear. I will add that video to the list with this one…
Oh, that poor old Ford .
I recently (and STUPIDLY) climbed up my extension ladder to trim my hated oak tree and looked down at the top of the ladder leaned against a branch *just* before the branch raised up enough to let the ladder slip as I was working with the chain saw….
That would have been a real disaster .
I’d given my cell ‘phone to the boys to call 911 if anything bad happened , I don’t think I’ll be climbing ladders again any time soon .
Good that Paul didn’t wreck the house .
-Nate
…and this one:
But now I think about it, you say:
Can you drop houses on witches, too? I understand you’ve got multiple houses; I’ve got a witch surplus to requirements!
I almost couldn’t watch! But I’m glad I did. And glad it wasn’t worse.
Reminds me of how my brother and I had to take down a tree next to our driveway. We had nowhere nearly enough room for the tree to fall unless it went exactly parallel to the driveway, and of course it didn’t. It went at an angle and hit the neighbors house, taking out a chunk of siding that he had just painted a week previous. Luckily, we have a good relationship with the guy and simply paid him for the damage.
I was the operator of tractor which was to pull a similarly situated big old tree in the desired direction.
Lead man was experienced tree guy; turned out that meant a lot. Cable was secured way high in tree.
I’m glad lead took the time to stress to me several times that I was going to think the job was done when the tree started to topple. The job would not be done, the tree could still go off course on the way down. It was going to take all the tractor had to accelerate fast enough to keep the cable under tension. I would not want to be in low gear.
Thanks to leads advice I was ready. Sure enough the tree tried to go off course as it tried to “catch up” and cause the cable to go slack. It wasn’t easy to keep ahead of the falling tree but being ready for full fuel did the trick.
Made it! Whew
If you study Paul’s video thats roughly what happened – rope went slack, guiding force was lost. But with the tree dropping vertically off its stump I’m not sure if a top fuel car could launch fast enough to keep the rope tight. Who can do the geometry on that? Even if pull was fast enough to keep the rope taut, the low hook point might have flipped the tree?
Anyway, not the worst loss. Shrug
When I had a rental and managed my dad’s duplex I found doing things myself usually beat trying to find “professionals” do do most work. He had advanced Parkinson’s and was in assisted living, so every dollar of income from the property was important.
Being a landlord can be a challenge, but I found that some are willing to do small stuff themselves. I even put one on my local ACE Hardware charge account. Seldom did I have vacancies because I also welcomed pets.
Reminds me of an incident that happened years ago where I used to live.
A fellow down the street wanted to cut down a 100 foot (guessing at height) palm tree in front of his house.
So he hired the local handy man who climbed up his ladder about 20 feet up and sawed in the trunk, then tied the end of a rope around the trunk and tied the other end to the bumper of his small Toyota pickup. He got in his truck, started it and tried to pull the tree down.
Instead, the tree went the other way and dragged the Toyota up onto the sidewalk and stopped short of crashing down onto the house. It was amusing to watch.
About an hour later, the city sent a team to cut down the palm tree properly. Fortunately no damage to house. I later learned the hired hand still wanted to be paid and the homeowner received a hefty fine from the city.
I have taken trees down, up to about 15 feet or so, without major incident, with my little electric chain saw. Those ropes sure come in handy.
I did have to take down a metal gazebo in my backyard, and by the time I got to it rust was fairly prevalent on all the fasteners. So out comes the grinder, cutting away at each of the top four corners. Going along well, no problem, until I cut into the one nearest the house. When it decided to let go, the top rail went in the opposite direction as planned, and landed, within two inches of my kitchen window. Thankfully there was no damage or it would have been an expensive repair.
I would have liked to have taken a rope to my above ground pool to get rid of that, but it required three of us to take it down piece by piece, including the use of sawzalls for some of the metal.
Great fun.
I read recently that motorcycles aren’t dangerous; video cameras are the real danger. I think that applies to tree-felling also. But thanks for the video 😀
@Dman ;
Motocycles are inherently dangerous and can be deadly .
Idiots using power tools incorrectly can be dangerous too, I enjoy watching them on you tube =8-) .
-Nate
A friend owed me a hundred bucks and I had a couple of dead trees that needed to be removed before storm season began. I told him if he helped me, I would clear the $100 and give him $50 on top of it. He was all in. I should have thought about who I was asking to help me before I called him. Nice guy, but it seemed like he did stuff without thinking about safety in any way. This time, it almost cost him everything. The one tree was about 25 feet tall, pretty skinny, and had a kind of a one vertical trunk and two more at about 40 degrees facing left and right. I decided to do the chainsaw work, and the first two side trunks came down fine, no drama. I’m cutting the third one, and his job was to whack the wedge I cut out, so the tree would come down into my yard, not the fence. Instead of hitting the wedge, he takes the slegehammer and hits the tree up about 2 feet higher and the tree comes down onto my fence, a split rail. Not a huge deal, that section was about to be replaced as the huge numbers of birds crapping on it had eaten it up badly. He apologized and we started to work on the big tree.
The big tree was about 40 feet tall, lots of skinny branches on top with a maybe 18″ trunk. Part of the top of it had come down already, and the plan was to tie a rope as far up as possible, about 15 feet, and pull it with my truck, a 2000 Sierra. I got up on the ladder and tied the rope to the tree, and started to cut the trunk. His job was pretty much to stand back and watch and then help me cut it up to take to a friend, who wanted the wood. I made some cuts and realize the trunk of the tree was way more rotted out than I thought, and my truck didn’t need to pull it at all, it was coming down all on it’s own. As it started to go over, I thought “Great, it’s falling exactly where I wanted it to!”, and then he walked right under it as it started to accelerate towards the ground, I yelled, “Get back!” and he did, barely, he got a nice scratch on his face from one of the branches as the trunk fell about 18″ from his head. He spent about 10 minutes huffing and puffing after it came down and we went inside the house to wash off the cut on his face, and then he got lectured by my mother, who saw the whole thing. About 10 years later, he would almost repeat that performance when his brother and he were removing a dead tree from their mother’s back yard. That tree just missed him too. It didn’t miss mom’s garage though. Mom was not happy about the damage to the garage, or him almost getting killed by the tree hitting him. He’s still alive and well, so I guess he’s lucky?
All’s well that ends well applies here, I think.
I’m reminded of 2 similar incidents, one happened about 25 years ago when my dad had the idea of tying a rope off from the decent size cottonwood he was taking down in his back yard to his 91 4 Runner. The tree came the direction he intended, but the rope wasn’t long enough. The damage to the truck was repairable, and the next day my stepmother “helpfully” put a “Tree Crossing” sign on the garage door.
Two years ago, my dad was helping me fell a dead poplar in my yard. We tied it off as high as we could with my 28 foot ladder, then he manned the rope while I cut, it wasn’t enough, as the tree fell the exact opposite direction we were intending and came down across the road! Fortunately it’s not a busy road, no cars were in the vicinity when the tree fell or during the time it took us to clear it out of the road after.