That elm removal last Tuesday nearly went sideways on me

Came in to take down a big American elm in someone's backyard, thought it was a straightforward job. But the tree had a massive hollow cavity up about 15 feet that I didn't spot from the ground. When I made my first cut, the whole thing started to twist and split way faster than I expected. Barely got my rope set in time to swing it clear of their shed. How do you all check for hidden rot or hollow spots before you start cutting?

2 comments

2 Comments

diana555d ago

Knew a guy who missed a hollow spot and the tree cracked right through his climbing line.

fiona_lewis375d ago

Actually that's not quite how tree failure works with climbing lines. The climbing line doesn't get cracked by the tree splitting, it's more that the tree fails and pinches the rope or drops the climber. What that person probably saw was the hinge of the tree face breaking out and taking the line with it, not a crack traveling through the rope itself. Arborists call that a barber chair failure when the tree splits upward along the grain, and it can definitely cut your line if you're not paying attention to hollow spots. The real danger is having no escape route when that trunk decides to go sideways instead of where you aimed it.