Loading…

That oak removal 40 feet from the power lines took me 3 trips and 19 hours | Arborists - Guest Forum

That oak removal 40 feet from the power lines took me 3 trips and 19 hours

So this white oak in the backyard of a place off Route 9 in Poughkeepsie had a big leader split right over the service drop, and the homeowner told me it would be a two hour job. I said sure, showed up with my 16 inch saw and a pole pruner. First trip I get up about 30 feet and realize the whole thing is hollow. Second trip I come back with the throw line and rigging gear, and every cut I make the thing shifts and my hinge just crumbles because the wood is mush inside. I burned like 6 hours just on the top third, and I had to lower everything in tiny pieces because a single big chunk would have bounced right into the lines. Third trip I finally called a buddy with a bucket and we took it down in sections over about 5 hours. All told it was 19 hours spread across 3 visits for a tree the guy thought was a quick trim. I get why he thought that, it looked fine from the ground, but man I felt dumb for not poking it with a screwdriver on the first walk around. Anyone got a go-to way to check for hollow before you commit to a price?

1 comments

1 Comment

mary_schmidt24d ago

Poking a tree with a screwdriver is about as useful as knocking on the trunk and listening for an echo. You can poke all day and get solid wood right up until the spot three feet over where the rot actually lives. Every hollow tree I have ever dealt with looked fine at the base and read fine on a tap test, and the only thing that ever told me the truth was making a cut and watching the hinge fall apart, which is exactly what you already did. Homeowners also lie about what a tree "needs" and there is no tool on earth that fixes that, so the real lesson here is to bid the unknown as unknown instead of pretending a screwdriver would have saved you. You did the job right, you kept it off the lines, and you got paid to learn the tree was junk. Charging for the poke test just means telling the guy up front that hollow trees cost more, not pretending you can spot one from the ground.