a little crane work

phill ellison

did a job with a 100T crane today its the largest crane we have use so far, it was use for its reach more than for how heavy it could lift as the tree needed to go over the nextdoor house and on to the street. There wasn't much photos to show but here are a few of them

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(WLL)

are you using chain to choke the tree?

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Harder than theTH, and his pack of goons

treevet

Cool picts Phil. What a tight spot. I know it is hard to impose on the job and take picts. I am glad you got some though. Neat crane.

Eric Frei

OK,

Great pics.

But I want some numbers

Distance to the lift?

I know it's a 100t crane but what was it's lift capacity at that distance?

How long did it take?

And if you can at least ball park, costs?

I ask because just about every job I quote for a crane I never get, people find some stupid wanker to carry it out in little pieces, seems you can hire SHERPA's in this town!

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phill ellison

first up was setting up the crane at 7.30 am, it took nearlly two hours to set up adding the counterweight and the huge outriggers pads. the distance I think was 38 mtrs so was given a maximum of 6ton lifting capacity, but the thing is was that it was a multi leader mac with heaps of tangle branches and the bigish bit only weigh bout 1.5ton. by the time we finish and help pack up the crane was bout 2 pm so it took about 3 hours to do the tree work alone ( which is better than 2 days dragging out all the shit ).


as for the issue over us using chains , we spoken both crane company and health & safety officers (HSO) and they have no problem using them as they say that they had not had problem with chains. the chains are HUGE and BLOODY HEAVY and also get tested every now and then . The HSO also told us that they use the same sort of chains in the forest bush dragging big heavy log up the rugged hills and never have any problems .
when using them on cranes I alway double check to see that it is hooked on properly, come down to my cutting point then get the crane opp. to lift up about 600kg to 1ton ( depending on the size of the limb) before cutting to see the chains choke up properly and then do what ever cutting is require

treevet

What is the choking mechanism on these chains. I am sure you do not take them off to choke. Do they have a snap or clevis to attach them back to themselves?

(WLL)

Chains are good and strong, but just way too heavy. My early crane years were rigged out with chains, we only had hooks;without a spring gate, you make damn sure they are set proper, then we moved to steel cable chokers, now i use slings and a large clevis, I must say I'm happy we no longer use chains, cable, or steel for picking. When skidding or dragging chains are a must. I love working with cranes and boom trucks

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Harder than theTH, and his pack of goons

treevet

I have said this before, but most of the time prior to real big stuff, I just hand a 3/4 or 1/2 " 10 to 12 foot lanyard with a spliced eye off the hook and then timber hitch or r.bolen and it is very fast and easy and no worry about getting clocked by the steel choker or clevis etc.

Subbed crane ops I use love this tech too as they have less worries and it is real fast hook up and unhook.

phill ellison

this is bout the only photo i have closeup of a choking chain

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TrevMcRev

I know what you mean ekka.

Maybe phils crane hire is cheaper than here too...

Or do you only charge for the few hours actual tree work and the rest goes to the crane co? Whats the point of that unless you are doing 3 of these a day and have the same lined up every day for the next 3 weeks...

I find the same on quotes that are ideal for a crane, if i allow all the the costs, our time, and want to make a buck or 2 for your trouble you never get them.

phill ellison

that crane was over nz$400 an hour, it took 3 to 4hrs set up/ pack up the crane and 3hrs to do the trees, I just can't see how those other buggers under cost you guys and make a profit out of it. it must take them ten times longer to do the job, stuff that

treevet

You can hire a decent size crane (50 ton) and qualified op here for around $150
hr. You can get a 120 foot crane around 30 ton, plenty to do most any tree if you know what you are doing for around 80 per hour. I often hire a 22 ton with an exceptional op for around 70 $ per hr. around 110 foot w jib. We can do most anything, but if a huge base we have to carve it down a bit. This crane gets in a lot of places.

I have taken down a lot of trees I shouldn't have with my small truck crane, 12 ton, 67 foot plus 25 ft jib by putting some huge pieces on the bed to pin down the a$$ end. Lots of finesse involved at times with cranes if they aren't huge.

It, like rigging, can be like bringing in a huge catfish on a small fishing pole.

treejames64

I ordered a 50 ton crane this year and the guy sent me the 150 ton crane. However it comes with a large toe dolly which he didn't send so I don't even know if it was leagle the way he gave it. I know that I was taking a good size oak out between two buildings and after reaching over a 50 ft roof he only have around two or three sections of the booms out. Talk about over kill.....How do you send the pictures in....It ask for the url of the image..

treevet

Go to "Announcements" on the board and down to "How to post .....embed picts". Look forward to seeing em.

treejames64

It says the pictures are to large...How do you get the file size down to 1000.

treejames64

The first 3 are just me and a few trees. The others are crane photos. Never could get a good ground man to take pictures.

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Therrin

Just a boonie hat or no head gear, no helmet at ALL doing climbing and crane work??

And only one Tie In Point??? (and over a stub at that)

Scary stuff there dude. I'd think that with a big job like that you could afford a nice climbing helmet.

phill ellison

by the look of the last pic. therrin , I think he did have a main climbing rope on but it did looked a bit to loose, but no helmet

newguy18

Believe me now?Nonone,and i mean noone here in north central florida wear helmets,chaps or anything while climbing.I wear my hemet most of the time while climbing.

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old schooler

treejames64

I once put a hard hat under the standard of a bucket truck.....lol.. I wear hard hats on dead trees and usually crane jobs. I got one of those fancy rock climbing helmets but it tends to hurt my ears. I believe your right about California. When we went out there to cut those burned up pines down they made us put hard hats on but not chaps. In Florida, are rule is if your on the ground and a green horn you got to wear chaps. However in 100+ degree weather your more likely to end up dead by heat stroke than a chainsaw. The one with the flip line is a different tree. More pictures of it on my info page. I usually tie in to the last top I'm going to take and always undue my flip line when I make a cut with a crane. The last company I worked for Gaston's Emergency Service had 3 cranes, 3- 80 ft buckets, 12 loader trucks, a large wood yard, two tub grinders, and lots of bobcats, tractors, etc. They're sister companies with Wood Resource and Recovery out of Gainesville, Fla. ( They were the largest private owned tree company in the SE U.S. We were on the first response team so crane work was very routine. I managed them and did there bad stuff for over 10 years until I semi retired. They should have a nice web page with lots of pictures.

Therrin

I didnt say anything about chaps first of all.

Second of all, why do you gotta derail every single damn thread with something about yourself? I DONT GIVE A FLYING RATS ASS that you dont wear any safety gear. I'm not talking about YOU in this thread, I'm talking about the picture with the climber in it. Buzz off!
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In Cali you can get FINED for not wearing a helmet. So I was just interested in why, especially while climbing and doing CRANE work, the guy wouldnt bother wearing a brain bucket. But that's up to him I guess, I was just wondering if that's standard practice for your company.

treejames64

It is standard practice to wear hard hats in Florida. I was always aloud to do my own thing. I had alot of sun damage to the head and face over the years so I liked the floppy hat. However you're right about safty. I will try one of those hood things that snap into the hard hat and see if that works. I do carry a hard hat and use it on most dead trees and crane jobs. I now have a company called "Call the Treeman, Inc.", and usually work for other tree Companies. The hat's become a little like an identity thing with me. Sometimes I get a little fed up with more and more government regs on everything. Everytime I'm turn around there,s a new tax or rule that ends up costing more money which in turn comes back to the customer. This year with the economy the large profit jobs have dissappeared and been replaced with longer hours and more bills. Gaston's (my former company ) are now looking at ways to turn the wood chips into fuel. It seems you got to keep doing more to get the same. (By the way two months they had a guy get burned up in a loader truck). He had lifted the boom to dump it and pulled the truck forward into a power line. Customer heard him scream and they tried to help but they said they could feel the current when they got close. So we have lots of inspectors right now...The truck was burned to nothing. Following article.Around the Region - March 4


Published: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 1:23 a.m.
Police Beat

Man killed in power line accident ID'd

Deputies have identified a Gainesville man who died Saturday when a boom on his truck touched a power line.

Bruce S. Garner, 25, was killed in the accident that caused the truck's cab to catch fire, the Alachua County Sheriff's Office reported. Investigators could not immediately release the man's identity because of difficulty contacting his family and notifying them about the accident.

Garner worked for Gaston's Tree Service and was delivering mulch to a home in northwest Alachua County when the mishap occurred. He pulled the truck forward after noticing a problem with the mulch "bunching up" in the rear of the vehicle. The boom then came into contact with electrical lines.

Investigators don't know if Garner died from electrocution or from the fire caused by the accident.

- Lise Fisher


s

Therrin

Wow, that's really sad bro. Condolences to his family.


Yeah back in the backcountry and up in the sticks I'll never see a city shiny-ass runnin around looking for someone to tag, it's just gotten to be a habit. That and I've smacked my head against so much stuff, so many times I'm usually pretty glad that it's there.

I used to wear a boonie hat UNDER my helmet for a while when I was a high ropes instructor, but it only works with certain boonie hats made of specific fabrics, otherwise it's just annoying as hell.
I know what you mean about needing sun protection, I'm a white boy =)

Eric Frei

What a sad story, I too know about heat and sweat with all the PPE.

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Therrin

If I were as old and in the shape you're in I'm sure it'd be pretty killer on me too Ekka.

treejames64

Yeah, This guy was only on the job for a couple of weeks. As I said, I was over a pretty stricked training program and trained lots of climbers however it was hard to enforce safty chaps because I wouldn't wear them myself. We had one bad accident where a guy (less than a year experience cut himself with a 066 while cutting a stump (chaps would of prevented this). It cut his thigh to the bone but didn't hit the artery. What I didn't understand about the truck catching on fire is I hit a line with a 80 ft truck where the bottom boom is steel, and it sounded like a welder for about 10 secs (I let go of the controls real quick) and then blew a fuse. We also had a guy weld a crane line to a power line and another blew a fuse on the lines with a loader while sitting a top of it. Never seen a truck burst into flames like that one. Here the truck driver's blog page. It's sad reading the blogs when people here what happened. MySpace.com - Spencer (7/11/83 - 2/28/09) - 25 - Male - FAYETTEVILLE, Georgia - www.myspace.com/b_garner06 If you notice my jobs I still make my groundmen always wear safty gear. I also made it a rule at Gaston's that if a salesmen or owner came on the job they had to wear a hard hat so I guess that makes me a hypocrit. I'm really going to try to wear it again if it doesn't fry my braines..At least it's white.

treevet

You probably ought to change that avatar as it is in bad taste and a bad example. No prob if you want to break your head open but if your employee does you are in big trouble in court for not following ANSI.

treevet

PS. Just like when a tree guy is injured or killed and it hurts us all a bit, when it comes to PPE, .....we are all in this thing together and safety and professionalism are of the utmost importance.

treejames64

I was thinking about your comments. I notice you don't have mud flaps on your truck, It is also not equipped with the newer, safer, anti-lock breaking system. This sets a bad example to those of us who hold safe driver's licenses....We have to share the road with you. Lol...

treevet

took you a whole day to think that up?

You are ate up boy.