removing gum by crane

phill ellison

here a few photos of a large gum we had to remove using a crane(55 ton) to lower it all down, took bout 4 hours, the tree had a height of 38 mtrs and it was luckythe crane could reach 40 mtrs

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Garry Brockley

Wow! good one Phil thats one hell of a way of ascending a tree, good take down and safely done.

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phill ellison

cheers Galbee

kiwi_tree_steve

what a sweet job man! nice crane

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"You have to feel and touch a tree" Shigo

phill ellison

it a awesome crane mate worth $ 1.2 millon, it has 7 different computers on it and can do 77 differents type of lift on it, when the operater was telling me about it the other day, I was getting lost already at the start, too complicated for me.

kiwi_tree_steve

Sounds like its a must "Read this manual before operating" toy aye!

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"You have to feel and touch a tree" Shigo

willem

Nice pictures Phill,

In Holland were not allowed to ride the crane. You have to climb up yourself or be lucky the cranedriver is a decent bloke and lets you hook on.
I've a question about the third?? picture. The one in which you are still attached to the crane and there are two large branches left. I cann't make out if the chains are already attached and didn't you unhook yourself from the crane when cutting one of the two branches?? Do you come down with them?? Or do you hook on every time to the crane then attach chaines and hook yourself to tree before cutting??
Lots of questions but I'm interested because our goverment is thinking of changing regulations so we also can ride the crane.

JohN Dee

Sweet pictures and nice work there Phill

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phill ellison

hi willem, here in New zealand we ride the hook as to save time and energy and what you see on the third photo is I get the crane operater to pick me up to the top of them branch to get a high tie in point for the hook then I lower myself back to the main trunk of tree and retie myself in and then do the cutting, it is very important to get that high tie in point to save the limb swinging around and it could come back at ya. You really need to talk to goverment as it is far more safer than any other way, it cut your time in half which is great

newguy18

Hey Phil,any pointers for someone who's never used a crane before?

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old schooler

phill ellison

I can do that for you newguy, it can be a bit like the way you lower a tree down only that the crane does the lifting, the most important thing is to know the weigh of the timber as you do not want to be too heavy, a good crane operator will tell you how much you be allow to lift, good commuication with crane op. is a must, it pay to have some walkie talkie. When hooking on to the limbs be sure to get the highest point as posible as some time the head can be heavier than the lower part and can swing around on ya. the cut that I mostly use is what I call the top and bottom cut where you cut one half of timber then cut the other cut bout an inch lower to about 3/4 of the way, that way the timber is just sitting there and the crane should be able to do the work by lifting up and braking it off. The one thing I like bout usuing the crane is that no one is doing the heavy lifting or lowering .Some people do not like usuing cranes as they have to pay for it but at the end of the day the crane can do it faster and can charge bout the same price as you would if you are lowering which take about three times longer. It really just playing your cards right and think about what you are doing then have a good drink at the end of it all

Eric Frei

Crane are a rip off here and also some-one must have a diggers ticket.

What size was that one, how long, how much cost etc for that job?

Many run 4hours minimum and charge travel etc here.

I've had a 20T Franna rip me a good $430 for 30 mins work.

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Sean Freeman

Sadly it takes some time and a number of jobs to build up relationships with a crane company and the people who operate the equipment..the four hour charge is a rip, unless that is it actually took 2hrs to get there!

I have had little to do with cranes since concentrating mainly on the SE corner but found the company Stephen used to be extremely helpful and willing to listen to the plan for each job, dogmen were never an obstical to what we wanted to achieve.

Eric Frei

I think tree blokes need to get their doggers tickets, many crane companies in Brisbane want $99/hour for a dogger to stand and watch, billed the same amount of hours as the crane!

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phill ellison

man you did get rip off there eric, on that day doing that gum we had that crane there for 5 hours and it only cost us bout NZ$1200.00 and that was a 55 ton crane. the crane company call Titans and they well known here in wellington NZ and have all sizes of cranes here from a 7 ton to a 300 ton crane (awesome) . The only bother is that they charge for the travelling.

phill ellison

I don't know what you mean by doggers , we don't have them here whatever they are

Sean Freeman

doggers/dogman~rigger

willem

doggers/dogman~rigger. So this is a guy who helpes the crane operator with rigging the crane and attaching chains etc. Does he also communicate with operator when lifting??.
The company I work for uses often cranes. Not for removals but to do treetranplants. When we get such a crane only the big ones 250 tons> have additional crews with them. They are the drivers of the trucks that carry the extra contraweight of the crane.
Smaller cranes you only get the craneoperator.


This is a job with a 125 ton crane and no dogs!!

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phill ellison

Thanks willem for that, we don'thave them on site with us and we always help out the crane op. out setting up the crane with outriggers and hooking the chains on and i'm the one who talk to him when up the trees with the walkie talkie as i can see bit better than the ground crew ( save us lot of money)

Sean Freeman

WH&S has been intensified in the construction industry here in the last 5yrs the only cranes that I know of that are hired out without a rigger/dogman are 20T and under, everything else (bigger) comes with additional GC and yes they are the ones communicating with the operator.

phill ellison

What a pain in the butt, what if they can't see you in the heavy foliages of the trees?

Sean Freeman

If you establish a good working relatinship with the company or if they have some common sense about them, the climber will be included in the communication loop and have a radio. I have seen it work both ways with radios and without, again common sense, caution and experience will deliver cover at a level to satisfy WH&S.

Eric Frei

Just another bunch of red tape mumbo jumbo that crane companies cashed in on.

They know when we book the crane that they're doing trees, not construction work! We aren't lifting metal sheets or concrete walls etc.

When Jim1NZ and I did those 3 palms at the bowls club their dogman wouldn't go with our suggestion and his idea frankly would have failed if the load inverted ... but he had the doggers ticket didn't he. Frustrated us, and Jim got a taste of it. I remember when we started talking about it with the dogman he got a bit short and soon told us he was the dogman and it all goes down his way!

Frankly, I liked the old days better, and Australia is now perhaps the most red taped OHS bung hole on the planet.

As arborists we are trained and know SWL's and rigging, we know how to estimate log weights etc. Sadly, that knowledge is discounted by some really stupid things like ....

1/ treeloppers without qualifications who tip cranes onto houses

2/ lack of licencing and recognising properly qualified tradesmen

So the solution would be to go get your doggers ticket, and then hopefully the crane company will work with you still as they could have a policy of only using their own dogger. For these reasons I look for all other alternatives than a crane, and we cant ride the hook anyway.

Yes, I have had smaller 20T franna's etc which work with you one on one however for the bigger cranes I'll go through other options first.

Here's the thread with Jim, video is in post12

Gonna crane these palms out.

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Sean Freeman

As I said in that thread about the palms, bad luck with the dogman on that job never encountered such small minded guys on crane jobs been lucky I guess but all that should be established long before the crane gets to the site.

willem

We also have a lot of regulations, however branchorganisations can influence regulations and riding the hook will be possible legal soon.
Ekka I would try to contact or work with another crane company. Maybe there are better ones. A company that tries to solve problems with you, and not create more problems on a job like removing trees with a crane.
Maybe you have something like this as an alternitive