Crane removal virgin

emr

emr

Cheesehead Treehouser
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
2,193
Location
Neenah, Wisconsin
Well, I am about to become a man. I am going to be part of my first crane removal. Last summer I looked at a tree for removal. It is a fairly big Ash that has a deck built around it and part of the canopy has a second story deck under it. The tree was in pretty rough shape and I think it had several cables and rods in it. I didnt feel that it was practical to climb it so I referred a guy we know who does crane work. The customer finally got around to approving his bid and he is hiring us to be his ground crew. It will be the first time I have worked around a crane so I am pretty excited about it.

The climber used to work in Minneapolis for Davey where he did crane work on a regular basis. I have seen some pics of the guy in action and it seems that he knows what he is doing. We wont be doing any climbing, just grounding for him but it still will be fun. I will try and take some pics of the job which will occur in mid May and post them here.

Any suggestions for a ground guy? Everyone seems to always have advise for guys in the tree, but I assume there are things that I should know as a groundie. I will be having this same conversation with the climber before the job, but I might as well post here first.
 
Sometimes the people on the ground can help with communications between the climber and operator.
Ground guys often have free time on crane jobs. Don't fall asleep!
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3
Really about the time????? I was figuring we would be running our buts off trying to keep up.
 
Pretty casual is often the case, depends on what your procedures are..how much wood is coming down, and whether it is getting cut up and cleared out before the next load. With more than one person on the ground, it shouldn't be a rush, I suspect.
 
Take a whistle.

Dont lift anything that weighs more than 25lbs... you got the crane.

If you can, pick everything straight to the chipper, the op should be able to do it himself but if you have a winch on the chipper that helps too.

If the crane stops moving you stop making money.

Davey has really shown me that you can make a ton of money with the crane... Watch what the climber does and learn so you can do it yourself.

Around here we can rent a 30 ton for $130/hour and we can do a $3000 tree before noon, 4 hours with the crane/op 1 guy cutting and two on the ground chipping....(we did a 50-60 inch maple the other day in less than 4 hours, it was backyard, over the house, wires etc... picked it straight over the house in 1500lb sized limbwood straight to the chipper and 3-4k lb trunk sections straight to the trailer.

I never would have imagined how cheap you can get a crane and how much work it can do so fast... Plus the cutting part is pretty basic stuff, I know I will get slammed for saying that but it isnt rocket science honestly.
 
I was gonna say it all depends on the set-up/situation I would think. But yah as a groundman you just need tot be jonny on the spot with landing, unhooking, and processing debris. I've done very little cranework myself, picks once only but have hired the same crane a few other times to use his basket for crap that I wouldn't touch otherwise. We have strange regulations up here that ixnay the riding of the ball without 'special' permission from compo. Stupidest thing ever.

Have fun, cranes are wicked. I dream of buying one but you have to be certified as an operator to run one up here too. So even if I bought my own crane for treework I would have to pay a small fortune to train/challenge the test in order to operate it legally. Then I still wouldn't be allowed to hook a climber to the ball. I'd like to see someone stop me.
 
Nope. I'd have to dig up the regulations but I hunted a few people down at the ISA conference that was held up here a few back and it was pretty clear no climber hooked to the crane as life support. Plus none of the crane outfits here will allow you to do it, I've asked. There are a couple of random operators around that I don't know that I haven't asked but the two main companies here, nada. And those are the only two companies I've ever heard of doing treework at all.
 
Time for groundies?

It all depends. Depends on the capacity of the crane, structure of the tree, size of the drop zone, groundies ability to process efficiently, how fast your chipper is, etc , etc.

Like any other tree job, none is ever the same, too many variables.

Advice? Have your saw and a back up saw sharp and ready to rock. Try to lay your material down as close as possible to your chipper as possible. If you have to, back the rig up closer to the drop zone. If you start to get buried, dont panic. Keep processing and chipping brush as quickly as you can. Cut the wood out and either leave it lay or roll it aside if you cant keep up. You want to keep the drop zone open, you dont want a pick hanging midair waiting because your still processing the last pick. If things are rolling smoothly, by the time you finish processing one pick, the next one will be ready to lay down.

Also be patient, some trees have structure where they must be disassembled in a certain order. Sometime some small picks need to be made to allow for the next 1,2 or 3 picks. Many times Ive had to hoist out a pesky 6 or 8 " diameter limb, in planning for the biggun to come. The grooundies often get calky because they think your pussy footing it up there. What they dont realize, is its a chess game, those one or 2 small picks were all part of the plan for the next pick.

I laugh thinking about it, because the groundies get arrogant and calky when you send out a few itty bitties. Then out comes a pick that hardly fits the drop zone, it takes them, 20 minutes to lay it down, unsling it and get it partially chipped. Then they get buried with another monster, never to catch up until you get to the stem wood.



Get familiar with your hand signals, and have a prejob meeting with all parties involved including the operator. Discuss the game plan, anticipated number of picks, and your processing plan and abilities. Have a green weight log chart handy for reference if needed. And mostly PAY attention to any and everything.
 
squisher said:
Nope. I'd have to dig up the regulations but I hunted a few people down at the ISA conference that was held up here a few back and it was pretty clear no climber hooked to the crane as life support. Plus none of the crane outfits here will allow you to do it, I've asked. There are a couple of random operators around that I don't know that I haven't asked but the two main companies here, nada. And those are the only two companies I've ever heard of doing treework at all.
Click to expand...


It really isnt necessary to ride the line most of the time anyway. Around here, 2-5% of the time there is no other way. Some people think its faster if you can ride the hook, but not really in alot of cases. Mostly people due it out of laziness.
 
Ground work on a crane job is easy peasy often times. When the pick gets to you, hurry up and get it back on its way into the air. Even with a bangin climber, you should have down time between picks to eat, talk, file saw, poop, text, whatever. Minimal rake up. Set the job up to haul away the wood in length. No sense in flying through the removal, just to watch the job slow down with wood handling. My advice is to be quick with unhooking the picks, but don't race and rush. It's easy to get hurt or have a pick shift and hurt you. Quickly, but calm and deliberate.
 
tophopper said:
It really isnt necessary to ride the line most of the time anyway. Around here, 2-5% of the time there is no other way. Some people think its faster if you can ride the hook, but not really in alot of cases. Mostly people due it out of laziness.
Click to expand...

Exactly why I would do it. Jk'ing.

Mostly around here it's conifers, I can see it being advantageous to ride the ball drop in, hook up, drop down, cut er loose. If I gotta work my way up from the bottom then I may as well start a rigging fest and rope everything down. Also it seems like the jobs I bid for a crane I rarely get. I must bid to high but I think I'm in the ballpark. I've seen, mostly the trees don't get done. Crane work is few and far between by anyone in my immediate area, I've heard it's more common slightly south of me and I've seen a competitor about 1hr away has his own crane. And suprise, suprise when I saw them their climber was dangling from the ball.
 
I find that the logistics of keeping the processed chips and logs moving to keep up with capacity is one of the toughest challenges.

Will you have enough truck on site to take the whole shebang in one load each? Will you have to run a load to chips to dump? Do you have 2 chip bodies?

How much in logs can you extricate at once? can you take really large stem wood? How big is the stem?

What size chipper? Chipper winch? A winch is really helpful in freeing up the hook to go back towards the tree.
 
Mostly doing conifers exactly the way Squish describes. if you don't ride the hook to tie off, how are you going to do it? I mean efficiently without having some sort of lift or climbing? Three or four minutes up and down without wind or crown complications, the only consideration is keeping your safety away from the chain when cutting on the ground. Can't image and speedier way to do it.

We don't chip, so maybe that is why not falling asleep is a consideration.
 
We regularly use a 165 ton hydro with extra counterweights. It takes an hour just to set up, and an hour to tear down.
When its setting up, we are in the tree pre slinging. When the boom hits the air, its slung and a piece is ready to lay down within minutes. Why wait around just to ride the hook? Ill be laying down the first piece before you are even in cutting position for the first piece.

To each there own though. Im not trying to start a pissing match here, but lets just say Ive done one or 2 in my career. Ive yet to see a more efficient way, even riding, dropping in, slinging, dropping down and cutting.
 
Ha! I used to love being a groundie on crane jobs. I have had fun doing it. A nice situation is to have multiple slings on the job. That way when a pick comes down, unhook, snap an empty sling on and off it goes up to the tree. Take the sling off the pick, and process the material. Repeat several times until there is no more tree left.
 
I've worked with good crane guys and I've worked with bad crane guys. One in particular has an annoying habit of wanting to whittle on the pick with a chainsaw while the crane operator has it dangling above the landing zone. Every single time he will whittle on it until it flips due to the weight shift and he's always way too close to getting hit. While working with me and my bucket, he's tried cutting on stuff I'm rigging out before unhooking it and I flat out will not allow it. I don't work for him much any more. He's a great guy but he's not a treeman.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #22
We will only have one truck there to chip the brush. The tree is not that big and it will fit on our truck easily. We only have a 12" chipper with no winch. We are not contracted to haul any of the wood. That part is on the climber. I am not sure what he is doing with it since he only uses a pick up and trailer to do tree work now. He is paying us an hourly rate to run ground and chip brush. I have no idea what he had bid on the job and I dont know how much he is paying for the crane. He told me to plan on about 4 hours plus or minus.

Around here, nobody uses cranes except for storm damage. I know of a couple other trees in my area that used cranes in the past few years. I guess we are old school around here. There are two guys in our area that now have crane experience and I know them both pretty well. I hope that will open up new opportunities to our company. If this goes well I could see it being a good situation for us and the other climber.
 
Watch your head around the ball. Let the operator lay the pieces down. New guys always want to grab them and wrestle with them. Don't stand under the load. Watch your fingers around the slings. Don't get pinched. Have fun and stay safe.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

WoodCutr
The anatomy of crane picks
2 3
Replies
60
Views
2K
flushcut
flushcut
chris_girard
Climbing and Rigging in Critical-Risk Ash Trees
Replies
19
Views
694
Treeaddict
Treeaddict
T
Maasdam rigging on the tree end
2
Replies
25
Views
1K
Kaveman
Kaveman
C
Will this work for my top anchor?
2
Replies
25
Views
1K
WoodCutr
WoodCutr
WoodCutr
Contracts
Replies
6
Views
720
WoodCutr
WoodCutr
Back
Top