Water Pipe Straps: A unique rigging puzzle

[NickfromWI]

I need some TreeHouse brain power on this one. Some of you may know Javier from the buzz. He's the head arborist at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. He has a very unique job when it comes to trees. He gets to wrap them with chicken wire to keep the giraffes from eating them. His crew has to deal with pesky, curious ostriches while at the me time managing rigging lines. They always have to watch their back when working around the rhinos.

Occasionally I get to help out. We spoke yesterday about a ropes course they are installing. One prob is that the giant birds (turkey vultures) leave giant crap piles all over the trees. No good for zoo visitors. So they are installing a system of water and air jets throughout some of the trees and at certain times of the day, the jets will blast shots of air and water to scare the birds away.

The system basically looks like a lightning protection system where it runs along the tree branches all the way to the tips.

So the question is: what is the best way to attach the PVC pipes to the trees?

Initially I recommended bolting or nailing- just like the lightning systems. He said they've done that in the past, but the ficus grow so fast that you soon can't access parts for upkeep.

Here's the best I came up with: a 1" webbing strap with a easy to adjust buckle that can be loosened each year to grow with the tree. I'll check later to see if it actually can hold a pipe to a tree.

Can you think of something better? I think I have tunnel vision right now because I'm focussing on the system I could come up with the parts I use regularly.

Strength isn't a huge concern- but it has to be able to handle full sun and weather exposure for a few years.

It needs to be able to grow with the tree some how.

It needs to be paintable so the crew can camouflage it with the tree.

love
nick

 

[NickfromWI]

Oh- the pics

Of course, they be sewn by machine, not by hand. It would take less than a minute to make one. We'd have the crew up in the tree hollering down circumference measurements and I'd have someone below cutting webbing while I sewed.

...but will it work?

 

[stig]

Just nail them on!




The reason behind that answer is that at the forest/hunting estate that I take care of ,the owner's wife had some fruit trees planted and the frigging semi tame fallow deer ate the bark right off the first batch, before they were even in the ground

The second batch was planted inside wire fence cages, which worked fine but looked like crap.

So they asked me to find a way to get rid of the cages. My first answer: " Kill all the frigging fallow deer" didn't catch on, so I looked into covering the trunks in plastic strips which works fine for hares and roe deer.

Worked fine untill winter. One day when there was nothing good on the TV, so the frigging fallow deer were bored, they started stripping the plastic strips off the trees and de-barking them.

These critters, whom I truly and absolutely hate, are fed a nice winter diet of beets and grain, so they only eat fruit trees out of boredom and sheer orneryness.

I told the owner that the cages had to go back.
His wife didn't want that, so they asked me to nail the strips to the trees.

Over my dead body, I told them, so they had the gamekeeper do it

 

[Porkbrick]

why pvc? i would think something less rigid, like pex, would last longer and be easier to install/maintain. how about using something like this, but atached with screws you could periodically back out? http://www.minute-man.com/acatalog/PHILMORE2060WH.jpg

 

[blue]

Zip Ties?

 

[sawinredneck]

Get a roll of plumbers strap an some #12 bolts, the climber goes up, cuts it long and bolts it. There are holes every 1/2" so just cut it long for future adjustment.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

Don't forget that the PVC become very brittle with the years, overall in the sun. With the wind shaking the crowns and the animals, I doubt the pipes will last long enough.
The camo paint could protect them against the sun, but it could weaken the PVC.

The black PEx seems better. Stiff and soft at the same time, almost impossible to break. But eventually tasty for the rodents. Very difficult to paint too.

The iron or copper are much more expensive, but long lasting and, at least for the annealed copper, easy to install. For lowering the cost, PEx in the ground and copper in the trees could be a good alternative.

For the fastening, an automatic system should be better for following the tree's growth.
Loosening each belt (or screw or...) 1 or 2 times a year will be costly ... and extremely boring.

Some ideas :
- A bungee cord would work fine, but I don't know the life-time in the weather. Not very long I fear.
- What about a very long stainless steel spring (sold on a reel, but actually I don't know if we can find that though) ?
Cut the right length, fold at 90° the last coil to make a hook at the both ends, and hang it around the trunk.
- a mounting plate with a steel band (with no hole) held in place by a bolt just a little tightened. So the band can slide under the bold with some effort.

 

[SkwerI]

6" lag bolts with eyes. Run them halfway in so they are sticking out 3". Zip tie the pipe to the eyes. In a couple years, back the eye bolts out a couple inches and reattach the pipe with new zip ties.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I'd get them to rethink the entire plan and come up with something entirely different.

 

[Marc-Antoine]

Or you can put the zip-tie under the lag bolt's eye, not throw. So you can unscrew the lag bolt even without cutting the zip-tie.

 

[Paul B]

Carnivorous hunter monkeys.

 

[Old Monkey]

I like Brian's idea. Nothing should wrap 360 degrees around a fast growing tree, even the softest most elastic material will cut it.

 

[NickfromWI]

I like Brian's idea. Nothing should wrap 360 degrees around a fast growing tree, even the softest most elastic material will cut it.

The bolt and zip tie idea is good. They bolted them before and the pipes were quickly swallowed! Maintenance was impossible.

I am sure that they are not in risk of damaging the trees with whatever system is used. These are some of the most looked after trees in the world. If they choose a system that has to be loosened every month, they'll just schedule it in to the work routine.

I'll talk to him about bolting and see what he thinks.

Here's a link to a vid I made showing the strap I have in mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0CBkTPiE7g

love
nick

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I like Brian's idea. The straps look to be something a critter is going to start gnawing on and the nylon fibers will become a future issue if something ingests them. Just my 2cents

 

[Old Monkey]

I am still liking the lag idea better. You could use slings over branches hanging lose but I still think anything that is tight around the trunk is bad idea.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Hell, Gorilla duct tape the suckers.