Heli Line Clearance

Altissimus

Altissimus

TreeHouser
Joined
Jul 1, 2008
Messages
8,083
Location
southern Vermont
... call me old and opinionated but it's probably one of the more stupid ideas out there.Google Treeline Helicopters and videos come right up , they swing a ridiculous gang saw for their fantastic results. Neva heard of such a thing but it popped up on a Snowmaker FB page as I guess they use the ski area parking lots for staging. Looks like Corporate saves money by doing something that will only cause future issues the way Trees tend to grow in after such hacking..Maybe I'm wrong and am missing something .
 
Eye of the beholder, if you had a contract to clear lines in very rural places, that would look like a machine that prints money!! Yes it's horrible for the trees, but then again trees aren't supposed to be on a right of way. Pgne just went bankrupt over that fact.
 
It is ROW work for the miles and miles and miles that folks don't ever ever see....
 
treetx said:
It is ROW work for the miles and miles and miles that folks don't ever ever see....
Click to expand...

yeah...tell that to all the farmers with destroyed fences & folks who's property became a disaster area we had to deal with during the cleanup after American went through...miles an miles of irate property owners...
 
nah...15yrs in line clearance...copters don't have any control over landing things in the ROW. I saw plenty of stuff they wrecked...worked about four months cleaning up their mess after they lost a contract.

They have their uses in the wilderness/no access/unpopulated areas, but are overused IMO. everything we worked on for four months, except two steep valleys, could have been done through more conventional means like side trimmers, track buckets, & mowers.
 
So that's just more work for the bush hog crew to deal with. When a property owner didn't like our clean-up, we had to go back and make it right/them happy. I remember one fella pissed because we didn't paint our cuts, even though that was deemed unnecessary by then. We went back and painted the fricking cuts! Ha!
 
Copter cleanup is far worse than conventional.

They cut from top down. many things break & hang from the weight of what was cut above creating a danger... pieces springboard/slide off in all directions (including out of the ROW).

Plus there was the having to deal with screaming/inconsolable land owners all day, every day, when your trying to do the cleanup. It was not an enjoyable task...
 
I don't think it's necessary to wantonly destroy property just to clear lines/trim trees.
 
I don't think any of those workers went to work that day planning to destroy anyone's property.

But I could be wrong!
 
I agree, workers generally do what they're told to. I'd lay the fault more at the planner/forrester level.
 
I agree with Dave on the fact that they are probably overused. I also wish the utility companies would quit allowing buildings and fences on the ROW. While the property owner still owns the property, the utility company has to be able to maintain it. Fences running parallel should be off the ROW. Fences running perpendicular should have wide gates and be easily removable for maintenance.
I despise dealing with utility companies and their pencil pushing assholes. Most of our inspectors are decent, but the higher ups can eat a bag of dicks. And irate property owners need to know their rights and the proper way of dealing with things. I also think utility companies need to do a better job in dealing with property owners instead of putting that burden on the contractors.
 
I did cross country line clearance and ROW for 18 years. I loved it. But it didn't pay near as good as the working in the woods. So I left ROW.

I would have stuck with it though.
 
I'd like to have stayed with it, but they dumped me in no time flat when I had a major blood clot in my leg...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top