How'd it go today?

[Treeaddict]

Wow, that's quite the inconvenience. I can sympathize with your aunt. At least nobody was seriously hurt. What's weird is that this was the first time that the national weather service didn't issue a warning ahead of the storm and, ironically, this was the worst storm I've seen since I moved here three plus years ago. They have always issued warnings for even dust storms...but not for this. It likely developed too quickly and violently for standard detection methods to catch it in time is my guess.

We get constant tornado warnings here in our area of Maryland (Harford County) My parents went to their basement last night after being alerted by the phone buzzing that a tornado could very well form. As I recall, we’ve had, in our area, one or two tornados in 30 years. They were F1 and lasted for an extremely brief duration. Frankly, the vast majority ignore the warnings/watches because they don’t come to fruition.

 

[Mellow]

But the the smaller tree, I just don't understand. There were so many better candidates for a wind gust ass whoopin' and why that tree? Anyone have any insights?

Not much of a root system visible in that picture. Either girdled or root bound or both.

 

[treebilly]

I’m watching the same exciting videos as we watched last year and the year before and the year before that. I would rather be watching someone grind stumps. Contemplating just getting up and leaving.

 

[WoodCutr]

I would rather be watching someone grind stumps

that bad huh?

 

[Knotorious]

Nothing like the sweet serenade and guttural cacophony of two large saws running in tandem at 7am to get the day started. If I'm going to be exposed to such noise, I'd much prefer I'd be the guy operating one of those saws versus the guy just crawling out of bed trying to enjoy his morning haha Two hours later and the saw-toothed, gasoline fueled duet persists.

It only will take a team of three or four non-English speaking gentleman (not speculation; tried to have a chat while they were all idling around yesterday but a language barrier was firmly installed between us. At one point they started talking to each other in Spanish and one guy pointed at me as if my presence wasn't already abundantly obvious, and I can only imagine what they were saying...awkward haha) to man handle this tree is my guess. Haven't seen any machinery, but I'm not sure how else they would be moving those logs unless they cut them down into slices.

 

[WoodCutr]

Haven't seen any machinery, but I'm not sure how else they would be moving those logs unless they cut them down into slices.

I may have said, I bid a MASSIVE oak about a quarter mile from my house, had like 15K on it to remove the lower 30ft and dig out the stump (14ft across the stump)
I drive by a week later and theres 2 mexicans (might be Guatemalans, didnt stop and ask) sawing it up into tiny chunks to throw in a BC1000, those guys probably spent 2 full days hand throwing wood into the chipper and 20 or so loads of chips, then they started to grind the concrete filled stump!

I wonder how much they beat my price by, considering its likely the same ones that underbid me all the time (same day often enough) im guessing they came in at $1500 or so to do the job, which screws the more legit companies that cant even pay their insurance off jobs like that

 

[Mick!]

W

I may have said, I bid a MASSIVE oak about a quarter mile from my house, had like 15K on it to remove the lower 30ft and dig out the stump (14ft across the stump)
I drive by a week later and theres 2 mexicans (might be Guatemalans, didnt stop and ask) sawing it up into tiny chunks to throw in a BC1000, those guys probably spent 2 full days hand throwing wood into the chipper and 20 or so loads of chips, then they started to grind the concrete filled stump!

I wonder how much they beat my price by, considering its likely the same ones that underbid me all the time (same day often enough) im guessing they came in at $1500 or so to do the job, which screws the more legit companies that cant even pay their insurance off jobs like that

You lost the job, now you’re guessing their price and saying they’re screwing legit companies (Throw in a little bit of ’not white enough employees’)

Maybe they are better at the job and have a better business model than you?

 

[Nutball]

$15k sounds like the "I don't want that job" price.

I think a small 2 man business could do it for $2500 in 2-3 days. They wouldn't get rich off it, but they'd have some paying work. Machinery is an expensive luxury. Those guys were probably willing to put more sweat into it than you.

 

[WoodCutr]

$15k sounds like the "I don't want that job" price.

I think a small 2 man business could do it for $2500 in 2-3 days. They wouldn't get rich off it, but they'd have some paying work. Machinery is an expensive luxury. Those guys were probably willing to put more sweat into it than you.

Needed 10k just in disposal

I think 15k was fair to cover disposal, equipment, digging out the root ball, and the customer Said to bring in fill, grade it and seed so you could never tell the tree was there

 

[Treeaddict]

Needed 10k just in disposal

I think 15k was fair to cover disposal, equipment, digging out the root ball, and the customer Said to bring in fill, grade it and seed so you could never tell the tree was there

How was disposal so much?

 

[Nutball]

Because he didn't use Craigslist.

 

[Knotorious]

For an update, these guys efficiently cut the logs into small chunks and then cut each chunk in half and moved it into the parking lot about 25 yards off one way. They filled my parking spot (along with several other people's spots) with brush...thankfully I don't own a car. They 100% carried all of these pieces by hand. I was gonna take a picture of their log dissections, but all three of them were using them as stools for their lunch and I thought a picture might be inappropriate.

There's a decently sized stump and I'm curious to see how they handle that. Last time they ground a stump, they got going at the crack of dawn and it took what seemed like an eternity. Thankfully they left a long nub on my favorite hitch testing limb on the tree in the second picture. Small win for me.

it will actually probably be even easier to install a line now with all the suckers removed. Honestly looks like they could pull this stump if they had some snatch blocks, synthetic wire and a truck. You could anchor even more blocks at the tree to the right and magnify the mechanical advantage pretty easily. It's already partly extruding from the ground. Just my thoughts.

 

[WoodCutr]

How was disposal so much?

$60 a ton at the local landfill plus drive time, whole job pretty much has to stop for 2 hours each load, job would have taken me over a week to do

 

[Nutball]

How long did it take the Mexicans?

 

[WoodCutr]

How long did it take the Mexicans?

no clue, I wasnt out watching them, all I know is it was atleast a week after I bid the job I saw them out working on it, and now close to a month and a half later they finally came back to finish the stump grinding
im guessing they talked the guy into doing less work, havent seen anyone digging out the root ball yet

 

[Nutball]

Did you give the guy a verbal price breakdown, so he can better understand the high cost? Might have been worth a shot on something like that.

 

[WoodCutr]

Did you give the guy a verbal price breakdown, so he can better understand the high cost? Might have been worth a shot on something like that.

nope, he was trying to make insurance pay for it even tho it wasnt on his house or even fallen over
according to him my price was close to the price another guy gave tho, wouldnt say how close
in the end he might have gotten insurance to pay for the job but im not sure

 

[SkwerI]

Nope, insurance doesn't cover tree removals unless it is on the house or other covered structures. They don't pay for property maintenance. Never have, never will.
I tend to give very little time or effort to people who think their homeowner's insurance is going to pay the bill when it obviously isn't a legitimate claim.

 

[treebilly]

Depends on your policy. You can get insurance for anything if you’re willing to pay for it. I did a job a few years ago with five large removals that the insurance company covered and not one piece touched the house. In fact only one tree had storm damage.

 

[WoodCutr]

Depends on your policy. You can get insurance for anything if you’re willing to pay for it. I did a job a few years ago with five large removals that the insurance company covered and not one piece touched the house. In fact only one tree had storm damage.

exactly, and this guy "claimed" to have insurance on a well and a few other things extra because his place gets hit by lightning so often (5-10 times every lightning storm, weatherbug and another lightning app both prove that to be rigth)

oh did I mention its a multi thousand square foot mansion on probably 40 or so acres and this was the biggest tree he owned, about 20ft off the road right on the corner of the driveway?

 

[Dave Shepard]

Truck school continues. 20+ degrees cooler this week. Some guys are going to get their license, some aren't. You'd think they would pay attention, considering the cost.

 

[Knotorious]

How long did it take the Mexicans?

Let's be racially sensitive here...

I drive by a week later and theres 2 mexicans (might be Guatemalans, didnt stop and ask) sawing it up into tiny chunks to throw in a BC1000, those guys probably spent 2 full days hand throwing wood into the chipper and 20 or so loads of chips, then they started to grind the concrete filled stump!

...they could have been Guatemalan.

Hate to attribute all of that hard work to the wrong ethnicity.

(This is dry, sarcastic humor. Sorry, awful joke!)

 

[lxskllr]

Saw a dead weasel(probably) in the road yesterday. I was heading to a job and passed a dead animal. Sorta looked like a squirrel, but not really. Had a car behind me so I couldn't stop. On the way back, there was no one, so I could take a good look at it. Not a squirrel, not a kitten, and didn't look quite like an otter. That left the long tailed weasel, which we apparently have here. Learn something new every day. Never saw one in my life, and didn't know weasels were around. Pretty cool, but it's a shame it was squished.

 

[WoodCutr]

Let's be racially sensitive here...

or lets not be sensitive, not racist to say it was 2 Mexicans (or Guatemalans, again I never stopped to ask) working their asses off

 

[Knotorious]

@lxskllr Speaking of which, I came across this video a few days ago...