Whoops...

Ruh roh....

 

"Hey ma, we'd better get that tree taken down before it falls on the house!"
Shoulda took the chance with the tree...

 

I'd almost bet a crane wasn't necessary......

 

It's live on YouTube from a local news station...

 

looks like someone short rigged the working side instead of the non working side, atleast from here it seems that way

I've been known to have some funky setups, not osha compliant to have one outrigger retracted and still work off "full span chart" but I've done it and survived, just don't work off the retracted side, straight off the front or back and to the extended side is OK, rule of thumb usually is to not swing past the last extended outrigger


hope nobody got hurt, normally pictures don't bother me much but I have a big crane job coming up soon and of course this happens lol, gonna have a 70 ton liebherr A/T picking some oaks and hickory out for a buddy of mine

 

usually isn't, for me anyways I get a crane when its safer or makes the job faster, usually cost the customer the same $ but I can be out 2 or 3 times faster with one


I will say, a crane is the safest and also most dangerous thing on a tree job, you should know the weight of the piece within about 100# or less, but sometimes the trees are unpredictable, I did a dead oak the other day where one piece was 10 pounds, and the next identical piece was probably 50 (not a crane job, just from the bucket truck)

 

I move a lot of wood with my bobcat and have moved near identical sized logs and one can be feather weight and the next won't come off the ground. Density is not something you can count on.

I have tables and charts for log weight and density, and they are only close about 1/2 the time on a good day. I stacked some doug fir poles yesterday and had a few 16 footers that felt like concrete. They didn't want to leave the ground. A few minutes later I was stacking 40 footers like toothpicks.

 

Probably not...could have likely climbed it, taken top down...but I know the weather we are having here today, it's too hot to work that hard!

As a former crane operator, I can tell you for a fact that operators run off the load chart, and in wind conditions that they should shut down for...regularly. The guys that most often get bit are the ones that are too dumb and/or cocky to know when to say when.
I wouldn't want to contract with a tree service, unless I knew them really well, and knew for a fact that they know their stuff, otherwise you are setting up for, and tying onto an unknown, that once cut loose, is all yours... if you then find out that the machine can't handle it, too late! OSHA man coming to see you!

 

Article says outrigger was setting on septic tank...I almost mentioned that as a likely scenario earlier...

 

my second crane job ever almost went like this, customer told me there was nothing where the crane was setting up, couldn't see a cleanout or tank lid, walked the area, nothing to be found

we start throwing cribbing down and get the outriggers short out, customer runs outside yelling "THERES A SEPTIC TANK I FORGOT ABOUT AND YOU'RE ONTOP OF IT"

to this day, I don't think I've ever rolled my eyes so hard in my life

oh yeah, super easy to get carried away and turn the key for another foot of boom down, faster to walk the crane back a foot than it is to stand one up, but try telling these new operators, from flipping burgers to flipping cranes

 

MMMMMMMM Idiots are veeeeeeerrrrrrrrrryyyyyyy clever did you ever see a warning label for a intelligent person ????????

 

Hell of a way to be able to adjust the brakes Hope nobody was hurt but there are reasons for weight limits

 

According to the homeowner in an interview, the tree guys showed up a day early. They put an outrigger right over the septic tank which subsequently gave way under the pressure with the boom up in the air.. One would think they would have some sort of checklist confirming that all underground hazards were accounted for and marked.. lucky no one was killed.

 

That would be great, but it's not that uncommon for underground utility maps to be wrong...the maps are only as good as the chits that the mapmaker gave when drawing it up...which apparently wasn't much in all too many cases

 

Sad world on so many levels.

 

This was in the news over the weekend.

Must have been low tide.

 

That’s a funny place to park a boat!

 

Talk to the owner...Bet he doesn't see the humor!! LOL

 

Shouldn’t be too hard to ask a homeowner whether they are on sewer or septic. If septic, that should raise a red flag until the reported location is flagged for easy identification. Not aware that septic systems make it on public utility maps. And checking with the local building department would likely be overly burdensome. Do cribbed outriggers pose a threat to other common underground utilities? I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.

 

Proper cribbing would have taken care of the issue, if they had known what they were dealing with, and at least the first layer spanned past the tank walls a ways. It could be that the tank was old/junk too....you hear about people putting a mower in one occasionally.
And you are correct, never seen a septic tank marked by utility locating services, and the county usually only knows about the newer stuff. I know they have no records on mine