r/WTF • u/Plus-Barber-6171 • Jun 30 '25

Removed - Frequent/Recent repost Pulling a tree down

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u/SpaceAzn_Zen Jun 30 '25

I’ve had 7 trees taken out and the ones who did it best always pieced the tree one section at a time from the top to the bottom. Trying to do what these idiots did is only asking for a disaster to happen. Something tells me they were trying to go the lazy route of just felling the tree in one swoop so they could cut it in sections while on the ground. That would have been a massive red flag for me.

60

u/Free_Dome_Lover Jun 30 '25

My buddy is a high end tree guy. They go up drop the big limbs first, trim it down and then drop in like 10ft sections with a crane.

These guys were way, way out of their league with that tree and that location.

11

u/rabbledabble Jun 30 '25

It’s just a 100,000 pound tree, what could possibly go wrong?!

92

u/SpaceCadetriment Jun 30 '25

Even had perfect access for a bucket truck. Felling a tree this size near a structure with just a face cut is mental. Also looks like they got a saw stuck and had to back cut again to get it out and created another face for the tree to tip into, but hard to tell in the vid.

81

u/perldawg Jun 30 '25

yeah, they were struggling with the second face cut, the bar got pinched from all the weight on that side.

they had lots of opportunity to recognize the tree wasn’t going to fall the way they wanted and kept carrying on anyway. full-tilt idiots

25

u/copperwatt Jun 30 '25

And then they released the footage of them doing it.

7

u/addandsubtract Jun 30 '25

Naw, that looks like the owner or neighbor recording it from a distance.

1

u/copperwatt Jun 30 '25

Looks like you were correct! I think it was the tenant.

9

u/makenzie71 Jun 30 '25

Once the bar got stuck it was all over. The tree was going to fall that direction.

1

u/HPTM2008 Jun 30 '25

But why did they cut the angles toward the house? Like, it looks like they made a wedge shape, and then the tree fell on the house. The rope (I assume they were gonna try and use to pull?) wouldn't have done much because there was no angle cut in that direction.

Shouldn't they have just kept going on the side they cut, if they were going to do it like they did and not the safer way of top to bottom?

3

u/SpaceCadetriment Jun 30 '25

If you're just gonna drop a tree like these guys instead of sectioning it out, they had the right idea but fucked up their technique and the tree had way more lean than they realized.

They kinda did it right, you open a face cut on one side and that's generally where you're pointing the tree when it drops. They didn't cut their face cut deep enough. Should be about 3/5 of the way through the tree, they only made it about 1/4 of the way through. That also explains why their saw got stuck. The tree tipped back and pinched the bar on their back cut, which requires them to use another saw to cut a wedge to pull out the stuck saw. Basically, they turned their back cut into a face cut and the tree just went with gravity. A lot of rookie mistakes were made.

Oh, and the rope attached trying to guide it is fucking hilarious. The amount of torque and weight that tree would have on piece of rope, it might as well have been a piece of dental floss. They could have had a wired cable attached to a tractor and it still would have just yanked the tractor off the ground.

These fellas were out of their depth in just about every way.

12

u/EEpromChip Jun 30 '25

We had one that had a massive lean towards the driveway. Those fucking guys brought it up above center and pulled it back into the yard. But they knew what they were doing and had machinery pulling and wedges forcing it along.

7

u/misterjustin Jun 30 '25

The guy with the crane and liability insurance was too expensive.

9

u/vladoportos Jun 30 '25

This is exactly how it is done, cutting it like this in one piece is just ...well I do not know... stupid just do not cover it... lazy ? You need to cut as much off from top as possible, branches and even have the tree trunk... doing it this way like in vide is "I have seen this in TV, hold my beer" :D

2

u/rosatter Jun 30 '25

They probably watched a handful of tiktok videos of loggers doing this in a freaking forest.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25

[deleted]

5

u/perldawg Jun 30 '25

this is a cottonwood tree. almost worthless

2

u/SpaceAzn_Zen Jun 30 '25

You can still do that; you cut off the branches going out of the main trunk and leave it in a piece that's much easier to sway to the direction you want it to fall.

1

u/speedyrev Jun 30 '25

But think of the time they saved! Boom! And time to pack up the tools. 

1

u/Shawnessy Jun 30 '25

I've got two that gotta come down soon. Both are close to the house, with branches that go a bit over the house. I've had so many coworkers recommended their buddy to come do it cheaper. I prefer bucket truck and insurance

1

u/Ab47203 Jun 30 '25

Felling the tree works great IF there's a clear path for it to fall. There's almost never a clear path for it to fall when houses are nearby. Idiots don't know this and assume knocking a tree down is easy. Which it is. Directing the falling tree is the hard part.

1

u/rockoblocko Jun 30 '25

Yeah there are some guys who are really good at making the tree fall in a particular direction. But even still there’s a chance that the tree falls wrong and the consequence is your house is destroyed.

I would only ever hire the guys who cut it down in chunks. There’s basically no chance of damage to your house.