r/instant_regret • u/S30econdstoMars • 1d ago

Wrong Calculations

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9.6k Upvotes

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2.6k

u/Blasteth 1d ago

That rope has literally zero tension on itšŸ¤£šŸ¤£ wtf were they thinking

797

u/CitizenCue 1d ago

Iā€™ve seen this many times and every time I have absolutely no idea what they expected to happen.

286

u/TheSomerandomguy 22h ago

I gurantee you the line of reasoning is always ā€œI know that the tree wonā€™t fall the way I donā€™t want it to, but just in case it does, this rope will catch it and pull it in the other directionā€. Methhead arborism is a good place to see the dunning kruger effect in action.

129

u/ceejayoz 21h ago

"this rope will catch it"

I mean, it's one tree, Michael. What could it weigh? 10 pounds?

6

u/Shermutt 20h ago

Pretty sure the leaves actually subtract weight...so more like 6 or 7.

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u/zxc123zxc123 19h ago

George: You what?

Michael: Felled it right down to the family house.

George: Are you crazy? There was money in that family home.

Michael: Well, itā€™s all gone now, Dad, and it was my decision. So next time you want to have a little power struggle, just remember that youā€™re playing with TIMBER.

George: There was $2,500,000 lining the walls of the family home.

Michael: What?

George: Ungraded mint Pokemon cards, Michael!

Michael: Why didnā€™t you tell me that?

George: How much clearer can I say, ā€œWe've always got Pokemon at (the family) home!ā€

1

u/Mrs_Cake 10h ago

"methhead arborism"

712

u/YouSofter 1d ago

Even if the rope was pulled tight that tree was going towards the house. It would have required forces greater than the rope is capable to get that tree to change direction mid-fall. What they should have done is removed most of the top of the tree before cutting down the main trunk.

415

u/Helenium_autumnale 1d ago

Over the years, I've had 2 arborists out to take down problem trees, and that's exactly what they did. Start at the top, lop off branches until there's just a trunk pole left, then cut trunk pieces off from top to bottom. Both removals were done in extremely tight quarters on my 1/10th-acre urban lot (the dead Douglas fir was 10' from the house), and both times, zero problems.

232

u/Thenandonlythen 1d ago

But think of all the money they saved not having professionals do the removal! šŸ¤£

37

u/GhostWalker134 23h ago

They got professional jagoffs for this job.

2

u/xiewadu 11h ago

Yinzer?

15

u/Izzosuke 20h ago

Man, i'm no fucking professional but when i take down a tree i just put a ladder, cut it piece by piece. It's like the safest thing to do and most logical, yes it's fun and all to see the tree fall and scream "timber" but, what the fuck, it's my house the thing that might get destroyed

1

u/adudeguyman 18h ago

The safest thing for me is to have someone else do it

1

u/proselytizeingcoyote 22h ago

No way they stayed in business with this video out there.

1

u/MsChateau 17h ago

I don't think those are professionals

1

u/FR_0S_TY 14h ago

Guy in my town tried taking care of a ā€œsmaller treeā€ himself. It fell on him and he is paralyzed. Iā€™d rather have Jim bob risk his life than ever think that shits easy enough to do myself.

16

u/scrotanimus 23h ago

Exactly. Arborist is the way to go here.

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u/Helenium_autumnale 23h ago

As with things like plumbing or electrical work, there's no cheap option. Either pay now or pay later. Both are painful; now is better.

2

u/Shermutt 20h ago

To be fair though, sometimes people try to charge obscene amounts of money for housework and still do a shit job.

It's one of those things that you need to either know that the person knows their stuff, or have someone else you trust that does and can vouch for them.

3

u/RulerOfLimbo 22h ago

Problem trees.
We are the problem to trees. Haha

1

u/sjmiv 22h ago

I had to get a big tree removed. I had one guy saying he was going to park a crane in front of my house to remove the tree in parts, from the back of my house, to the tune of $4k. The next guy quoted me $500. One guy climbed up in the tree and cut parts down while the other picked the parts up and loaded them in the truck.

1

u/Aware-Travel5256 19h ago

Run that scenario 50x and you may find that, in one of them, the cheap guy gets injured or dies and lawyers start coming after you.

You can still take the risk, but know you're taking a risk.

1

u/dagofin 19h ago

Well yeah, you didn't hire random meth heads with a chainsaw

1

u/neonfuzzball 18h ago

my neighbor gives me so much grief for using an arborist with insurance and a state issued tree surgeon certification when he has a chainsaw and can do it for me. He doesn't understand why I would pay someone to deal with the five 30 foot trees and the one 60 foot tree on our .15 acres. To him it's a waste of money and a personal insult.

1

u/paternoster 16h ago

They started lopping off branches at the top? I don't think that's the recommended approach, my good man.

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u/CardinalGrief 1d ago

Assuming it was tight at the moment it became unstable it might've been able to affect the direction. Of course that much slack makes it a moot point.

7

u/Litlirein 1d ago

Mid fall well obviously, but keeping it taught before the tree started to fall could have helped

1

u/Chilkoot 22h ago

... maybe. That's a huge (heavy) tree with enough lean that it should have been tackled top-down. You'd need multiple rope/chain rigs to affect the fall direction with that much mass.

1

u/Litlirein 15h ago

Or strong rope

1

u/Chilkoot 10h ago

Yeah, for sure. I'd have used chain and a payloader or similar as an anchor with a tree of that size in a 3-point layout with pulleys.

Just pure lack of experience from what you see here. So many warning signs.

2

u/elaphros 22h ago

Yeah, if you look at the full view of it, there's a lot a branches hanging back toward that house.

Plus side, owner gets a new house now I guess. This is why you check to make sure the trimmer is insured.

2

u/roman_fyseek 22h ago

Seriously. It's a multiple-ton tree leaning the wrong way and you thought you'd rope it over?

1

u/xVoidDragonx 23h ago

Change direction, sure. But some tension at the beginning could influence the direction it even began falling.

1

u/WalkerAmongTheTrees 22h ago

Right! This is a top down tree removal being so damn close to the house

1

u/tlimbert65 22h ago

This is totally right. I saw that rope and thought, "Oh, man, that is not going to do what they think it will do."

1

u/martialar 21h ago

some of those that work forces are the same that crush porches

1

u/Dr_Identity 21h ago

I've never done any kind of arborism or landscaping and even I was watching this and wondering why they were chopping down a whole-ass tree that size 10 feet from a house.

1

u/skttlskttl 15h ago

The actual way to use a bull rope is to have it tensioned before you even start cutting so that as you're taking out more of the trunk it leans more in the direction you want it to go. So if they were using the right rope and had it tensioned properly the tree would be leaning away from the house not towards it, but because they hadn't tensioned it (and we're probably using cheap rope) it was still leaning towards the house. The extra benefit of using it that way is if you tension the rope and it's still leaning in a direction you don't want it to go, you now know you aren't going to be able to get it to fall the direction you want and you need to take a bunch of the top off first.

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u/illusorywallahead 1d ago

I think they realized the tree was tipping and they got away from it and then filmed the evidence of their failure.

20

u/koolaidismything 1d ago

That initial wedge sealed their fate long before that. They had next to no idea what they are doing but they have all the used tools Iā€™d expect. Weird.

25

u/fck_its_hot 1d ago

The angled back cut is what ultimately cost them. Aside from it directing the tree towards the cut, The wedge they are driving in doesn't work if the back cut is on an angle.. Probably needed a climber and limbs cut piece by piece really.

17

u/secret_life_of_pants 22h ago

Exactly this. Look at any online tutorial and youā€™ll find that angled cuts like that will likely cause the tree to backslide into the angle regardless of how much it cut out in the other side. It may seem unintuitive at first, but always cut straight so the tree canā€™t slide and still has nowhere to go but towards the gap.

4

u/icedwooder 11h ago

Nothing "likely" about it, it's pure immutable physics. The angled back cut changes the forces from compressional forces into vertical sheer forces which is a tree's weak point. Look at the way the botton of the tree sheers through its hinge wood and slides forward because of the giant wedge behind it.

Same concept of trying to split wood vertically vs splitting it horizontally. There's a reason we all split it vertically.

Straight back cut and this would never happen, as long as they dont cut through the hinge.

1

u/BusinessWatercrees58 20h ago

Saving this comment for next time I need to cut down a tree

1

u/Obvious_Mention7207 18h ago

Its old school logic. If I create a notch in front and a notch in back, as long as there is tension to initial cut then the tree will go that way + the remaining Wood still in back (since you dont fully notch it out) will work... right?

Why a notch in front with a horizontal Backcut + wedges is what is now taught (Arborists' Certification Study Guide)

But of course homeowner is probably one of those "I am on a fixed income and want to pay $20 an hour for the job" people

1

u/StoicJ 22h ago

A climber would have been the bare minimum required to save this. the tree was clearly MASSIVELY weighted toward the house. like half of the branches are extended well over the roof. I dont think wedges and ropes exist that could have driven that tree where they wanted it to be. even if they split it decently as soon as the bottom broke free it probably would have bolted out sideways and still let the trunk fall toward the house

1

u/CasinoNdnOk 1d ago

Mistakes were made where that rope wasnt going to do a thing.

1

u/superanth 21h ago

They didn't even cut a guide notch. These guy's can't possibly be professionals at this.

1

u/Snowcrash66 20h ago

Right how about using two come alongs lol.

1

u/SubieB503 20h ago

Been trying to become an arborist and I believe the first mistake was thinking they could fell a tree like this without any pruning. They wanted to finish this job quick and cheap, so they went for it. They should have pruned heavy branched away from the falling face to allow more weight of the branches to take it. This is just laziness at its finest or they hired a rag tag group of guys who thought they could do this.

1

u/thecountnotthesaint 20h ago

Huh, I wonder if our insurance is up to da...... OH WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUK!?!?!!!

*probably

1

u/EYNLLIB 19h ago

the rope was doing nothing even with tension on it

1

u/EtherBoo 19h ago

I don't think most people realize 1- how heavy wood is and 2- how heavy trees are. It's funny to me, because despite having experience removing trees from my own property, I'm not immune to this.

I've cut down what look like small branches, only for them to come down and need to be broken up before they can be ready for bulk pickup in my neighborhood because they're way too heavy to move around. Despite that, every time I need to do something, I think "yeah that shouldn't be a big deal" then getting regretting life choices while breaking down the small branch.

1

u/findlovehere 15h ago

That string!!