"Ralph Mowery" wrote in
:

....
I have noticed that. No mater what you have someone usually chimes
in that it is not the best.

That begs the question of why you asked.

You cannot convey all of the relevant information in your short posting.
One of the things about hazard identification is the skill of a competent
person looking throught their own eyes will see things that a less
competent person will not recognise. Why do people drive cranes, cherry
pickers etc into power lines, trees etc... most often because they didn't
*see* them.

If I was responsible for an operation that involved loosening one guy, or
one set of guys, or more, and there was an adverse outcome, a court of
law would probably find that I was negligent as I ought to have been
aware that loosening one or more guys was a potentially hazardous
operation (I am a qualified Advanced Rigger in VK).

I doubt that claiming that I or others had done it before without
accident would be an adequate defence.

That is not to say that loosening one or more guys guarantees failure...
but lots of tower accidents are *caused* by loosening guy wires.

Dropping a tree or part of it onto a guy wire is also a dangerous thing
to do.


Owen

In article ,
Owen Duffy wrote:

That is not to say that loosening one or more guys guarantees failure...
but lots of tower accidents are *caused* by loosening guy wires.

Dropping a tree or part of it onto a guy wire is also a dangerous thing
to do.

At this point, I'd be tempted to suggest tackling the problem from the
other direction.

Don't just drop the tree in question!

Instead, do what's normally done if a tree needs to be removed from an
area with nearby stuff-you-don't-want-to-have-a-tree-fall-on. Have a
competent tree-removal service take the tree down, from the top on
down... remove and lower the limbs and upper trunk in sections.

It may be possible to remove the upper portion, and shorten the
remaining trunk enough that it will be physically impossible for that
part of the trunk to strike the tower or guys when it's felled no
matter how its fall happens to be channeled and no matter how badly it
bounces.

Or, it may be easier and safer to just take it all the way down to
ground level in pieces.

Yeah, this will take longer and cost more than just chainsawing
through the base of the trunk and yelling "Timmmbbbbbeeeeerrrrrrrrr!",
but it may cost less and be safer than trying to de-guy the tower.
It'll certainly cost less than the consequences of having the tower
fall down, as a result of deliberate guy removal/loosening or having
the tree fall on it.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
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On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:20:40 -0400, "Ralph Mowery"
wrote:

Ed the trees I want to remove are not close enough to hit the tower.

Based on this statement, and the concerns expressed, I would ask if
these trees are being taken out by professionals?

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Dave Platt wrote:
In article ,
Owen Duffy wrote:

That is not to say that loosening one or more guys guarantees failure...
but lots of tower accidents are *caused* by loosening guy wires.

Dropping a tree or part of it onto a guy wire is also a dangerous thing
to do.

At this point, I'd be tempted to suggest tackling the problem from the
other direction.

Don't just drop the tree in question!

Instead, do what's normally done if a tree needs to be removed from an
area with nearby stuff-you-don't-want-to-have-a-tree-fall-on. Have a
competent tree-removal service take the tree down, from the top on
down... remove and lower the limbs and upper trunk in sections.

It may be possible to remove the upper portion, and shorten the
remaining trunk enough that it will be physically impossible for that
part of the trunk to strike the tower or guys when it's felled no
matter how its fall happens to be channeled and no matter how badly it
bounces.

Or, it may be easier and safer to just take it all the way down to
ground level in pieces.

Yeah, this will take longer and cost more than just chainsawing
through the base of the trunk and yelling "Timmmbbbbbeeeeerrrrrrrrr!",
but it may cost less and be safer than trying to de-guy the tower.
It'll certainly cost less than the consequences of having the tower
fall down, as a result of deliberate guy removal/loosening or having
the tree fall on it.



Or, you leave the whole job to the tree removal company. Let them
decide how to do it, and their liability insurance covers the effects of
dropping a tree on the tower. They get to make the call about temporary
guys or not or chopping up the tree into chips from the top down or
having a 100 ton crane hold your tower up while the work is being done, etc.

(For that matter, I saw a very large pine tree being dismantled
yesterday, with a 100 foot crane reaching over a couple of houses to
pick up the pieces as the workers cut sections from the top down, rather
than the lowering chunks down strategy. )

Recognizing, however, that the tree removal company is going to charge
more, but maybe, they're confident. Or perhaps, one is hiring "Bob the
guy down the street with a chain saw" to do the work, and YOU are
accepting the liability and risk, so guy removal may be a prudent thing
to do.


Overall, I think the take home message from all these posts is that

a) dropping a single guy (or multiple guys) is non-trivial, and requires
some thought and planning
b) the odds of a strong wind coming up while you're unguyed is low, so a
temporary guying system could be acceptable
c) there's a wide variety in risk acceptance strategies among hams

In article ,
Richard Clark wrote:

On Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:55:55 GMT, Owen Duffy wrote:

Perhaps cutting the tree into
smaller lengths that are lowered to the ground on ropes to guide and slow
the descent? I have watched tree climbers take huge trees down, lowering
all the pieces in a very limited space against the trunk.

Here in the Pacific Northwest, tree country, I have never seen any
other way except for when trees are layed over indiscriminately as
part of a clearing operation.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC

Depends on the quality of the crew.... But I always use a good tree
service and don't do it myself, If the tree could hit anything other
then the ground (I've done enough that I've seen them land every
direction, including the direction I wanted)

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