"Chris J Dixon" wrote in message
...
Chris Green wrote:

It's an absolute "no no" to use a chainsaw up a ladder. I use a
chainsaw quite frequently but never, never up a ladder. You need lots
of protective gear, lots of training and proper 'get you up the tree'
gear to work with a chainsaw off the ground.

As I know I have posted befo

A neighbour of mine, after having been ripped off by itinerants
(they had invented a story that there had been complaints, and he
had to let them do the work) who left him with unbelievably
mangled eyesores of trees, plus all the trimmings for him to
dispose of, apparently went with a garden landscape firm to clear
the lot, and give the plot a bit of a makeover.

They had a reasonably large conifer to bring down, without room
to drop it in one. I saw no goggles, ear defenders, or safety
clothing in evidence whilst using a chain saw. An extended
sectional ladder rested against the tree, but wasn't secured to
it. There was some form of primitive personal safety loop, but it
was only clipped to the ladder, the top rung of which rested
insecurely against the curve of the trunk.

I had to prune and remove a lot of trees and ground-covering conifers when
we moved to our new house. The first ones I did with a bushman's saw (hard
work when the blade binds every few strokes); the nest ones I did with an
mains-powered reciprocating saw (very slow, even with the coarsest blade
that was supplied); the final ones have been with a battery-powered
chainsaw.

I took sensible precautions:

- individually trim every branch off the trunk, making an initial cut on the
underside to lessen the chance of the branch ripping off the trunk

- plan my "escape route" in advance for when the branch/trunk starts to bend
prior to breaking

- be very cautious as the cut nears completion, watching and feeling for any
movement

- having trimmed the branches off, cut the trunk into manageable sections,
starting at the top (don't try to fell the whole trunk is one go!) paying
particular note of which way I wanted the wood to fall, and cutting opposite
that so as to control where it fell


The most recent work was a willow tree that had fallen across the stream at
the bottom of our garden; some of its branches were collecting vegetation
washed down by the stream and creating a restriction. The trunk had snapped
off and was resting on the root section, supported by side branches in the
water. Same policy: cut all the side branches off, leaving the ones in the
water till last. Work out which branches were supporting the load, and
weaken (but don't entirely cut) those. Then attach a rope and pull the trunk
sideways until it "fell off" the root and broke the remaining branches; we
managed to make it collapse gently into the stream without much of a splash,
so we did it well! Finally we used existing branches to support sections of
the main trunk, and shortened it gradually into lengths that could be hauled
up the bank of the stream.

A mains-powered saw would have been out of the question since we were
standing in water (only a few inches deep - we did it when the stream was
very low), so it was useful that the chainsaw is battery (a petrol one would
have been just as good, but I HATE the sound of 2-stroke engines revving
their guts out and chucking out choking oily smoke). We got into the habit
of popping the battery out of the saw every time we'd finished with it, and
putting it safely on the bank where it can't roll into the stream, ideally
with the blade guard replaced each time.

I measured the thickness of the trunk against the length of the blade,
making sure that the blade could cut through the whole trunk without leaving
a section beyond the tip of the blade.