Spent 4 hours chasing a lean on a silver maple before I checked the root flare

Had a silver maple removal job over in Hyde Park last Tuesday that should have taken me maybe 90 minutes tops, and I burned almost 4 hours on it because of one dumb mistake. The tree had a real nasty lean toward the client's garage, so I set my pull line high and figured I'd just fight the lean with the rope and a wedge. Cut my face notch, pounded the wedge in, and the thing sat there like a statue. Added more tension, still nothing. Tried a second wedge, still stuck. I was getting mad, checking my hinge thickness with a folding rule like 6 times, thinking I cut wrong somewhere. Finally I walked around the back side and noticed the trunk had a huge buried root flare from years of mulch piled up against it, and that whole side was basically a big buried stump holding it up. Rented a small stump grinder the next morning, ground out that buried section, and the tree dropped exactly where I wanted it in about 8 minutes. Lesson is I should have kicked the mulch back before I ever started cutting. How often do you all run into buried root flares messing up a fell plan, and do you check for them every single time or just when something feels off?

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nathan54510d ago

That buried root flare from piled mulch is sneaky because the trunk looks totally normal from the front. I do the boot kick test around the base every single time now, takes 10 seconds and saves you from fighting a tree that's basically on a hidden hinge.

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the_joel10d ago

Man, I've made that mistake before and it cost me a whole afternoon of fighting a tree that wouldn't fall right. @nathan545 is spot on, that boot kick test is a game changer and I do it every time now too.

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