Survived a 50-foot-tall Widow Maker!

[Molpet]

What kind of tree is it?

Black walnut

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Ah yes. We have those here too.

 

[gtaus]

My Widowmaker

Yeah, that looks bad. I have a few ideas and thoughts...

Way out of reach unless I get a bucket truck

Bucket truck rentals are not cheap where I live. But is a great way to keep yourself safer.

Hire a professional.

If you cannot do it safely yourself, then it's worth the money to hire someone else to take the risk. But I do have a few suggestions from things I learned taking down my widow maker.

I'm just waiting for it to fall, hopefully it will miss the poultry, shed, coop and especially me

Whoo. And everybody else. Put a sign under it, "Death Trap. Don't walk here." Or something. And good luck.

Just me walking near it. A couple days after the storm that broke it, I heard a crack and ran like hell lol. But it was a smaller broken branch on the other side.

Yeah, that branch could fall down anytime, for any reason, and you don't want to be around it. My widow maker was singing to me when even a slight breeze would move it. No way would I want to be around a hanging broken branch like that. I agree, it's a death trap underneath that tree. Personally, I would take it down on my terms rather than waiting for it to fall - considering that you mentioned you walk near it just doing whatever outside.

Here are a few things that I think might be worth considering. When I took down my widow maker, I could not reach the broken part of the tree either. Don't even consider going up on a ladder anywhere near that widow maker! If that branch breaks when you are up on a ladder, you have no escape route. Just hang on for life and ride it out.

I bought an arborist throw line kit at my local Fleet store for $10.00. It looks like this...

I was able to toss up the bag with the light rope attached, just over a small branch to keep the line on the main section. Then I gave it enough slack to drop the bag down to the ground. I took the bag off the thin line and then reverse hoisted up a nylon tow strap...

I had to use a couple tow straps (about $10 each) to reach my height, and then I pulled the bottom end loop through the top loop and proceeded to tighten it up like a slip knot noose on to the branch. In my case, I had to use both straps to make it long enough to attach it to the back of my pickup. I wanted to be sure I was far enough away from my widow maker when it did come down.

I was quite surprised how little effort it took my pickup to pull down the broken branch. Looking at your picture, I am thinking it would not take too much effort to take yours down, either. It looks like it could fall anytime on its own.

Given that, I still think it is safer to take it down yourself where you have more say in the direction you want to pull it. I already had the tow straps, so I only bought the arborist throw line kit. I was concerned about how much weight the tow straps needed to pull down my broken widow maker, but when I looked it up online, I discovered that the amount of force "usually" needed to pull down a broken tree like I had was measured in the hundreds of pounds. The small tow straps I have are rated for 3,300 pounds. More than enough needed to pull down a broken branch/trunk like I was dealing with.

Recently, I had to pull down a dead rotted birch tree out by my basketball hoop. It was unsafe to cut down with a chainsaw because the tree trunk was all rotted out and hollow. No way to be sure when/where that tree would fall. Anyways, I tossed up the line, reversed it back up with the tow strap making a slip knot to tighten up around the trunk, and then joined my second strap to the first. I had planned to pull it down with my pickup, but instead I gave it a shallow face cut for the direction of the pull and a partial back cut, but not much. Anyways, I extended the two straps and just pulled on it myself first to see what I was dealing with. The tree moved with a slight tug on the strap, so I decided to give it good tug and the whole rotted tree came falling down exactly where I wanted it to fall!

Picture of that project...

I was able to safely take down two widow makers this year using my throw line and tow straps. You can see I don't play around and kept myself a good distance from anything falling down. Safety comes before everything else. I know I could now safely pull down your widow maker branch the way I pulled down my trees, but I don't know how comfortable you feel about doing it yourself.

If we have to hire an arborist for any work around here, you are talking hundreds of dollars for a visit. If you don't feel safe doing it, then hire out, or maybe set up a safety rope and posts around the fall zone of that hanging branch and let nature eventually run its course. For my $30 investment in supplies, I pulled down two dead widow maker trees this year without any problems, on my terms.

 

[Molpet]

I bought an arborist throw line kit at my local Fleet store for $10.00. It looks like this...

Ha this is good info I hadn't thought about. I have a couple tow straps but would need a couple more.
Thank you