One Man Band- climbing and rigging, groundwork, business mgmt.

SouthSoundTree-

TreeHouser
Joined
Sep 24, 2014
Messages
4,941
Many people, at one time or another, to greater or lesser extents, work solo. Sometimes, there is a groundie, but of limited skill where the climber is better off rigging something themselves.

Personally, I like rolling solo better, at times. Other times, not so much.

Obviously, there are times to have 5 workers on a job, too.

Clearly, there are the safety considerations to working with 5 or none.

At times, like some no-clean-up jobs, a groundie can only help get gear to the tree, pass up a saw, if that, and carry gear back. Maybe rig a branch or two.

Discuss tips and tricks for working solo.




Rig with a double-whip tackle through a natural crotch on the piece being lowered, or with a loop sling with a biner. Untie the termination end of the rope (tied at the climber), and pull free.




Reg showed a technique of hitching big branches to a rigging line tied high in the tree, allowing them to swing back vertically-away from the obstacles below, then dicing it up.



Girth-hitch two slings on either side of a cutting point, and connect together with a biner. Once the limb hangs, it can be diced up, or disconnected and thrown/ dropped.



When speedlining, anchor at the ground and set the tension in the tree. Once there are too many limbs hanging on the line to manipulate the line, you can still drop limbs on the tight speedline, either sideways, or through a natural crotch. This NCing also saves slings.

Next...
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3
Sometimes hard for me to shell out $100-200, all said an done for a guy to stand around and watch me do what I do every day. On days like that, a well trained groundie would be maintaining my saws and cleaning the truck. There can only be so much of that done, though.

My neighbor has a traumatic brain injury from a car wreck. Can't drive or work anymore. He's on SS Disability. He helps his brother-in-law with hydroseeding. I've wondered what he could do for a few hours, sitting around, in case I do something stupid/ careless, and need 911. A bit of cash and a climbing show might entertain him. Maybe a cheap DVD player/ monitor combo, and Netflix.
 
200? No way.

I pay a hunnert bucks for someone to watch me work, then help a bit afterwards.

We both leave with smiles on our faces!
 
200? No way.

I pay a hunnert bucks for someone to watch me work, then help a bit afterwards.

We both leave with smiles on our faces!

A hundred bucks well spent, I with Butch on this, sure once in a blue moon you have to do it, but making a science of climbing and rigging solo? No way.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #6
200 maybe a bit high for a round number, but wages, unemployment, worker's comp, ss, accounting costs, etc, start to add up.
 
If they can run a saw, chipper, ropes, and show up with insurance $200 well spent but that is usually in the subcontractor range. Just a brush dragger with no skill $100 or less depending on the day.
 
If one guys wage vs having no help at all on the job is making or breaking the day the job is way underbid imo. I've stump ground solo, that's about it.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #9
I pay $450 per month for steel and hydraulic ground help.

It does exactly what I say, when I say it, without committee meetings about did I mean x,y, or z when I said x. Sorta telepathic communication.

As things change as D grows, things will be different.

I think I have a new potential hire who is local, safe, love the work,
And will abide by safety rules and laws provided I set them firmly at the beginning and let him know we will do it my way, peer his old supervisor. He should know a sharp chain from an okay chain (aka dull).

I don't want a dirtbag coming to my house/ shop, or lifting things from my truck while being a " helper". I need a safe, professional and can subcontract that as needed. I can sub a small or medium grapple truck as desired. Sometimes, I can run my old employee (trained by me, to a large degree, to have solid groundie skills and be safe), if he's not canoe guiding in the back country.

My best bet so far has been hiring Midwesterners moved to WA.




One day I assessed trees for a long standing property manager and wrote a report. Nothing for a groundie to do.

I hope to move more toward pruning, pencil work, and iron work.

This market is known to be saturated with tree services, and probably has 10-15 Certified Arborists with about 275,000 in the county, of which, I service half or less, geographically.

Five out of the 6 main Google results for "tree service" are CAs, myself included.

All that being said, nobody should hold back from disagreeing with my .02.

I would love to hire a competent tree man... Slim picking it seems.
Olympia is notorious for slackers. The hard working guys I've had, I've had to train in safe, productive techniques. One guy knew about speed lining, a little. Mostly, he dragged branches for a season for a CA.
 
Slackers all across the land, even up here. Most work (as in over a few hours) I'd do is to at least have someone as safety to call for help. Usually elderly HO, I tell them grab the phone, dial 9 and 1, when I start to fall hit the other 1 so help can get here before I hit the ground.

If it's a small one or two hour job... well....
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #12
different things seem to have different acceptable risks for everyone. tree work is not safe. trees are not safe.

some people will climb without an emergency climb line escape system in place, and some even just one rope lanyard tie-in. the bulk of people use canopy tie in points without a lowering system.

my job at state parks had objective danger probably five times as high as me doing basic jobs solo. being flattened by a huge, rotten tree, in thick brush, what production pressures do to miss management and lazy people.

the best part there was having a very skilled co-worker as a teammate, 40+years experience with trees, starting when he was a teenager.
 
I think that if I were to be squashed by a big tree, or t boned into a mess by some rigging I'd be ok with that. Not happy but thems the breaks
But say you cut your self badly and your rope is stuck at the base of the tree because there is no one else to untangle it. Or you take a whack on your noggin (English speak) and you get knocked out and hang upside down and expire, dying like that would piss me off.
There's a thousand and one ways to die in this job and a huge proportion of them can be eliminated by having another person there, even if he's sitting in the truck smoking a joint listening to music.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #14
Leaving your rope to be tangled in brush sounds dangerous to me. Expecting a panicking groundy to cut your rope out of brush to try to lower out DdRT, sounds like an accident waiting to happen. Bag the rope and carry, and/ or climb SRT. You can park a tank on the end of a climb line and slide right out on a HH.


In 28 months at State Parks, playing it safe, I had way more close calls that climbing for 8 years. I almost got clobbered in the last hour in the field, on my last day at SP, my 40th bday present to me and D.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #15
How many people have been rescued? How many people have self-rescued?

None of us are very risk-adverse, I'd guess. It's a matter of calculation , and living or don't with the results.



P.s. wear a whistle around your neck, under your shirt.
 
The whistle is not a bad idea, I have always have one in my PFD when whitewater kayaking, never thought about it for tree work.

I always make sure there is someone else on site when I am climbing and cutting, just in case I 'F it up and need help. Sometimes they are in the house or working on their own stuff and if I knock myself out they probably wouldn't notice for a while, but I feel it ups my chances of surviving the messup.
I prefer to have someone on the ground helping, I do not have enough experience to be efficient rigging by myself. Often times just having someone on the other end of the rope to hold tension makes a world of difference and for me is much faster than figuring out how to rig it solo. I have found my jobs to go faster with a helper, but everyone and every job is different.
 
I'm headed this direction solo if I can't obtain suitable WC and I hate to work alone due to feeling it a unsafe work practice.
 
I also think climbing by yourself is an unsafe work practice. We also don't send out a bucket truck with less then 2 men. I wouldn't send anyone else to climb by themselves, so why would I do it myself. Sometimes the customer needs to pay for our ground guy on these jobs were there isn't much work for them, but people cut corners to save the consumer money and this only makes it harder for all of us to get the prices we should on these jobs.
 
I did a 2 hour solo tonight. Smallish walnut removal with full clean up. The HO is an 87 year old good old boy. I asked him to keep an eye on me so he sat in his chair sipping on whiskey. He thanked me for the show and told me all that work made him tired.
I don't like doing solo as it seems to take way to long to do a job but occasionally it happens. I like to put my rope bag in the bottom crotch of the tree to lessen the chance of a tangle. I also try to only prune ornamentals or fruit trees when working alone.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #21
b82ae9ba0090fc489454a742a0f35f72.jpg

The biggest fir in the middle is the victim. Possible laminated root disease. Small crack. Leans definitively at the neighbors' house.


I Wraptor-ed up and cut all the small stuff and stubs. A little dead wood. Breaker panel shut off power to the well electricity below. Not an open drop. But basic work.

Only rigging was to piece the end off of a remnant, oversized limb below where the original top blew out and a new, single leader grew. This was leaning pretty parrellel to the wire and HID lamp.

Simple scrap of 1/2" rigging line.
Had an eye for a girth hitch midway out the piece, to a running bowline on the cut end piece. Once the strong horizontal portion was hung, a face cut directed it into the drop, no manual handling/ throwing.
Rigged another to itself, hang it, cut into two pieces, and chuck into the drop.

I need small pieces anyway to build a crash pad for the logs.

Nbd.





I hired a good candidate today. He'll help me finish it up tomorrow. A lot of large limbs have broken out in the past. So not a ton of crown on it. Some basic rigging and chunking logs. N b d.

This guys name is also Sean. Seems smart and motivated. WA Conservation Corps asst crew supervisor. Past EMT, maybe current.

I laid out that I need him to work safely, efficiently, and do what he's told to do, unless I tell him to do what he thinks is best. Basic things like clearing the drop zone means clearing the drop zone, not take everything from the drop zone to the chipping area. Direct a driver with either "more driver's side" or " more passenger's ".
"Wax on" means "wax on", not do what you see me doing.
I told him he starts at $15/hr, and will be told what his next training goals are for a pay raise. The more productive he can be, the more he makes. He can decide how long until he gets his raise. I'm not going to dumb it down, rather train him to be a solid tree man.

Once he learns about the wheel, studies the wheel, understand the wheel, he can streamline the wheel, balance the wheel, ride the wheel like BC the cartoon caveman, hopefully.

I have a thick training manual I've developed over time to train people, and cover my ass. Things like an official, documented company drivers test, rigging safety, chainsaw safety.

Maybe I'm a tyrant. Maybe I have known too many people killed and injured. Maybe I want to do a predictable, profession job where everybody goes home with clean drawers and all body parts.
 
Good luck with the new guy.

As for working alone, it shouldn't really be a concept to be entertained apart from ornamental fruit tree pruning etc.

Any climbing job will benefit in some way or other from a ground guy. Even if it is just refilling your saw when it is out of fuel. I would just pass the ground guys wages onto the customer and state that legislation say not to work alone. Personally if the customer disagrees with this just to be saving a few dollars... Do you really want to work for people who value your life and risk of injury less than the cost of a grounds man.

Fuk 'em! I don't want to be working for people with values like that.
 
I would be looking for property maintenance/gardening type work to keep the groundsman busy if there was significant demand for this type of tree work (cut n leave). You could use a whistle to call the groundy when needed and have him come to the tree every 30 mins or whatever to check on you-the rest of the time he can clean gutters or pull weeds out.
 
Sean re. Your difficulty getting decent help.
It just seems to me (looking from the outside) that you tend towards over complicating the whole thing, all this training manual and giving the guy training goals and all that. If you were a multinational I could understand it, but a one gang outfit it's too much imo. The way you describe how you "laid out to him" personally that would get my back up, its easy to forget, he's interviewing you as well, judging if he wants to work for this guy.
Why not just start by getting him to drag and cut and see how you get along? After a few weeks, months whatever if it's working out you can do all the personal goal stuff.
 
Sean, I solo if the job is small enough.
But I always make sure Richard, my partner, knows the exact adress and give him a call back time.
If he hasn't heard from me by then, he'll make a run out.
We do the same thing when we work solo in the woods.
Call in at 10.00, 12.00, 14.00 hours and job's end. More than 15 minutes late and it is rescue time.

We've never had to use it for real, but a few years back, I had a day off and Richard was logging big trees.
I didn't hear from him at 10.00 and couldn't reach him, so I raced for the woods.
It is only a 10 minute drive from my home, but even in that time I had a lot of nasty scenarios playing out in my head. Most of all how I'd have to break the news to his wife and kids.
Turned out he had been called out to an emergency job and sent me an SMS with the details.
For some reason the SMS didn't tick in on my phone till next day.

So we changed procedure, from then on we always call and talk directly to each other.

About 15 years back, I got my right foot caucht between two logs while logging alone in winter.
-15 centigrades and high wind and no cell phone coverage back then.We used a walkie talkie system, but that was in the truck.
It was a comfort to know that I'd only have to wait 1½ hours to be rescued. I had figured that I could call the 3 dogs out of the truck bed and huddle with them for warmth.
Eventually I managed to dig myself loose, but there was never that sense of " Oh my god, I'm going to die alone in the woods" panic.

So, at least, set up a call in system with someone you trust.
 
Back
Top