Idk but while they certainly require some maintenance, after watching 2 of em work for a couple hours, the routine maintenance looks minimal as they are highly similar to an excavator.
Distintinctive Tree was working on I-95 in town for approx 2 weeks and one day while I was driving by around 6 pm where their machines were parked by an on-ramp, I stopped and chatted with the foreman. They were doing prep work prior to the start of the shift, greasing and lubing and cleaning windows etc. The ground guy was filing a saw (the ground guy's main job is to cut stumps lower which for whatever reasons of angles and/or reach, the Sennebogan can't cut low enough, but there aren't many of those. The foreman was the brains of the crew and the lead operator in the company. He said the Seenebogans are quite reliable but the Albach giant chipper they use in tandem with the Senneboggens are German-made and a bit finicky and give some headaches due to sensor issues and the like.
Prior to working with Distinctive, he said he had alot of mechanized land clearing experience. He looked to be in his early 30s, soft spoken, and among other things, said he is their only operator of their Fallbach machine ( another even larger, heavier duty grapple tree cutting machine mounted on a Grove 3060 chassis which is noted earlier in this thread), a $1.5 million machine. And he said the Senneboggens are indeed highly capable and productive but to run one effectively you have to be a good operator and also know trees and tree-cutting or you could get into trouble with it. He said that in the cutting head there are (at least )two hydraulic motors and if you happened to blow them out by taking and then losing too big of a piece, it's $50k to replace them.
As I was chatting it occurred to me I had 2 crane jobs on the books that were very close (within a 1/2 mile) of their current work site so I asked if they ever sub out the machine for quick hitters nearby. He said sometimes yes and he'd try to take a look so I texted him the addresses . One job was a large, bushy Norway Maple 6' from a house and the other was two 40' white pines in back yard behind a fence off end of driveway at edge of large patio and pool. Having seen the Senneboggen work I figured the maple was maybe 20 minutes worth of work (after a 45 second set up
) vs 2 hours with a crane and the pines would be 10 minutes vs 45 minutes with a crane. I never heard back from the kid but nevertheless, those descriptions give you an idea of the capabilities.
The Senneboggens require a flat bed and tractor for transport to job site but I was daydreaming that with my micro work area, I could get a license plate for it and easily road it to every job
.
There are senebogans in the UK and are used mainly on roadside works. Grapple saws are becoming more common and are put on various bases - excavators and merlo rotos being the most popular as they are so adaptable. We hired this impressive machine and operator in from a local company - it has a GMB 500 head on it - 50cm cut and is insanely productive compared to a climber or conventional crane on the right job - it is the future for much of our work.
