Crane vs Tree , Tree wins

[BlahBlahYouToo]

wtf??
crane weighed 100k pounds.
how much does the tree weigh????

 

[bignateyk]

you can bet they're gonna get a new house mortgage free out of this. at least that's what I would do.

they may not feel this way right now, but this is probably the best thing that could have happened to them.

Depends on when they bought the house. The tree surgeon has insurance, so his insurance will pay to either fix the house, or if that is too expensive, will just pay the appraised value of the house.

If they just pay the appraised value of the house, the lender will likely get most of the money. If they just bought the house within the last year, they have payed mostly interest on the loan, and will lose all their fees from closing as well as having to pay those same fees again when they buy a new house.

They aren't just going to get a free house out of it. I could see them losing thousands of dollars if they bought the house within the last year or so (not to mention moving costs)

The only thing that the couple will get out of this is:
1) The principal they have put into the house
2) Their down payment
3) Any increase in value on the house
4) Insurance will cover temporary living situation
5) Insurance will cover damage to any of their personal belongings

edit: It doesn't look like the house is "totaled" (for lack of a better word). Insurance will probably just pay to replace/repair/rebuild that section of the house.

 

[BoomerD]

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091117/ARTICLES/911179974/0/news

 

[skyking]

I'm not too sure about that considering this:

Ahh, I did not look for an article, my bad.
That would have been my guess since all the arborists I know would scoff at using a crane at all. They just climb up and cut off as small a slice as necessary to avoid damage below.

They make a bed on the lawn out of the small limbs and cut off the big limbs and trunk in firewood-length sizes. It it tedious but the bed of limbs and small pieces protect the lawn from damage. The ground guys stack the wood and when it is all done the feed the limbs into the chipper and rake up the debris. I've seen 120 foot tall conifers right up against a house and next to a fence removed that way with no damage whatsoever.
These guys either:
A) did not know what they were doing.
B) afraid to go out on a limb over the house.

 

[fulltilt39]

No LMI?

http://www.cranesmart.com

maybe i'll forward this to our sales people hahaha

 

[SooperDave]

LOL! IIRC, the crane had LMI, but it was set to warning only...not lockout.

Besides, once the tree was cut, I was stuck with the load. No place to go but up...and towards me to reduce the radius....quickly.

I was in the business for a LONG time...I remember getting hoisted (and hoisting others) on the headache ball, riding loads, tieing bulldozers to the front of cranes to reduce tipping... it might not tip...but it dammed sure might break!

IMO, too many people depend on the LMI to keep them out of trouble...then get fucked when the LMI fails...
Know the load, know the radius and boom angle, and perhaps most important of all, know the crane.

I couldn't agree more. Many times I've seen untrained personnel hop in to a seat counting on the computer to stop them if there was a problem. No clue how to read a load chart or compensate for boom deflection etc. One guy didn't know what the buzzer on an ATB was. Ripped the ball off the whip line
dropping it 60' to the ground. Lucky he didn't kill someone. The OSHA reg
requiring crane operators to be CCO didn't come soon enough if you ask me.
It may keep me out of the seat too, but I never did like that work anyway.
I can't say I've seen an LMI fail,but I have seen people fuck themselves because they didnt configure one correctly.

On a side note, if you want to see some old rigs, pull in to Guntert's yard in
Ripon. You can see the booms from the highway. Those rigs are electric. They pull cords around the yard for power. Slowest things I've ever worked around

 

[compman25]

Depends on when they bought the house. The tree surgeon has insurance, so his insurance will pay to either fix the house, or if that is too expensive, will just pay the appraised value of the house.

If they just pay the appraised value of the house, the lender will likely get most of the money. If they just bought the house within the last year, they have payed mostly interest on the loan, and will lose all their fees from closing as well as having to pay those same fees again when they buy a new house.

They aren't just going to get a free house out of it. I could see them losing thousands of dollars if they bought the house within the last year or so (not to mention moving costs)

The only thing that the couple will get out of this is:
1) The principal they have put into the house
2) Their down payment
3) Any increase in value on the house
4) Insurance will cover temporary living situation
5) Insurance will cover damage to any of their personal belongings

edit: It doesn't look like the house is "totaled" (for lack of a better word). Insurance will probably just pay to replace/repair/rebuild that section of the house.

Their house is going to be torn down and rebuilt, they will still have a mortgage. They are being put in a rental house for 1yr while theirs is being rebuilt, and the neighbors on each side are getting put up in rentals for a couple weeks. It's a costly mistake and it sucks they are our clients.

 

[BoomerD]

I couldn't agree more. Many times I've seen untrained personnel hop in to a seat counting on the computer to stop them if there was a problem. No clue how to read a load chart or compensate for boom deflection etc. One guy didn't know what the buzzer on an ATB was. Ripped the ball off the whip line
dropping it 60' to the ground. Lucky he didn't kill someone. The OSHA reg
requiring crane operators to be CCO didn't come soon enough if you ask me.
It may keep me out of the seat too, but I never did like that work anyway.
I can't say I've seen an LMI fail,but I have seen people fuck themselves because they didnt configure one correctly.

On a side note, if you want to see some old rigs, pull in to Guntert's yard in
Ripon. You can see the booms from the highway. Those rigs are electric. They pull cords around the yard for power. Slowest things I've ever worked around

I've been to the Guntert yard before...some real relics there...even older than me...

Most of the crane operators I know got the CCO way before it became law. Many contractors required it for all cranes on the project, even though, by union regs, the company the crane operator couldn't require it since it wasn't law...
I've been formally certified since the 80's, and kept the certs up to date every 2 years, just like my class A license.
(can you believe people are against licensing crane operators? You have to have a driver's license to drive a fucking volkswagen...not not to operate a crane? thankfully, California finally joined the list of states and cities who require such licensing.)

 

[Gothgar]

Check this picture out

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/apps/p...1117&Category=ARTICLES&ArtNo=911179974&Ref=V2

WOW

 

[Red Squirrel]

Check this picture out

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/apps/p...1117&Category=ARTICLES&ArtNo=911179974&Ref=V2

WOW

Wow lol.

I sense this ending up on failblog.org soon.

 

[Evadman]

There is a picture missing from this thread. I remember a crane crying to pick a car out of the drink from a dock. The crane was too small, and ended up falling in after the car. Then another crane came to try to get the first crane out of the water, and that one fell in too. A 3rd crane came (and succeeded) in getting the other 2 cranes and the car out of the water. It was a long series of images, and this thread need's em.

 

[BoomerD]

There is a picture missing from this thread. I remember a crane crying to pick a car out of the drink from a dock. The crane was too small, and ended up falling in after the car. Then another crane came to try to get the first crane out of the water, and that one fell in too. A 3rd crane came (and succeeded) in getting the other 2 cranes and the car out of the water. It was a long series of images, and this thread need's em.

From the link I posted this morning, they TRIED to replicate that...

"Early efforts proved frustrating as the weight of the boom was too much to be safely hoisted by two additional cranes brought to the site."

"Once crews were able to release the 25-foot metal lattice-work extension or jib from the boom and lighten the weight, operators in the two functioning cranes began a slow and laborious effort over four to five hours of inching up the crane and ultimately sliding it away from the house."

"Beginning Tuesday, there were various plans for trying to get the boom out of the home, including draining the hydraulic fluid to reduce its weight. That wasn’t successful. Workers then wrapped a strap on the boom from the third crane and hoped to lift it.

“It’s not budging,” said Andy Pforsich, battalion chief for Santa Rosa Fire.

Crews then began removing the heavy jib, smashed deep into the back yard area, from the top of the boom. After about 11:30 a.m. they disconnected the pieces and the cranes began efforts to lift the boom."

 

[Red Squirrel]

There is a picture missing from this thread. I remember a crane crying to pick a car out of the drink from a dock. The crane was too small, and ended up falling in after the car. Then another crane came to try to get the first crane out of the water, and that one fell in too. A 3rd crane came (and succeeded) in getting the other 2 cranes and the car out of the water. It was a long series of images, and this thread need's em.

Haha I remember seeing that.

This one?

What I don't get about lot of these cranes accident is how they did not put any efforts to balance out the boom. Obviously if you extend too far without counter weight, it's probably going to tip! I'm not a professional at this, but it just seems like common sense. The hydrolic legs that go to the ground will only do so much. Once the center of balance is no longer at the vehicle, there is a potential, whoops.

 

[Rubycon]

Haha I remember seeing that.

This one?

Too bad it's fake. Only the first pic is accurate.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/crane.asp

 

[ManyBeers]

How much would a rig like that cost to do that job successfully?

 

[BoomerD]

How much would a rig like that cost to do that job successfully?

I haven't kept up on crane prices in recent years, but in 95, I ran a brand new Link-Belt 65 ton hydraulic truck crane that cost $565,000.

From what I can tell, that looks like a Grove hydraulic "all-terrain" crane, and from this story:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091117/ARTICLES/911179907#

"The crane that fell was a hydraulic telescoping crane with a load capacity of 175 tons, crane experts said Tuesday."

so that would make new replacement cost somewhere around $1.5 million.
Here's a 2009 165 ton model very similar to the one in the story:
http://24framestudios.com/cns/allterrain.htm

BTW, at the radius they were working at, that crane with a MAX capacity of 350,000 lbs...had a working capacity of 7900 lbs. (from the article above)

In those situations, it's not structural strength that determines lifting capacity...it's the tipping point of the crane. With all that boom and jib, those things can get squirrely pretty dammed fast.

 

[skyking]

The thread title should be changed to
"Crane VS. Tree, House loses"

 

[fulltilt39]

http://www.cranesmart.com

maybe i'll forward this to our sales people hahaha

i asked about it this morning...sales people said they'd tried to sell them systems, but they didn't go for it. so now we're laughing at them.

feel bad for the homeowners, tho.

 

[ManyBeers]

I haven't kept up on crane prices in recent years, but in 95, I ran a brand new Link-Belt 65 ton hydraulic truck crane that cost $565,000.

From what I can tell, that looks like a Grove hydraulic "all-terrain" crane, and from this story:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20091117/ARTICLES/911179907#

"The crane that fell was a hydraulic telescoping crane with a load capacity of 175 tons, crane experts said Tuesday."

so that would make new replacement cost somewhere around $1.5 million.
Here's a 2009 165 ton model very similar to the one in the story:
http://24framestudios.com/cns/allterrain.htm

BTW, at the radius they were working at, that crane with a MAX capacity of 350,000 lbs...had a working capacity of 7900 lbs. (from the article above)

In those situations, it's not structural strength that determines lifting capacity...it's the tipping point of the crane. With all that boom and jib, those things can get squirrely pretty dammed fast.

Sorry if my post wasn't clear but I wasn't asking how much the crane cost but how much the job cost.
I imagine it's pretty expensive to have a crane that size
on a job.

 

[skyking]

Back when I was hiring and working around rentals like that, it was $1500 or more for mobilization and 4~600 per hour with a 4 hour minimum. Let's say $4000 to say hello.

 

[NesuD]

Good thing Reliable has insurance. Sucks they're our clients.

So does that mean you work for one of the insurance companies that are going to be doing their best to dick the homeowners over the next several months to years? That is how the game is played right? Insuarance companies fight for years over who will actually have to pay the bill? Tree services insurance company points at reliables insurance company reliable points at the homeowners insurance company. Everyone sues then everyone counter sues The lawyers get rich and the injured parties get dicked.

Do I seem cynical when it comes to insurance companies?

 

[BoomerD]

Back when I was hiring and working around rentals like that, it was $1500 or more for mobilization and 4~600 per hour with a 4 hour minimum. Let's say $4000 to say hello.

That's probably pretty close. Time starts when the crane crew leaves the yard, ends when they get back and finish fueling...although in this case, I think the charges probably stopped a bit earlier...

 

[ManyBeers]

Back when I was hiring and working around rentals like that, it was $1500 or more for mobilization and 4~600 per hour with a 4 hour minimum. Let's say $4000 to say hello.

Ok thanks. Seems like alot of money for what they were doing.

 

[BoomerD]

Ok thanks. Seems like alot of money for what they were doing.

While it does seem expensive, consider the cost of the crane and crane crew.
You're getting a $1.5 million dollar piece of equipment delivered to your house. You can't cut a house in half like that with just any tonka toy...

I'm glad no one was hurt, I feel for the homeowners, but I ROFLMFAO at this story all the time...:biggrin:

 

[ManyBeers]

While it does seem expensive, consider the cost of the crane and crane crew.
You're getting a $1.5 million dollar piece of equipment delivered to your house. You can't cut a house in half like that with just any tonka toy...

I'm glad no one was hurt, I feel for the homeowners, but I ROFLMFAO at this story all the time...:biggrin:

Well I was going to say maybe they should have found a cheaper way. Maybe Asplundh or some other service using a lift 2-3 guys and some chainsaws. I would never have thought of doing it the way they did. Maybe that was the best way, i don't know.