25.03.2012

Pruning Death Wish

Spotted by a reader in Ireland, a couple of tree pruners working in a busy car park in the west of the country.

The trees are clearly around four metres high, but need a flat top cut. The contractor is equipped with a telescopic handled power trimmer but it is not sufficient to cut the top of the tree from the ground, so access is required in order to do the job properly.
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Trimming trees from the very top of a ladder with a substantial cantilever effect

The trouble is the team only has an aluminium step ladder with them and it is not high enough to properly reach the top of the tree.

Even when the man straddles the top rungs. So rather than call in a proper piece of kit, such as a small mobile tower or some powered access in order to gain a further metre or so of extra height, especially given that there are more than one tree, our intrepid pruners decide to make do and ‘bodge’ a solution.

They place the ladder on the bed of their 3.5 tonne truck, but this still requires the straddling of top rungs of the ladder. Add to that the fact that the distance from the tree is now greater increasing his outreach and without a doubt this is a Death Wish.
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As if the ladder trick was not dodgy enough he is doing it from the back of a truck