Timber!

[OnMyWay]

Well, I put this in hobbies because it is kind of related to our garden / house renovation hobbies.

We realized a few months ago, when we started spending more time outdoors due to nice weather, that one of our coconut palms was a big hazard to our family's health.  Didn't one of you say the coconut beaning are a leading cause of death in PH?  We have three coconut palms and two are not in the area where we spend a lot of time.  The biggest one is right between our shade garden and another tree where we have a swing for the kids.  Every once in a while, a coconut would drop and one of us would say, "I was just over there!"  Also, it is / was a super tall tree, and really hard for the average trimmer to trim.  I would estimate 70 feet, give or take a little.  The other two are 40-50ish, I guess.  The smaller ones we have had guys climb them without any special equipment, but not the giant.

We had to get a cutting permit, so we applied.  They are very strict.  Two inspectors came out and one said it has termites in the base, so that helped us get the OK.  For the two others, we just got a permit to trim.  p50 per tree for a permit to trim and p100 to cut per tree.  (We also cut one evergreen tree down).

Yesterday evening they trimmed the smaller two palms and cut the evergreen.  Today they cut the big one.  It was so tall that it could not be cut at the bottom and allowed to fall the normal way.  There were too many wires, posts, etc. and it would fall across the road.  They had to cut the top off, maybe 15 feet, then another ~20 feet, then the rest was cut at the base in the usual style.  The climber wore spiked climbing boots and used a very sharp double sided bolo to cut the two top sections off, then they used a chain saw for the rest.

I could not do this guy's job!  Here is a short video.  He actually spent about 30 minutes up there, including a water break.

https://goo.gl/photos/SDVYXeMSSi2aSoen8

This is what we ended up with.  Medium term, I will leave it like this.  Longer term, we will remove the stump.  That stump is 24 inches across the top and 4 to 5 feet at the root base.  Our yard guy will be here tomorrow to clean up the mess.  In the second pic, you can see one of the smaller palms in the background.  It doesn't have the huge root base like the big one.

[sonjack2847]

Yes coconuts do kill a lot of people.Did you have to get a permit to cut them down? My friend in Alcoy Cebu got told off when he cut some down as they are food plants.He was told he needed a permit.

[OnMyWay]

2 hours ago, sonjack2847 said:

Yes coconuts do kill a lot of people.Did you have to get a permit to cut them down? My friend in Alcoy Cebu got told off when he cut some down as they are food plants.He was told he needed a permit.

Apparently there is a new law effective this past January 1 that requires permission from some federal coconut commission if you are going to cut more than one coconut tree.  We were only cutting one so we did not have to do that.  However, Subic Bay Freeport requires a permit for all tree cutting or even trimming, so we had to get those.

[intrepid]

WOW Don, that is a really tall tree.  That's amazing when the video pans back to see the full height.  I had some big trees back in the US trimmed and felled.  The climbers used chainsaws up in the tops but not as high as that!  Thanks for posting.

[sonjack2847]

On 2/24/2017 at 10:25 AM, OnMyWay said:

Apparently there is a new law effective this past January 1 that requires permission from some federal coconut commission if you are going to cut more than one coconut tree.  We were only cutting one so we did not have to do that.  However, Subic Bay Freeport requires a permit for all tree cutting or even trimming, so we had to get those.

Maybe Cebu is like Subic in that respect of the law.