Had a big maple come down wrong last spring and it changed how I rig loads

I was up in a 60-foot silver maple in a tight backyard in Oak Park. Had a cable choker on a heavy limb, thought I had the angles right. When I cut, the limb swung hard into the house gutter instead of dropping clear. Bent the gutter bad, homeowner was right there watching. I felt awful. That moment convinced me to finally take a proper rigging workshop. Always thought I could figure it out on the job, but one mistake showed me I was guessing too much. Has anyone else had a close call that pushed them to get more training?

2 comments

2 Comments

betht3217d ago

Devil's advocate here - maybe you just needed to slow down and think through the physics more, not shell out cash for a workshop. Gutters get replaced all the time, it's just sheet metal. Plenty of old-timers learned by making mistakes and adjusting on the fly, no formal class needed. A weekend course won't fix bad judgment in the moment when a limb decides to drop different than you guessed. Sounds more like a patience problem than a skill gap to me.

wendy20516d ago

Oh man, I get it, @betht32, and you're probably right. I'm the kind of person who'd try to eyeball a gutter job and end up with a crooked mess that leaks worse than before. If I had a dollar for every time I thought "I got this" and then immediately proved myself wrong, I'd have enough to pay for that workshop twice over. Honestly, my patience runs out about the same time my common sense does, usually right when I'm halfway up a ladder. So maybe it's less about the physics and more about me needing a class on not being a doofus.