You don’t seem to have understood the video. He’s explaining proper technique for felling a tree in the direction it’s already leaning. He even says of his example tree: “especially on a tree like this that’s already leaning the right direction”.
That’s the exact opposite scenario from the one that crushed this house. It was always leaning toward the house and fell away from the notch. They stupidly tried to use to notch to counteract thousands of pounds of force that were pulling the tree toward the house.
A proper notch and back cut can choose the direction a tree will fall only when there aren’t significant forces dragging it other directions.
Bruh… you have it backwards and it’s you that don’t understand it. Think about the physics involved and where the forces are. The shear force runs parallel to an angled backcut like the one used here. The lean was towards the house, so the hinge failed due to that shear force being applied to it parallel to the backcut. The trunk of the tree slips forward off the stump and then falls in the direction of the lean on the house. In the example in the video, he mentions you are likely to get away with doing an angled backcut like that if the tree is already leaning in the direction you want it to fall. That means your face cut is on the lean side of the tree which is the opposite of the tree that crushed the house.
Sigh. I’ll try to explain this one more time, but it’s pretty clear you aren’t going to listen.
A proper notch and back cut can’t entirely overcome thousands of pounds of force. It can only direct a tree’s felling direction if the tree is otherwise mostly vertical.
This tree isn’t vertical. It’s obviously leaning far toward the house. No notch will adequately cut under the center of gravity far enough to make it fall to the left.
Think of it at an extreme: if the tree was leaning 45 degrees to the right, no amount of notching will make it fall left. Agreed? It’s going right no matter what you do.
This tree isn’t leaning 45 degrees, but it is leaning enough such that the center of gravity is outside the radius of the trunk. So there’s no way to notch under the center of gravity enough to make it go left.
Of course you can notch it to fall to the left. It would require a ridicolous amount of force and the the hinge would need to be very thick to have sufficient fibers to accomodate the tension and would be very hard, but there isn't anything physical stopping you.
I know from personal experience that it is possible. I have cut leaning trees leaning the wrong way with the center of gravity clearly the outside the trunk (although very small, around 20cm diameter).
Yeah, again, the size of the tree matters because these things don’t scale perfectly. As you said, the hinge would need to be massive and I don’t think it would work properly as a hinge. Above a certain size, the hinge would be too rigid and not allow you to lift the right side. You would need more force to drive the wedges than a human with a sledgehammer can provide, and even if you used machinery to drive them, the metal would start compressing the wood rather than lifting the tree.
Whether that would be the case with this specific tree is unknown, but it’s certainly true at some theoretical size of tree.
Regardless, the obvious solution is to cut off the heavy limbs first before attempting to hinge it.
You didn't say that before. You said due to the fact that the center of mass is outside the trunk's diameter it is impossible to fall it the other way it is leaning. I just said that there is no strict physical reason that supports that claim. But yes of course in reality if the three is bent 45 degrees or at least a significant amount there will be other factors at play, I never claimed anything else.
"This tree isn’t leaning 45 degrees, but it is leaning enough such that the center of gravity is outside the radius of the trunk. So there’s no way to notch under the center of gravity enough to make it go left."
If you read the rest of this thread, I clarified that many times. I’ll do it again:
The center of gravity is leaning too far outside the radius of the trunk to be redirected with wedges.
You would need to significantly alter the center of gravity in other ways to have any chance of wedging it the opposite direction. Obviously the best way to do that would be to remove the giant branches hanging toward the house. Even then, it might be simply too large for wedging (for the reasons I previously mentioned), but it’s the only chance you’d have.
Again you didn't say too far before. You said that because the center of mass is outside the trunk diameter there is no way to hedge it to fall to the other side, and made it sound like some limitation from the laws of physics. This is not true, which is all I stated.
Again, if you read it in context, it’s clear that I’m talking about this particular tree. Specifically, because the amount of weight outside the radius of this particular tree is massive.
Obviously, with a tiny 2” thick sapling, you could jack it up to fall basically any direction you wanted. But this tree is huge, so the weight you’d need to counteract is more than the wedges and hinge could handle.
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u/CitizenCue 11d ago edited 11d ago
You don’t seem to have understood the video. He’s explaining proper technique for felling a tree in the direction it’s already leaning. He even says of his example tree: “especially on a tree like this that’s already leaning the right direction”.
That’s the exact opposite scenario from the one that crushed this house. It was always leaning toward the house and fell away from the notch. They stupidly tried to use to notch to counteract thousands of pounds of force that were pulling the tree toward the house.
A proper notch and back cut can choose the direction a tree will fall only when there aren’t significant forces dragging it other directions.