Day 4: Crane Job

Today had its ups and its downs. When we met at the shop at 6:30am, the first thing we had to do was pick up the chip truck and chipper from getting fixed. Before we could do this, we discovered that the bucket truck had a screw in the back drivers side tire and it was flat. What I did not know was that the truck was still drivable because it is a double axel in back. Linus and Steve stayed at the shop to plug the tire and Kevin and I went to the garage to pick up the chip truck and chipper so that I could get my practice in behind the wheel. Once everything was ready to go for the day, we headed up to Hampton Falls, NH to do a crane job. I was unsure how this job was going to go because it was my first crane job. The crane is an amazing machine. It can reach 150 feet in the air and lift large pieces of trees over houses to the ground. The first two crane picks went well, but it was the third pick that everything started to go down hill. As we were dragging brush to the chipper from the second pick, it knocked a hydraulic lever out of gear on the back on the crane, which shut the whole crane down. None of us could figure out what was wrong so Linus had to get on the phone with the crane company to try to have them troubleshoot what the problem might be. Meanwhile, the top of a large tree was stuck in the air over a house, and also Kevin was up in the tree waiting to see what the problem is. After about an hour of troubleshooting, the person from the crane company that was helping Linus trouble shoot told him to look at the back of the crane where the hydraulic controls were and make sure that the left hydraulic level was flipped up, which it was not. Once that was flipped back up the crane was fine and the job went on. After today, I learned that not everyday on the job can go smooth as you would like. After the crane go back up and running, we were flying on the trees. My main job today was to continue to practice my driving by going to dump the truck every few hours. The 40-yard chip truck was filling up faster than usual today because for the most part we were putting whole trees through the chipper instead of just small branches. I am looking forward to next time we do a crane job. Kevin's plan is to strap me in the climbing belt and put me 150 feet in the air on the end of the crane ball just to get an idea of what it is like to be up that high when your in an actual tree. I am really looking forward to this so I can get a better idea of what it is like to be up in the air that high. Kevin told me that it is all about trusting the equipment you are using. Even with the hour delay in today’s job, we still finished the job much earlier than we had expected. The overall cost of today’s job was $6,500 which shocked me at first, but once I thought about it, it all made sense. Tomorrow is not looking too promising for the weather so we do not have any tree work planned. Instead, Linus is going to take me with him in the morning to teach to me the proper way to go about doing an estimate and pricing out a job. The picture to go along with today’s blog is the crane at mid range extension, and Kevin up in the tree.