Nearly lost a 40 year old oak last month because of bad cabling install

I got called out to a property in rural Vermont where a giant oak was leaning hard after a storm last month. The homeowner had hired some handyman to put in a cable system 3 years ago, but they used galvanized fence wire and never installed a thimble. The wire had sawed halfway through the bark and was starting to choke the main trunk. I had to cut it out and redo the whole thing with proper hardware and a torque wrench set to spec. Cost them an extra $800 to fix what could have been a tree falling on their house. Anyone else run into sketchy cable jobs that looked fine from a distance but were actually dangerous?

3 comments

3 Comments

jordang323d ago

Hate seeing that kind of work, happens way too often. People think any wire and a staple will hold a tree but it just causes more damage. Good on you for catching it before that oak came down on their house.

terry_thomas3d ago

Yeah I mean it's heartbreaking honestly. You see it all the time where someone thinks they're helping but they're really just setting that tree up to fail later. That cabling job they posted looked like someone used old extension cord wire and just prayed it would hold. Good thing you caught it when you did, that oak was definitely on borrowed time with that setup.

rowan23d ago

Had a buddy who let a neighbor "help" by nailing a hose clamp into his maple tree to hold a branch. @terry_thomas would've lost it if he saw the bark completely girdled a year later. Tree ended up half dead before my buddy finally had it taken down.