Storm Damage and Dangerous Tree Equipment

Storm damage and dangerous tree work is the one vegetation application where the tree sets the terms. After a wind event the job is hundreds of hung-up, snapped, uprooted and leaning trees across roads, powerlines, fences, houses and tracks, and the commercial structure is a standing arrangement or panel contract with a council, road authority, utility or insurer that calls out crews at an hourly or daily rate, sometimes with a per-tree schedule for the follow-up program. Between storms the same contractors remove hazardous trees identified by inspection, priced per tree in size and complexity bands, with the complex band defined by what is underneath and what the tree is doing.

What unites this work is that every piece is under load and nothing can be allowed to fall where gravity takes it. A snapped crown resting on a powerline, a stem leaning over a house, a root plate that will spring back when the trunk is cut: these are jobs for a head that grips the piece before it is cut and holds it after, on a carrier with lift to spare at the radius where the cut is made. That makes the grapple saw the core tool and the lift chart the core specification, and it makes a fast shear or a lightweight pruner the wrong first purchase for a contractor whose business is this work.

The work sequence

Emergency response runs the first half of the chain quickly to reopen access, then the follow-up program runs the rest. A hazardous tree removal runs the whole chain on one tree, often from a single set-up.

1. Assess the tree, the load path and the exclusion zone
2. Isolate services and control traffic where required
3. Remove limbs and reduce the crownEX25 or EX28 grapple saw
4. Section the stem under controlEX28, EX36 or EX40 grapple saw
5. Fell sound regrowth and small stemsWR10 or WL shear
6. Grapple debris to the verge or chipperEX25 or EX28 grapple
7. Cut heavy limbs where the piece can fall clearCS400
8. Grind stumps and root platesSC400 or SC600

Storm work is usually a mixed fleet arriving in stages, and the clearing workflow guide covers how to keep the carriers from waiting on each other.

Which attachments do the heavy lifting

Grapple saws for every tree under load

The grapple saw exists for this work: it secures the piece, cuts it, retains the severed section and places it, which is the only acceptable cycle when the fall zone contains a road, a roof, a fence or a conductor. Two of the four Powerhand saws carry most of this work. The EX28 grapple saw (12 to 25 tonne, 986 kg, 600 mm cut) is the callout head, because it fits the carrier a crew can float to a blocked road quickly and still holds the pieces a storm actually produces. The EX25 (8 to 12 tonne, 651 kg) is the one to add second, for crown reduction in parks and back yards where the bigger carrier cannot reach the tree at all. The EX36 and the tiltrotator or tree-care EX40 belong to contractors whose regular work is large trees beside buildings, and are usually hired for the rest. In every case the saw capacity is a cutting figure and not a suspended-load figure: a 600 mm cut through green eucalypt produces a piece whose mass, at the working radius, is what the lift chart must cover. Powerhand EX25 vs EX28 vs EX36 vs EX40 sets out the model choice in full.

Forestry grapples for the debris

Once the tree is down, storm work is material handling at volume: limbs, crowns and stems dragged clear of roads, stacked on verges and fed to chippers. The Powerhand EX25 forestry grapple (8 to 12 tonne, 0.25 m², 400 kg with rotator) suits council carriers and compact chippers, and the EX28 (12 to 25 tonne, 0.28 m², 617 kg with rotator) is the crossover choice for storm cleanup on civil excavators. A plain grapple is lighter and faster than a grapple saw for debris, so a two-carrier crew usually runs the saw on one and the grapple on the other. Rotation matters on a blocked road where every load must be laid parallel to the edge.

Heavy pruners where the piece can fall clear

Not every storm limb is over something. Where the fall zone is clear, the OMEF CS400 and CS400H (10 to 24 tonne carriers, 400 or 420 mm cut, 550 to 570 kg, 360-degree rotation) take heavy broken limbs faster and with less mass on the boom than a grapple saw, because there is no holding grapple. That is exactly why the CS is the wrong head where the piece must be controlled, and mechanical pruner versus grapple saw is the comparison to read before specifying one for storm work.

Tree shears for the sound trees in the program

The follow-up program after a storm, and most hazardous tree registers, include sound trees that are simply in the wrong place or too damaged to keep, and these are felled rather than dismantled. The Trevi Benne WR10 (indicatively 12 to 16 tonne carriers, around 400 mm nominal cut) with rotation grips, cuts and places a stem where the grapple wants it, and the WL Series handles regrowth and snapped small stems in bulk. A shear is not for a stem under load; tree shear versus grapple saw explains the boundary.

Stump grinders for the root plates

Storm programs end with stumps and uprooted root plates in verges, parks and yards, and the Dipperfox SC400 (1.5 to 5 tonne, 190 kg, 400 mm stump) and SC600 (6 to 12 tonne, about 320 kg, 600 mm stump, 700 mm depth) process them in place on the carriers already doing the clean-up, with a contained footprint and less debris than a high-speed wheel beside a footpath. Services must be located first, because a storm-lifted root plate often has the service in it.

Carrier size and fleet composition

Storm and hazard work is won on reach, lift and mobilisation together. The 10 to 16 tonne class is the most common core carrier, with an EX28 grapple saw at the light end of its band, an EX28 grapple and a WR10, floating quickly behind a truck to a callout. The 5 to 10 tonne class carries an EX25 grapple saw and grapple and an SC600 into parks, yards and narrow streets, and the 1 to 5 tonne class gets an SC400 through a gate for the stump program. Large trees over houses push into the 16 to 25 tonne and 25 to 40 tonne classes for an EX36 or EX40 grapple saw, where the extra lift at radius is the point. The lift chart and attachment mass guide and the lift capacity calculator should be used for every carrier in the fleet, at the radius the saw actually cuts at, over the side, on the slope the machine will sit on.

Site and commercial factors that change the equipment choice

Every tree needs its cut sequence planned before the head touches it, because the load path decides the method. Operators should establish exclusion zones and follow applicable WHS procedures and manufacturer instructions, and work near conductors requires the utility’s isolation and clearance procedures before any machine approaches.

Green eucalypt makes every suspended section heavier than its diameter suggests, which is the error that turns a planned cut into an overload; see the Australian hardwood guide. Wet ground after a storm cuts stability and traction, and a slope that was fine in summer is not fine after heavy rain. Access is often the first problem: blocked roads, downed lines and flooded crossings, which is why the fast-floating 10 to 16 tonne carrier reaches more jobs than a bigger one. Night work under lights favours heads with the fewest tooling changes, and chain and bar spares travel with the crew. Fire season and storm season overlap in much of the country, so chipping the debris may be stood down by the relevant state fire authority on the same week the callout happens; fire risk in clearing operations covers it. The emergency itself usually carries the contractor through the first days, but the follow-up program is ordinary tree removal: for native species outside an emergency, confirm with the land manager and the relevant state agency whether approvals apply, using native vegetation approvals as the question list. Finally, decide with the client whether debris is chipped, stockpiled or left, because on a storm callout the trucks and chipper are usually the constraint rather than the excavator.

Measuring and pricing production

For a panel or per-tree schedule, record on real jobs, per productive hour: cuts and pieces per hour by piece size, trees completed by complexity band, grapple cycles clearing debris, and stumps ground by diameter. Record the assessment, isolation, traffic control, set-up and pack-down time separately for every tree, because in this work the machine may cut for twenty minutes on a job that takes three hours.

As an illustration only, assume a 14 tonne excavator with an EX28 grapple saw and operator at an internal cost of $210 per hour, with a ground crew and traffic control at $130 per hour. A trial on a complex leaning tree over a fence takes 2.5 hours in total, of which 40 minutes is cutting, giving a cost of $850 for that tree before mobilisation, chipping and margin. A simple sound tree felled with a shear and grappled clear in 30 minutes costs $170 on the same crew. That spread is why the per-tree schedule must have complexity bands, and why quoting all trees by diameter alone loses money. The building a tender rate guide and the cost per unit calculator take the numbers through utilisation, chain and bar consumables and mobilisation.

Before you tender or buy for this work

• Confirm the panel or callout terms: hourly, daily or per-tree, the complexity bands, and who supplies traffic control and chipping.
• Check the carrier lift chart at the actual cutting radius, over the side and on slope, for the grapple saw plus rotator plus hitch plus the heaviest planned piece.
• Confirm continuous auxiliary flow and pressure for the saw motor and rotator, and the case drain requirement.
• Specify the grapple saw mounting architecture (rigid, tiltrotator or tree-care) before comparing weights and cut capacities.
• Confirm utility isolation and clearance procedures for any work near conductors.
• Locate underground services before grinding stumps or root plates in verges and yards.
• Price chain, bar, sprocket and chain oil consumables for hardwood and carry spares for night work.
• Ask whether native vegetation approvals apply to non-emergency hazardous tree removals and who holds them.
• Establish exclusion zones and WHS procedures for suspended and spring-loaded material, and plan the debris and chipper logistics.

Frequently asked questions