Pruning A Tree? Follow These Safety Tips To Protect Yourself And Others

Pruning your trees is essential for keeping them healthy and for preventing weak branches from falling off and causing damage to your home. However, pruning does present a few hazards – both to the person who is pruning and to anyone else who happens to be around during the process. Follow these tips to protect yourself and others.

Never trim near power lines.

If a tree is growing around power lines, that is not a tree you should be trimming yourself. It's far too easy to slip and accidentally hit the wire or to cause the wire to come down when you trim away the wrong branch. Always call a professional tree service company to trim trees that are interfering with power lines. In some cases, if you call your local power company, they might even send someone out to do the trimming for you. This will depend on the laws in your area and your power company's relationship with the local municipality.

Don't trim trees when the weather is bad.

If it's windy, raining, snowing, or about to storm, pick another time to trim your tree. It's not worth the risk of being blown off your ladder or slipping on wet rungs. Climbing up to trim a tree during a storm also puts you at risk of lightning strike.

Don't climb a ladder with shears in your hand.

Climbing up the ladder with shears in one hand is not safe. For one, you're not very secure when you're climbing with one hand. Second, if you accidentally bump into a branch in the wrong way on the way up, you may cut yourself with the shears. Invest in a utility belt, and keep the shears in the belt so you can climb up with two hands. Only remove the shears from the belt once you're fully up the ladder to your starting point.

Yell "coming down" before you snip a large branch.

You wouldn't want someone to be approaching the tree right when you're about to let a big branch drop. Since you can't always see the ground clearly when you're up in the branches, you won't always know if someone is approaching. So, before you clip a big, heavy branch, say "coming down" loudly. Wait a few seconds. If nobody replies, then you can cut the branch.

Wear protective gear.

When climbing up into a tree to prune it, always wear a hard hat, goggles, gloves, and long sleeves. These basic protective measures will prevent a lot of cuts, scrapes and eye injuries.

For more tips, or if you'd rather leave the work to the professionals, contact a local tree service like Tree Smart Inc. 

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