Showerthought: That old rope I retired last week taught me something

I had a 150 foot arborist line snap on me Tuesday while taking down a big maple in Springfield. It was a throwback line I'd been using for almost 10 years, way past its prime. I should've retired it sooner, but I got lazy and kept thinking it had one more climb in it. Luckily nobody got hurt, but it made me wonder how often other guys here push their gear too far. What's the oldest piece of equipment you're still using and trust?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_anthony21d ago

Forgot to actually log the hours on that line too right? I bet if we all kept a tally of how many days our gear actually worked versus how many we just assumed it was fine we'd be horrified.

the_elizabeth21d ago

Oh wow, you're asking the real questions... how many of us are actually tracking downtime versus just hoping for the best? I wonder how many hours we collectively lose to machines we never even bother to check on. Wouldn't it be something if someone actually ran the numbers on that?

riley4321d ago

Right but I kinda see it the other way. If you're logging every single downtime event you're basically just tracking the outliers, the weird stuff that sticks out because it broke your flow. The days when everything runs smooth you don't even think about it, which is the whole point. I'd argue most of us are way better off than we give ourselves credit for. The real danger is when you start counting the bad days and forget how many good ones you had in between.