Spotted a huge old oak in Savannah that's been cabled really well

I was walking through Forsyth Park last week and saw this massive live oak with a full crown. Got up close and noticed the cabling job on the main union. They used extra thick steel cable and proper lag hooks, not just bolts. The whole thing looked like it was done maybe ten years ago and has held up perfect. Anyone know a good way to tell if a cable job that old needs checking?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomascooper3d ago

Those old live oaks are beasts, and a good cable job is basically permanent if it was done right. You could look for any rust streaks running down the bark from the lag hooks, that's a sure sign water is getting in and things are moving. The cable itself might look fine but the real wear happens where it wraps around the branch. If the tree has put on a lot of new growth since it was cabled, that extra weight might be pushing the old hardware to its limit.

cora3653d ago

My uncle had a big willow oak cabled back in 2008. The hardware looked solid from the ground, but when an arborist went up last year, the cable had actually started to cut into a new layer of wood that grew over it. The tree just swallowed part of the support. That new growth isn't just weight, it can change how the whole cable system works over a decade. You really need someone to check where the metal meets the tree, not just look at the cable itself.

the_casey3d ago

My own DIY cable job on a backyard maple looked great until the branch it was holding up landed in my neighbor's pool. Trust the rust advice, not my handyman skills. Checking where the cable wraps and bites into the bark is smart, that's where my stuff always failed first. A pro probably did that oak right, but ten years of growth is a long time.