Let’s review how to safely and efficiently use a pole saw to make a clean pruning cut even at 14 feet high. Please, however, take warning first that working on high wood can be very dangerous.
Cautions
Once you are starting to think about pruning wood that you can’t reach from the ground, you’re getting into potentially dangerous territory. When professional arborists drop a large piece of wood, they use ropes in a pulley system to safely slow its descent to the ground. When you cut branches with pole saws and pruners, you can’t do that; you have to let the wood drop uncontrolled. High or heavy wood can damage, hurt, and kill when it falls.
Pole saws are intended for use on limbs up to a couple of inches thick. The thicker the wood, the more dangerous, and the slower and more tiring it will be to cut. You must not attempt to fell branches overhead until you are familiar with techniques for reducing weight before making a final cut by making preliminary and jump-cut with your pole tools. Pole saws, especially with extensions to get above 8 feet, are heavy and tiring to work with. Never, ever, ever work near power lines, or on branches with any part above a power line.
General Instructions
Other Tips for Pole Saw Use
In most cuts, the blade starts from the top side of the branch. When making a jump cut, the blade will cut from underneath the branch. This will be much more physically taxing cut since you work against gravity. Vertical water sprouts are hard or impossible to cut properly from the ground with a pole saw. It is fine to decide that you never want to do any kind of pruning you can’t reach from the ground. This is not something that commonly needs doing, and which you’ll never need to do if you don’t have a major tree on your property. Before you use a pole saw for your first time, read about all the cautions and make sure this is really a job you should be attempting yourself.
