decayed ash, any idea of cause and should it come down?

[flatyre]

Hi folks I cleared away this mature ash which came down during Mondays storm. There is another ash the same size and age about 8 metres away which has some signs of decay. The customer has asked me to bring it down as they're concerned about its condition. I'd like to hear your opinions before getting back to them. There was a bit of a cavity in the fallen tree and you could clearly see the trunk was rotting out. There was very little deadwood, and the customer said both trees had a good healthy canopy during the summer.

This is the cavity on the second ash, its much bigger than the one in the fallen ash, a fair bit of deadwood, and its now exposed to the wind with the other one is gone. The property is surrounded by a ring of ash trees which the customer wants reduced before spring, which will also expose this tree even more. What do you think, should it come down?

[Marula]

You should have broken that bark off to see what's under there. That looks like an old wound where a limb tore out a while ago.
It's really hard to tell the size or scope of what's going on under there. It looks like codit wasn't able to contain whatever is going on under there hence the sunken bark.
Break it open and get a feel for the depth of the decay, is it contained? Is it brown or white? What's the current TR ratio?
If the customer wants to keep it but is worried the maybe a heavy reduction will do, bearing in mind if this is struggling along now a reduction will kill it.

Just my thoughts based on the last photo.

[Mick Dempsey]

 Never mind the intricacies of tree compartmentalisation, does the remaining tree cause the client real worry? Are there targets within range?

 

 If so, all the scientific jibber jabber in the world will not do any good.

 If their quality of life is affected by the remaining ash, take it out.

 

 It’s not some veteran that Bonny prince Charlie smoked his first joint in or anything.

[Khriss]

Also - remember that the loss of that tree has changed  the site aerodynamic, so winds have more to push against remaining trees . K

[Khriss]

( There is a proper term for this but I have opened a beer )

[flatyre]

Thanks for the replies folks, not sure about bonny prince Charlie and his first joint, maybe king billy shot gunned his first buckfast under it, who knows? it might clip the house but only just however any vehicles on the driveway would be flattened, and the customer does want to build a workshop right beside/under it, its also close enough to the main road to block both lanes. because of all the other trees around it, all the growth and spread is at the very top so a reduction would look rough for a few years, and cause major stress to an already weakened tree, basically it doesn't have much going for it and as Mick says, the customer is concerned. They have already given me the go ahead to remove it but just wanted to check if there was a plausible alternative.