Advise on big takedowns close to house

[Justaman.com]

Hello everyone, 

 

need a bit of advice about removing these 4 trees close to a building, I’ve done 2 or 3 stage takedowns before and am just wondering, would it be best to advise the client on talking down 2 to begin with and the another 2 a year or so on. 

[Mark Bolam]

Staged takedowns are pointless.

[AHPP]

Worse than pointless. Increases costs, work, pollution etc closing and reopening the site. Twice the logistics, twice the cleaning etc.

[Conor Wright]

3 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Staged takedowns are pointless.

Not if you take the bottom half first

[woody paul]

6 minutes ago, Conor Wright said:

Not if you take the bottom half first

If you take lower limb off it will do the same as taking top out. Its not a arborist's job to decide what to do with tree's near house. it their insurance supplier to decide how they want it done.

[Dan Maynard]

I'd be pretty wary of advising a staged takedown to avoid heave, the implication then is if heave occurs I got my advice wrong and the insurers lawyers could have a field day.

 

As @woody paul says if there's any question let the insurance company specify as they are liable for consequences.

 

That all presumes the site meets the criteria for possible heave anyway, ie shrinkable clay and trees older than house foundation.

[Justaman.com]

15 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

Staged takedowns are pointless.

Hi mark, could you please explain, what I’ve been led to understand is if you take out such a large tree so close to a building, let’s say a 130 year old willow, the about of water that sucks up a day, completely removing it would cause damages to nearby buildings. 

[Justaman.com]

11 hours ago, Dan Maynard said:

I'd be pretty wary of advising a staged takedown to avoid heave, the implication then is if heave occurs I got my advice wrong and the insurers lawyers could have a field day.

 

As @woody paul says if there's any question let the insurance company specify as they are liable for consequences.

 

That all presumes the site meets the criteria for possible heave anyway, ie shrinkable clay and trees older than house foundation.

Hi Dan, Thankyou for your reply I’ll definitely consider that and the other reply’s going forward. 

[Mark Bolam]

1 minute ago, Justaman.com said:

Hi mark, could you please explain, what I’ve been led to understand is if you take out such a large tree so close to a building, let’s say a 130 year old willow, the about of water that sucks up a day, completely removing it would cause damages to nearby buildings. 

It might well do if you’re on highly shrinkable clay.

The soil will expand to the volume it would have been without the tree taking up the water.

 

The point is, whether you remove the tree in one go, or in stages, the soil will still expand to the same volume, so the damage will end up being exactly the same.

 

As others have said, it’s not really our call to make.

To be on the safe side the insurers should get structural engineers involved.

 

It’s mostly scaremongering anyway.

We now seem to get months of drought followed by months of it pissing down.

The soil will do it’s thing anyway, irrespective of any trees.

 

Genuine cases of heave are pretty rare.

Cases of badly built houses not so much….

[Justaman.com]

4 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

It might well do if you’re on highly shrinkable clay.

The soil will expand to the volume it would have been without the tree taking up the water.

 

The point is, whether you remove the tree in one go, or in stages, the soil will still expand to the same volume, so the damage will end up being exactly the same.

 

As others have said, it’s not really our call to make.

To be on the safe side the insurers should get structural engineers involved.

 

It’s mostly scaremongering anyway.

We now seem to get months of drought followed by months of it pissing down.

The soil will do it’s thing anyway, irrespective of any trees.

 

Genuine cases of heave are pretty rare.

Cases of badly built houses not so much….

Thankyou mark, makes perfect sense, I will advise the client on letting the insurance company know if she’d like to, their not massive but wasn’t sure about conifers as well so thought I’d make this post.