Surveying period for a monolithed tree

[CTTree]

Good morning all 

I am doing a piece of a coursework and was hoping for some advice from seasoned professionals. 

I appreciate there will be variables such as size, condition and location but I wondered what would someones re-inspection period be for a recently monolithed tree, either standing deadwood or live, in the vicinity of a well used footpath for example. 

I have got my own thoughts but am conscious of spilling out a 100 permutations in an attempt to cover all bases. 

Thank you 

Christian 

[daltontrees]

No such thing as a surveying period. Not for monoliths (oh what a rubbish term that is), not for any tree.

 

IF it is checked and found to be safe at the time of inspection, the surveyor must decide what period of time will elapse before its condition could change such that it would no longer be an acceptable risk. The risk is a product of likelihood of failure, severity of harm and target probability at the time of failure. For 'monoliths' it follows that size (and therefore severity) won't change and if usage around it won't change over time then the only relevant variable of the risk calculation is probability of failure.

It can help if you can conclude that the propability of failure is several orders of magnitude away from the risk becoming less than acceptable. If so, the time to next inspection can be longer. If not, that is to say the risk assessment shows the condition being such that a less than acceptable risk could come around with relatively little deterioration in strength, then the period should be shorter. And if it's really imminent and inevitable it would be prudent to recommend its removal now.

I have a couple of clients who deliberately create stocks and keep them as habitat for insects, birds, bats , fungi etc. so prolonging the useful period as much as possible is important.

[CTTree]

Thank you Jules, very pragmatic. 

[krummholz]

Duncan Slater's article on Artificial Snags is very good and may be of use and interest

 

Snagging List

WWW.LINKEDIN.COM

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Recommendations on the specification of artificial snags by Dr. Duncan Slater Retaining the lower stem of a tree for the...

 

[daltontrees]

I can't stand Slater's use of the term 'snag'. He argues that monolith is not a good term (I agree, it literally means a single piece of stone) because the public don't understand it, but the public will misunderstand 'snag' as it has other more obvious meanings. He perpetuates this by calling the article 'snagging list' which in construction is a list of items on a build that haven't been done according to spec. A snag is also somethign you would catch yourself on as you pass, or a problem preventing a solution. In Scotland we have used the term 'stock' for centuries, it too suffers slightly from having other common meanings but not in the way that snag does. I tend to specify them as 'habitat poles' if that is the intended purpose, or more simply poles. I definitely prefer plain language like 'stem remnant'.

[Steve Bullman]

Can we just call them really really tall tree stumps and be done with it?

[openspaceman]

11 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

Can we just call them really really tall tree stumps and be done with it?

Dendrocoupe?

 

I don't like them from a safety point of view, they tend to fail very suddenly, often because the root hairs rot and the soil holding of the root is lost. When they set totem poles a good length of stem is set in the ground and the failure point around the soil level is more visible.