Ash tree reduction

[cray1]

I have two Ash very close to house  (purchased last year)  and they were reduced by 

4 m in Feb this year, probably a third of height.  Can they be reduced again this Autumn/late winter, or too soon?  Dont want to remove completely, due to possibility of heave, or reduce too quickly but not that happy with the shape at the time, but they have produced new foliage this summer.

 

Will it be safe to reduce again this autumn and/or is heave more to do with total removal of trees?  Will reducing in height over time help with possibility of subsidence (none so far).

 

 

Edited 19 hours ago by cray1
Spelling/sense

[cray1]

London, clay soil.

[Sviatoslav Tulin]

Holy Moly what is this , is that a tree …. Just cut that down plant something more appropriate !

[maybelateron]

Perhaps not the best of specimens to be concerned about. Sorry, no offence intended.

[cray1]

Didn't plant it.   Told cant remove completely in one go as will cause heave.  Was reduced by a tree surgeon this year and as I said not that happy with what they did.  I thought this was a genuine site for advice, but obviously not from your responses ... 

Edited 15 hours ago by cray1

[Mick Dempsey]

Self sown undoubtedly.

Ugly and I understand you wanting it out.

Heave is a bit of a contentious subject here, many thinking it’s not really much of an issue, and that staged removals are a bit of a scam.

 

These don’t look like much in all honesty, I suppose you could take them down in 2 further stages (the first heavy cut already been done)

 

Trees die quite naturally near houses without buildings rising out of the soil like zombies or collapsing.

 

If you’re really worried get a structural engineer to make a report, but expect to pay.

From the pics. I’d cut them down without a seconds thought.

[Stubby]

As above from Mick . Not big enough to worry about . 

[cray1]

Thank you Mick and Stubby.  They were huge before this heavy cut.  Overshadowing the whole garden.  Grateful for your replies.

[Mark Bolam]

Staged reduction is pretty pointless.

If you have fully desiccated soil on shrinkable clay with a high PI, the soil will eventually return to it’s original volume whether the trees are removed in stages or in one hit.

Or get chalara and die.

 

Was the house there before the trees?

Are the foundations substantial enough?

 

Only a full structural engineers report will tell you.

 

In our current climate we seem to get bone dry summers followed by months of flood.

The soil is expanding and contracting with or without trees.

 

Hopefully the report will indicate that they can be removed without problems, they look awful. 

[daltontrees]

No-one can answer this completely. Perhaps there is just  a vague fear of shrinkable clay issues. For heave, there is  such a combination of factors that ALL have to be present that it is statistically unlikely. If the surveyor is in possession of all the facts (geology, foundation depths, history, tree species/age/distances) nothing we can say is of any use. If he isn't, then we don't have the facts and nothing we can say is of any use.

Edited 5 hours ago by daltontrees

[Oldfeller]

14 hours ago, Stubby said:

BOT ?

Anything capable of performing 160 million floating-point operations per second should be able to sort a small tree out.