Oak tree advice please

[Bundle 2]

I'm not condoning attaching anything to someone elses tree, however despite being invasive screws and bolts are much less damaging then tieing something around the stem.

You are making assumptions that the installation is/will never,( perhaps rarely) to be inspected an/or adjusted...unlikely when your kids are swinging from the hardware...I dont want to start ww3 tom but I believe the extent of damage attributable to invasaive techniques is species specific....and to a large degree the aboricultural industry is in agreement as to the benefits of non invasive methods but that this is not confined to decay/infection court issues. I prefer the techniques of eg Cobra for reasons of mechanical superiority, believing as I do that the stem will be stronger as energy distribution is more effective at the point of attachment...

[Jamie]

DDD dead dying dangerous

 

Jamie

[Ian Leach]

DDD dead dying dangerous

 

Jamie

 

Thanks:001_smile:

[oogzy]

Crikey, I run an asbestos removal company and by the sounds of it you guys have nearly as much politics as me to deal with

[Amelanchier]

Hello.

I would appreciate any advice here as i dont know who to ask other than my local authority, who i suspect will not give me unbiased advice in this instance.

 

Er what you mean is you suspect they'll make you take you zipline and treehouse down so you'd rather not have to ask them!

 

Three weeks ago, i set about building a zip line in the garden for the kids. They had pestered me to do it since i suggested it two years ago so this year i bit the bullet

I sourced all the stuff within a week and got it erected over a weekend.

The launch platform is the balcony of a tree house i built for them 5 years ago. This tree house is on 8" stilts and is not connected to the tree it sits beneath in any way.

 

Are the stilts set in concrete or is it all resting on the ground??

 

The tree is a large oak and is outside of my garden on the boundary of a new development which used to be a field. It is situated on a swathe of rough ground which also serves as a public footpath. This ground still belongs to the developers at the moment, and last year i had to call them out after a very large limb fell off outside my back gate. After some tooing and froing they sent a team of arbourists to tidy up and pruned the tree at the same time.

 

So definately not your tree then!

 

Anyway - back to the zipline... I used an 8mm steel cable secured at the bottom end of the ride to an 8" pole i sunk in the ground.

At the top end (the treehouse balcony) i secured it to an identical pole, the bottom of which is secured to the treehouse balcony and the top of which is screwed to a large limb of the tree. I did not remove any bark to do this. The cable is fixed maybe two thirds the way up this pole.

I naturally did not want to fix the line directly to the tree, although all the websites i researched for the project said to do exactly that. I did not want to harm the tree, or indeed place 100% of the stress on the limb, so the pole was the best option.

I finished building this about a week ago, and the kids love it.

 

Sounds fine to me in principle(!)

 

 

I know there is a preservation order on this tree because i checked when the development was approved on the field behind, as i did not want them turning up one day with their chainsaws. Like i say, i do love the tree.

This swathe of land is now in the process of being handed back to the local authority, who will then be responsible for it.

 

This sounds like a section 106 agreement to me.

 

After speaking to a friend, i am now worried that they could get funny about me securing this post to the limb, i don't know how strict the law is/can be.

The cable is not taut, there is a fair bit of slack, and the tension is shared between the tree and the treehouse. It would be very difficult for me to secure this high enough by any other means. I could, i suppose, take the screws out and use webbing straps somehow, but i dont know how anal these council bods can be.

 

I have uploaded some pictures here:

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35186356@N02/

 

Well, as one of those council bods, I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't have a problem with what you've done. I'd want to see exactly how you attached the pole but I doubt there would be a problem

 

 

Any advice would be much appreciated regarding just how strict a preservation order is concerning oaks, and if you think i have a viable standpoint/argument should the need arise.

If i have to take all this down the kids are gonna brain me

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Well you don't have a viable standpoint or arguement. Its a third party protected tree. You're not going to get prosecuted but what you need to do is speak to the Local Authority and come clean.

 

Perhaps a better design would involve a long loop of 8mm cable fixed to the floor around the limb with the zipline fixed to the loop?

 

Us council types don't all wear ties, we don't all love the rules, and we don't want to stop kids enjoying mucking about around trees!

 

Welcome to the forum BTW

[Amelanchier]

Hi and thanks for all your valued input.

I know i'm just splitting hairs, but i never actually drilled into the limb in any way. No power tools whatsoever. I used two coach screws and a ratchet to screw them in without any piloting.

 

Fine.

 

 

No the tree isn't mine, but neither are the rest of the scrubland and trees round there, but it doesn't stop me going out there and keeping it all trimmed and tidy. No defence i know.

We all want our kids to have something we wished we'd had when we were kids, and we ALL climbed the trees i'm sure, no matter who's they were .

 

And kids are the next generation of tree owners! It's good to have them playing around trees. Though perhaps not so good to have dad screwing things into those trees

 

 

This oak has probably stood there for 300 years plus and will be there for another 200 probably. In the true scale of things i know i'm not compromising the health of this tree in any way, but the suits tend to override common sense with the rule book so i think i'm gonna have to try for an alternative.

 

Difficult to evaluate without being out on site but you might affect the way in which the limb moves in high winds. This might have an effect on its ability to distribute wind energy along its length which might increae the liklihood of failure. Then again it might just snap your telegraph pole one day!

 

I did say to my neighbour, who is a building site manager about planting a second hand telegraph pole just behind the treehouse and against the treehouse so to act as support, but he said that it's illegal to dig deep holes so close to the oak... if that's true (?).

Im sort of caught between a rock and a hard place.

 

Wilful damage is a prosecutable offence. Bad news. As a rule of thumb - avoid any excavation under the canopy!

 

I wouldn't mind getting the council guy round to look as long as he's approachable. But its a toss up with badge carriers... i think we've all experienced that

 

Just as much of a toss up with members of the public!

[scotspine1]

i have seen the top of a rowan die from a copper screw up that was holding in a bird box, :

 

Stevie, I've used hundreds of copper nails when installing copper wire and lighting conductor air terminals in trees with no ill effects, are you sure it was a copper screw that killed the top of the tree?

 

The idea that hammering copper nails into trees will kill them is a myth.

[scotspine1]

I prefer the techniques of eg Cobra for reasons of mechanical superiority, believing as I do that the stem will be stronger as energy distribution is more effective at the point of attachment.

 

When you cable with steel, if installed correctly, the eyebolt becomes part of the tree much like a branch, so the energy is dissipated uniformly round the attachment area. The stretch in the Cobra system can be a disadvantage when you are trying to create a static support system which is trying to strenthen an area of structural weakness.

[Bundle 2]

Tim..."Uniformly" is different from "distribution of energy" and hence the wording was calculated to convey this differentiation....I have accepted that cable has its place and further spoken about species specific etc for precisely this reason.....suggest you read the post a bit more carefully if your intended inference was that I appear not to understand the value of this simple design....I am not against cable for the sake of it; neither am I dead set for cobra systems and the like. There are aspects of each with distinct advantages and perhaps disadvantages.....It is a part of our work to be aware of them and chose an appropriate installation based on this selsctive equation.

As it happens, I see installations which are poorly designed and unnecessary all too often....I probably would not want to hang my hat on a static installation anyway...there is too little dynamic potential from the trees point of view in most but the more unusual of circumstances....I wonder as to value of highlighting extreme examples to prove a point mate....Nuff said.....

[Blakes 7]

Oogzy,

Firstly I dont think the council will prosecute you for the damage you have caused.

However, I do think that they will ask you to remove it. Under the Occupiers Liability Act they could be held responsible if you or your children have an accident, and they knew of the zip line. So they will remove it IMO.