daltontrees

Nothing is ever as it seems... Especially if you're used to Redwoods. What would the ratio be for one of those monsters?

PO needs to clarify, is it the volume of teh 20m lower half that's needed or the whole stem? Stem taper requires a bit of juggery pokery to estimate volume, I have seen papers explaining that it's not as simple as taking average diameter, and involves measuring or estimating the diameter at several points up the stem. This graph is for the famous 'General Sherman' redwood. Height is in m along the bottom axis, radius up the side axis. If it's just the first 20m here that matters and as the OP says it's fairly constant at 1m diameter, a cylinder calculation would maybe suffice. So wet weight 17.2 T. Maybe the question is how does it need to be cut so that each piece does not exceed the available 3.5T PTO winch? 17.2/3.5 = approx 5 pieces of 3.5T each. Over 20 meteres that's 20/5 = 4m. MAybe near enough to 3.6m standard length to make that a useful target?

Fair enough, the FC has published figures somewhere indicating a wet/dry ratio of about 50%. 550kg/m3 must be air dry density, so double that. And i suppose an overbark diameter could be misleading as Douglas Fir can be quite corky barked.

A 20m length of diameter 1m will have a volume of 15.7m3 and at a density of 0.55T/m3 will weigh 8.6 tonnes

Cryptococcus fagisuga is a common overwintering woolly spot on Beech bark, often hundreds of them.

How about you take all your survey data ever in spreadsheet form, and calculate the average ratio from that? Oddly I would have no bother doing this as I have never cleared out survey data from my handheld, it would take me about 5 minutes to come up with a figure in Excel. Or use your own data more selectively, from surveys that you know were mainly maiden open grown mature trees? It's gopt to be impossible to generalise. The ratio for any tree is partly a manifestation of apical dominance, but there will be factors of maturity, species, variety, competition, exposure. For example during the week I took down a Norway Spruce, in a windy, alluvial coastal situation. 42 years old from the ring count, spread at the base 12 metres, and conical from there, height 12 metres. The week before another Norway, sheltered by other giants in a garden, on clays, 28 years old spread 14 metres most of the way up, height 24 metres. Or is there something in this that might point you in the right direction? https://www.sorbus-intl.co.uk/hi-tech/survey-equipment/traditional-survey-equipment/iml-multi-tool

I started climbing when I was 45, I can still keep a couple of groundies busy any day. It's not about strength.

Insofar as my comprehension of your inferred understanding of what oslac implied from your original premise is inconsistent with my prescribed conclusions, I don't think that I can do anything but not concur with your concurrence thereof.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but 'wilful damage' is specifically referred to in the Act. Furthermore it is an indictable offence rahter than a summary one, openign the way to unlimited fines. Now you could argue that it might not be the primary intention, when digging out a drive, to damage the tree, but you'd be onto plums. You'd be damaging the tree, knowing that you are going to damage it for whatever related objective, and that is an offence. It could fall far short of destruction of the tree and still be a very serious offence. Courts don't paraphrase, they can only follow the letter of the law. Namely 'damage'. For that and other reasons I'd advise the OP not to follow your 'go for it' advice without knowing what he was getting into. I don't want an argument with you, but remember we have a member of the public asking for advice about a situation, and as it stands some people are saying (me included) ask the Council and save grief, worst case scenario a delegated powers free TPO application or maybe £150 for a combo PP and TPO application and have somethign to put witht he title deeds as comfort when you sell. Some are saying a ballsy consultant will persuade the client to go for it without process. I think that those consultants don't really exist, at least not for long. I am as plesed as anyone to applaud the hero who takes on teh system, challenges longhelp misconceptions, wins and makes the world a better place, ridded of one bit of unnecessary bureaucracy. I just don't think that this case is worthwhile.

This is a classic game of trumps. But the bottom lines seem to be these. 1. Abatemenet of a nuisance that is preventing use of land for parking is only a valid exception to the TPO protection "so far as may be necessary for the prevention or abatement of a nuisance" 2012 Reg 14(a)(ii). The important bits there are 'so far as', and 'necessary'. The case mentioned, Perrin, showed that the damage to a tree's roots shoild only be occsioned if no reasonable engineering solution is possible to avoid it. It is not carte blanche to take the opportunity to rid the land of roots completely for the sake of it. As others have said, a properly considered technical solution should be possible that would avoid all but minimal damage to roots, and still achieve parking. From all this I would conclude that care should be taken to minimise, so far as reasonably practicable, root damage whether planning permission is required or not. 2. The abatement is not permitted if it is not lawful in all respects, including obttaining all other necessary statutory consents. I am alluding of course to planning permission. As has been mentioned, the parking area may be an engineering operation and should therefore require consent unless there is a very clear permitted development right. And of course if permission is required and is obtained, this creates an exemption to the need for a separate TPO application (Reg 14(a)(vii), although it may come with conditions designed to protect the tree. Personally I take the view as I see the law doing that exemptions should not be used to circumvent the general obligation to do anything (whether abatement of nuisance or the use of permitted development rights) in a way that minimises or avoids otherwise avoidable collateral damage. It is a good precautionary principle that avoids later recriminations or unwanted legacies that might materialise only when trying to sell a house years later. The same applies to fence posts. So, ask the Council. Only if its response cannot be justified will it be necessary to wheel out the big guns.

As rehydrating clay soil reaches and passes the 'Liquid Limit' it may be able to flow to some small extent (albeit very viscously) around foundations, which may provide very localised relief against heave. In theory anyway, there is a rationale for staged removal of vegetation to make rehydration and liquifaction of less than overconsolidated clays under foundations a gradual thing. I can't see it making a jot of difference in overconsolidated situations.

I am working my way through that article. The abstract says the article's findings vindicate the Cutler and Richardson Kew root survey 26 years' previously. I currently have two subsidence claim cases ongoing (rare to very rare in Scotland) and when looking at real situations it is immediately difficult to apply any conventional wisdom and just as difficult to overcome client concerns based on popular press and over-reatcions from lenders and insurers. For these reasons, it is impossible to advise the OP objectively, since we don't know any of the circumstances. He seems to have disappeared anyway, perhaps he's too busy killing the tree to give us any foolow-up info?

And here she is, gleaming tonight.

Not unheard of on Beech. I've never seen it knowingly on Beech in Scotland, but I'll be on the lookout. The most significant thing seems to be that H.a. operates to delignify, whereas I tend to think in tems of cellulose degradation (at least intially) on broadleaf trees for anything that yoyu could mistake for H.a. Any tipsfor distinguishing?

Interesting list of synonyms for this one, including Trametes fagi.

So I opened it up, manky inside. Got a big bucket (£10 form B&Q) and a big bottle of white spirit, and started scrubbing. All sorts of shiny metal appeared. It's now in the hsed having a long soak, I'll flush it out tomorrow. Meantime I cleaned the inside top cover. Reminds me of a roasting tin I had once. Not bad for a winch that's probably 40 years old. Now, where did I put that chicken?

What better to do after a long day on spikes than come home and crack open the Tirfor? Here's the old girl, and the part I had left over when I put it back together last week.

Just one, see pictures to follow...

Useful. Looks like paint thinner is the recommended solvent. I'll give that a go. My winch has to have 11.3mm cable. Quite exact. It got some kinks in it and stuck but I straightened it by hand. Just need to make sure you don't unwind it while straightening it. Thanks everyone.

Corkscrew the speedline once around the stem then take it to an adjacent tree and adjust tightness with a portawrap. The need for the iece to go round the stem will kill momentum and if you get the tension right (not to tight at all) the line stays loose unti the piece hits the ground then it has nowhere to go because it's on a sideways pull from the adjacent tree. You got to be ruthless about clearing stubs on the way up.

I think I've got to it in time, as it still pulls very well. Getting it apart is easy, getting it back together is the hard part.

This is an ancient thread but rather than start a new one I will add to this. I have an old 30cwt Tirfor and it has got prgressively harder to engage the release lever. I'd say it is now borderline impossible. So I took it apart today and it is caked inside with as ll sorts of gunk and crusty black stuff and the release spring is so gunged up it can't fully compress whuich is why I can't engage the lever. A full can of WD40 later applied at point blank range and some of the crud is off, but that's just the bits I can reach. Previous posters have suggested soaking in diesel, and I'd be tempted to scrub the innards in diesel with a (disposable) kitchen sink scrubbing brush in a large (very large) bucket as I can't see anything else removing enough crud to get it clean. The decal says to oil with lashings of heavy gear oil regularly, but someone has used axle grease and every pine needle and sand grain and swarf has adhered to it like non-setting glue. Any thoughts on this approach, anyone? Any contributions would be appreciated. I'll try and remember to take a pic of the innards tomorrow, as I have to open her up again anyway as I forgot to put one of the bits back in. Not a small bit either...

Eh, no not really.Trees don't have feelings, they just have automatic reactions to situations, pre-programmed genetically by millions or hundreds of millions of years of evolution snf communiocated chemically through vascular systems. That which worked was passed on, failures leave no offspring. I have forgotten why urea is applied to stumps, but I will remind myself shortly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4228119/ Third paragraph in the Introduction and third paragraph in the Discussion. Root grafting appears to be important not so much for energy but for auxin triggers for callus development. Douglas Fir seems to be the ideal species for studying this phenomenon of 'stump overgrowth'. It may not just be a quirk of nature. In evolutionary terms, for a species with a tendency to root grafting the ability to close off even stumps could prevent the colonisation of whole stands by pathogens. Just my amateur theory.

Thanks, I'll settle for the Genus. Microscopy wasn't on my mind when seeing off hypothermia was.