Gary Prentice

Let you hair down a bit, it's saturday night...

And therin lies a story. Can't imagine what that story is but...

How about BBQs and drinking beer?

Are you being asked to demonstrate the level of the water table or the water content of the soil? If it's the second the actual moisture in the clay matrix may what's being asked for. There are a few laboratories that'll provide this information but the samples need to be collected, packaged and correctly labelled. As Edward said, find out what is being asked for and then contact a lab to make sure you provide the correct samples. Edit. re-reading your post I'm getting confused. Is the claim direct or indirect damage?

I think that @Rough Hewn wants two

But as an experienced climber you've probably set something up with a second rope to gain access on occasion and when necessary. I know that I have. I didn't think after that, "Oh what a good idea, I'll continue with two systems for the rest of the tree", probably because I'd realised that it would be more of a hindrance than an asset.

Sorry Timon I haven't been keeping up. Have you a link to the draft ICOP to hand? If not I'll wade through the last forty odd pages.

Are there regulations in the States, like the UK, regarding the use of Drones for commercial purposes? We have to be licensed or registered with (I think) the Civil aviation authority.

I suppose that rather depends on how well the stack of limbs were dressed out (to create nice straight branches with very small air spaces in between) If the trees are being properly I'd assume that that the majority of the arisings will be very small diameters, twiggy growth/tertiary branches, so if that's the case I'd imagine that they'd be little volume of woodchip. If, on the other hand, branches >100mm diameter & several metres in length are coming off....

That's it, too late you're hooked I've seen some somewhere of Kretz and how it changes it's mode of colonization, that is really mind boggling.

Don't! You're life won't be fulfilled until you go out and buy a microscope

Have you read Daltontrees microscope thread? Edit. If your christmas money hasn't been spent yet try and get a copy of ' Diagnosis and the prognosis of wood decay in urban trees' that he wrote Here's another one, Light and scanning electron microscopy studies of the early infection stages of Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus on Fraxinus excelsior ADD - MICROSCOPE STUDIES.pdf

Google translate is your friend I've been lucky too, talking to Frank Rinn and Klaus at a number of events, the rivalry is quite amusing. When Duncan Slater wrote about Shigos branch attachment model I asked him about his thoughts. He wasn't impressed, his haughty response was "He's wrong!" A Xylem and phloem matrix! Wonderful, that would sort a buildings plumbing too

If it helps, Frank Rinn is very approachable. I contacted Rinntech for some literature for my own research and he personally sent me a raft of literature (some in German ) Arb has and is constantly evolving, the problem is the depth of study needed (physiology/biology/chemistry/mycology/soil sciences) to even begin to understand trees. Just food for thought, we're in 2020 and still arguing something as 'basic' as how a branch union is formed! Consider that we put a man on the moon 50+ yrs ago but with all the engineering technology available we can't, AFAIK, reproduce that branch union . Can you imagine how buildings would change with a lever arm (not cantilevered) of the same proportions that trees naturally create?

I'd say that less knowledgeable arbs having been using the T/r ratio in the mistaken belief that it's absolute. When it was originally published Gruber (?) and others raised doubts on the statistics used to verify the hypothesis and that crown size/sail area/shelter was absent from the equation. As a starting point (open or closed cylinder aside) it's something to consider - along with H/D ratio, crown exposure, crown size and density and a raft of other visual assessments, towards a determination of failure potential. It's always going to be unwise to grasp a one size fits all formula when making decisions about a living organism. I studied, in depth, almost all of the assessment methods available in collage (L6) and to be blunt, they all have faults. Even sonic tomography (sorry Steve ) only gives a picture of the interior across the plane of the test. At best I think that all we can realistically do is to make an assessment to the best of our ability using whatever/all of tools/methods/knowledge/experience that we have to hand (or that the client can afford/the tree merits)

Is it causing subsidence now?

Sorry Eddie if I came across antagonistic, I've looked into what CE marking actually entails before and think that there's something amiss when the manufacturer self-certificates. On top of that it also seems yet another piece of Eu legislation designed as a practice to restrict the trade of those outside of it. What it seems to do is give some companies a chance to charge what they want when the buyer wants to buy from a manufacturer outside the EU. Maybe coming away from the EU common sense will prevail and cross-continent compliance will begin to prevail?

Lets not forget that CE marking is so difficult to get! If the manufacturer says it conforms, it does. If you are a manufacturer it is your responsibility to: carry out the conformity assessment set up the technical file issue the EC Declaration of Conformity (DoC) place CE marking on a product I wonder where we're going to go with all this now, in a global market. CE marking - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK How a product complies with EU safety, health and environmental requirements, and how to place a CE marking on your product.

Not that I'm aware of.

Like most tree related 'rules', T/r is just a starting point in an assessment and shouldn't be followed blindly. Lots of veteran trees around with small crowns and a T/r of 0.1 that have stood for decades or longer.

Don't hold back now Kev, tell us how you really feel!

Shouldn't make any difference. The offence would be that they 'allowed' the TPO contravention, the only way that they could wiggle out of a prosecution would be if the paper trail showed that the contractors had taken trees down that they hadn't instructed them to. A planning officer once said that they always go after the owner initially for allowing the deed, the contractor for doing it (as they should know better). Only time they might consider not doing the owner would be if it was some doddery OAP, who probably had no idea that trees could actually be protected.

I had a client years ago, before stump grinders were commonplace. He had a biggish beech stump that he asked about burning out. I said it wasn't really a practical proposition. Six months late when on site again he'd done it. He own a manufacturing company using MDF, turns out he came home from the pub a few nights a week with friends, lit a fire, had a few more brews and set some fireworks off . Don't think that the neighbours were that impressed but his persistence paid off, only took an estimated ten tons of pallets and MDF off-cuts.

A fellow contractor I used to know was regularly being asked to quote for a particular company, only to be just undercut by another firm. Realising that the competition wasn't even bothering to visit sites to tender, he finally submitted a price for a few hundred quid on a £2-3K job. He never got asked to tender for another job