Chris at eden

Bacterial wetwood most likely. The white is the dried out crust of the exudates.

Couple of issues raised in the previous comments: 1. £480 for 18 trees seems a little steep. Mortgage and insurance reports are the second most common type that I do after 5837 and I wouldn't be charging anywhere near that. MWA also advertise their costs and their costs and their mortgage reports start from £240 + VAT. It would take no more than an hour to survey 18 tree for a mortgage report and maybe 2.5 hours to write up. 1/2 a day in total unless there is a lot of travel involved. As I said, seems a bit steep. Maybe there is a finders fee for the insurance company. 2. Another point raised is the inclusion of offsite trees. This is a must to be fair. I you have a large offsite tree within the zone of influence for subsidence you cant just ignore it as this would be pretty negligent. It could still cause damage. That said, a dead apple tree has no potential to cause subsidence so they would be talking general risk from failure. The recommendations should be the same for offsite trees. If it needs to be felled then that is what it is, you cant say they are exempt as the are offsite. I always say to refer the works to the owner, if they want to take on the risk then that is their choice. You should also make the distinction if the risk is to users of the garden and not the house as I doubt the mortgage company will be too concerned about this anyway. I've been writing reports like this for some time and have never had a problem from banks or insurers so move on to another insurer would be my advice. I would also shop around for prices in future. It may be that the tree consultant is based miles away which could affect the fee. Cheers

Hi Guy Reading your previous threads the 1 day course would be well below where you are at so I would go for the 3 day PTI course. I found it useful but quite a bit is based around UK legislation. Cheers Chris.

Hi David I did mine about 10 years ago and so it had an expiry date. This came up when I did my L6 dip as you can APL one of the ACs if you have PTI. I was told to phone Lantra by Dave Dowson and they would send me a new cert. I did and they did. Not really in the spirit of CPD but they will send you a new cert if you ask. Cheers Chris.

Yes that is fine, so they can reduce a crown thin from 30% to 20%, or a lift from 5m clearance to 3m clearance for example. They can't significantly change the application though. So the example of changing from fell to reduction is wrong in my opinion. They should consider the application which is in front of them, not change it. One TO did say to me once that reduction was less work than felling but I don't personally think that is what is intended by the legislation.

You cant change fell to reduce on a TPO either so no idea why they would be saying that!! No doubt some numpty would be saying reduction is felling to a lesser extent but that is nonsense in my opinion.

Think you may be confusing domestically grown apple trees with a commercial orchard. A 211 notice is required it stem dia is >75mm.

I was sent one of those a while ago and just dropped in the past to the client with the covering letter. As Ed said though, there is no requirement to notify. Its certainly not standard practice.

Hi Tree It is for mobility you are correct but there are different measurements for different circumstances. The act is DDA or Disabilities Discrimination Act 1995. See the following link. Its a compliance programme that the Highways Agency produced a while ago. I've never read the whole thing but there is a section on pavement widths. http://assets.highways.gov.uk/specialist-information/guidance-and-best-practice-dda-compliance/Highways_Agency_DDA_Compliance_Programme_-_Design_Compliance_Assessment_Guide_DDA_Training_Spring_2010.pdf Cheers

20% offset went with the 2005 standard but the 20% incursion into the RPA for hard surfacing still exists.

Think you just answered your own question there mate. Anchorage. If the tree falls over it has no potential to recover. Plus you will have fibrous roots on the inner RPA anyway and I would imagine its easier for a tree to regenerate small roots than much larger ones. Not saying fibrous roots are not important (so I probably worded it poorly) as they clearly are but, would you rather recommend removing 50% of the fine roots or 50% of the structural roots? What do you think would be more damaging? To be fair the removal of 50% of the structural roots would automatically remove way over 50% of the fibrous but I'm going off piste now. My point was that if you trenched around the RPA that would probably remove 50% of the fine roots based on roots fanning out and becoming fine in that area. I have no source for this its just me speculating to respond to the other post. Other opinions may differ. Cheers

Tree roots extend up to 3 times the tree height apparently, I forget the source. Based on this the RPA probably is 50% loss of the finer roots but importantly it retains the larger structural roots.

Piles for a housedeck are installed by hand with an auger. Strip footings outside of the RPA are done with a mini digger. Its a none standard construction also and has to be designed by an engineer.

The one I was involved with was a whole new building. Not an extension. I still think piling is easier but I'm no engineer so I leave that to them to sort out. I remember he had a photo of a building hanging over a waterfall to show what was possible. Very grand but expensive no doubt.

It was for a previous job so don't have the details but just Google image it, you will see what I mean. The benefits over piles were mainly cosmetic, it looked cool.

I was involved in one a while ago where we cantilevered the last metre or so of the house to avoid the RPA. Bonkers really but that's what they wanted. I have one now which is similar to this one. Single storey rear extension, 2m projection. There is a knackered old oak with no visibility but still has a TPO recently made. I said fell the tree, TO said no, I said go to appeal but they don't want to so they are reducing the projection to 1m. What's the point!

Looks like a slight variation on the Abby Pynford system. Be careful how involved you get with specifying engineering works as it is outside of your remit or expertise. Your advice should be coming from a tree protection point of view so if you spec the works make a point of saying it needs to be signed off by a competent person. Ideally you would work with the engineer to spec the works. Remember if you spec that system you will need a specialist for to install and its expensive. Most builders kick off when you start talking about hand digging in my experience. Ruskins will do your arispade work for just under £1k a day inc. VAT (2015 prices - last time I used them) so yes expensive but the LPA may insist. Depends on the TO. Cheers

Tunnel is quick but very industrial. The ferry feels like part of the holiday. I prefer to sail at sunset and then drive to somewhere close like Lille for first night stay. By the time the cliffs of Dover disappear from view you can walk to the other end of the ship and see France. I did the tunnel at xmas and didn't see any camps. South of France is cool if you like old Roman cities but its hot so air con is a must. I've never found the traffic to be too bad in Aug with the exception of Monaco. There are better places to visit also in the south, Carcasonne, Nimes, Pont du Gard for example. Canoeing at Pont du Gard is a must. Annecy is good also, you can hire a small boat and bum around the lake for a few hours. It blows Windermere out of the water. Toll roads are great but as the other post said they can cost. I always use them though as it takes forever to get anywhere otherwise. The none toll roads tend to be like country lanes much of the time.

The Khan case was presented by the defence that she couldn't be negligent as she could be expected to know that trees caused damage. Something like that anyway. The judge didn't agree from what I remember. Something about the paper she was reading in court and the number of articles which are in that paper which relate to trees and subsidence over the last year or so. Delaware mansions is where they underpinned the whole building not just the damaged part to prevent future damage or continuing nuisance as they put it and claimed for the lot. The council objected to this and lost, got hit with a £1m bill.

Can't see what is landmark about it!!! Not the first time a resident has sued the council over damage and won. 400mm foundations is a joke even by conservatory standards.

If you think it will fall before the six weeks put the five day notice in anyway and see what they do. If they refuse to allow the exemption you would be putting them on notice and the submission could still be considered to be your 211 anyway so the ball would be rolling. Also, if there is a risk they should cordon off. If they don't that is just irresponsible.

There is no exemption for dangerous and that is why, its open to interpretation. The exemption is 'an immediate risk of serious harm'. Such as a hanging branch, a partial root plate failure, a split compression fork. Something which could fall without warning. Its not, oh it could fall if its windy in a few days. It would need to be, it will definitely fall in wind and may before then anyway. Its not the council, that is what the regs say. I've processed these for the LPA and what I would do is say no its not exempt but submit as a 211 notice and I'll sort it in a couple of days anyway. That way you are dealing with the risk while not side stepping the regs and leaving yourself open to criticism. Not rocket science is it. The LPA should prioritise apps and notices based on risk anyway, not simply timeframe.

You can only use the five day notice for dead trees or for situations where there is an immediate risk of serious harm, for example the hanging branches. You can't use it just because the tree is declining, not unless the risk is immediate. Cheers

They are different terms: Reaction wood = is anatomically different wood which is laid down to reinforce areas which are over loaded such as the underside of a branch or leaning tree. Conifers lay down compression resistant reaction wood with lots of lignin on the underside of the lean. Sort of like a prop. Broadleaves lay down tension resistant wood on the upper side of the lean with lots of cellulose to sort of winch it up like a guy rope. Bit of a clumsy description but hope it makes sense. Ultimately it has a bio-mechanical function. Wound wood = is produced in response to wounding and is made up primarily of parenchyma cells which are pumped full of phenolic chemicals which as we all know are extremely toxic to micro-organisms. It function is to prevent infection mainly. It is also apparently self replicating similar to cambium although I don't have a reference for this other than Dave Dowson - good enough for me though. If the wound resulted in extra loading you may get reaction wood in there also but Shigo describes that as wound wood. Callus = is the growth you get on a cutting and is the point of root or shoot initiation, ultimately made up of cambium. The important distinction is that callus is undifferentiated whereas wound wood and reaction wood are both differentiated. Cheers

Lightening or squirrels is not a bad shout. Difficult to see what else would cause it at that height. Inspection outcome is probably the same though and dependent on target and how much you can see from the ground. For the record the growth around the wound isn't reaction wood or callous, its wound wood. Cheers