Mum has ongoing problem with subsidence in house/cracks in garden - advice please!

flakypastry

Hello.

I am writing on behalf of my elderly mum who has a problem with subsidence in her old house.

She has a very old house which seems to be built on mostly clay. Her neighbours have a weeping willow tree. A few years back she noticed lots of large cracks in the walls of her house and the surveyors inspected it and said she had subsidence. She claimed through her insurance (of which she had to pay approx £1k excess) and the insurance got builders to put scaffolding up and builders did whatever they do when subsidence has occured and the subsidence was dealt with. The subsidence was apparently caused by the weeping willow tree sucking up a lot of the rainwater and the surveyors wrote to the neighbours to ask them to regularly cut back the tree.

Forward to now. There are large cracks in my mums garden because it has not rained enough and the weeping willow is taking all the water. The neighbours have not cut back the tree this year and my mum is fed up of writing/asking them to do this and gets very stressed and tired with the whole situation.

She has spoken to the surveyor and he has said there is nothing she can do except keep her garden as wet as possible and she should water her garden regularly. My mum is on a pension and cannot afford to use so much water and if there is a drought restriction she won't be able to anyway. If the insurance are brought into it again, it will be classed as a new claim (we have checked) and she will be expected to pay a hefty excess.

She has spoken to 2 gardeners to see if they can recommend anything. One has recommended that she do NOTHING and would be wasting money if she does anything on the garden. The second gardener told her he could dig down to a certain depth, turn over the soil and change the consistency of the soil so there is less clay (and I think he suggested putting in sand?) and remove as much of the willow tree roots as he could find but he was not clear about how effective this would be and wants to charge my mum £600 for this.

She is getting very stressed and worried about the subsidence coming back (although so far there are no cracks inside the house, only very deep ones on her lawn).

Anyone with any knowledge of subsidence/gardening issues is there anything she can now do that would help? She cannot keep asking the neighbours to cut the tree back as they simply don't listen to her and the surveyors have already written twice to them.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated and apologies for the tome!

NeverInDebt

Not sure about weeping willow on how much water it can extract from soil but I do know some trees close to houses can cause problems, surely the problem is not cutting back but removing the tree altogether assuming it is the tree. What probably is making matters worse is the dry weather we are getting and the fact the house is built on clay soil

If the tree is causing the problem maybe she has a cause against them

ormus

Willow roots grow widespread and are very aggressive in seeking out moisture; for this reason, they can become problematic when planted in residential areas, where the roots are notorious for clogging and cracking older type sewers and drains.


you often see willows next to rivers, where they flourish. guess why?
the up side is that willow roots are very shallow. you dont have to dig too deep to find em. and cut them off.


the chances of you having a successful claim against next doors tree are pretty much nil.

Niv

dig down in her garden and when you encounter the tree roots stick a tonne of root kill weed-killer on it. Problem solved. The roots are in your/her property so I dont see any problem (well I wouldnt be saying anything to the neighbour anyway and would express surprise when the tree dies).

flakypastry

If the tree dies or is removed this is not good news. The situation is such that the tree needs to be there now (if it is removed there would be too much water) but if it is too big then it sucks it all up. There is nothing much my mum can do as it is up to the neighbours but she wants to protect her home and garden as much as possible.

nickj_2

willows can take up to 250 gallons of water per day , i would have thought that if it's causing a problem with your mothers house then it must or will be causing problems with her neighbours house , a similar problem was shown on help my house is falling down , see link

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/help-my-house-is-falling-down/episode-guide/series-1/episode-3

flakypastry

nickj wrote: »

willows can take up to 250 gallons of water per day , i would have thought that if it's causing a problem with your mothers house then it must or will be causing problems with her neighbours house , a similar problem was shown on help my house is falling down , see link

Yes but they seem to be oblivious to it or can't be bothered. TBH it's up to them if their house falls apart but my mum doesn't want her house falling apart because they can't be bothered to take care of their tree.

bobhawke

Ignore the two quotes you have gotten. Doing nothing is silly as the willow will continue causing problems. £600 for Turning over the ground and cutting off roots is too expensive. A lot of people buy a lawnmower and van and call themselves gardeners.

The neighbours, and their insurance, should have been liable for any damage caused by the willow though you would have to prove it with root analysis etc The work your mum's insurance company did wasn't sufficient, they should have addressed the cause of the problem and not just the symptoms.

Watering the garden won't do a hell of a lot... you would need a sprinkler on it twenty four seven because of the amount of water willows like, and it would just encourage it to grow.

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