How to broach neighbouring tree

AdrianC

Xplosivgas wrote: »

I bought my house about 12 months ago and there's a tall tree just the other side of a wall.

What a pity you didn't notice the tree when you were buying the house.

in the future i may decide to extend the kitchen where the sunroom is currently and I'd want certainty the tree will not damage it before incurring significant expense.

If you're worried about it, perhaps don't put the extension there?

Part of Building Control's work is advising on whether a root protection wall would be needed or not. When we built our garage, we knew that a nearby tree was likely to be an issue. BC said that it was, and gave us the option of pouring a 2m deep underground concrete root protection wall, or removing the tree. We removed the tree.

But that was our tree. As far as your neighbour's tree is concerned, you can ask nicely, and he might consider it. But, no, you have no grounds to compel its removal if he doesn't agree with you.

shortcrust

My advice if you want to take a friendly approach is to actually become friendly before making the approach. A neighbour introducing themselves after 12 months of nothing and asking if I'd mind chopping my tree down wouldn't be perceived by me as friendly, irrespective of the quantity/quality of tea and cake provided.

There seem to be a lot of posts on here at the mo that run like this:

"I want to do X and for this I need to force my neighbour to do Y despite the fact that the neighbour will get none of the benefit of X and all of the inconvenience of Y."

motherofstudents

Exactly as above - did you not notice the tree when you viewed the house ? My neighbour tried this, kept asking us to fell two of our trees. We said no. Silver birch are nice looking trees, why not just enjoy it. Don't expect neighbours to fall in with what you want. It's unlikely to cause a problem anyway but confronting your neighbour could, especially as you don't know him after being there twelve months.

Doozergirl

If and when you build your extension, you ask a structural engineer to design your foundations.

We dig the footings for our new home tomorrow. Our neighbour's garden is a jungle so our footings nearest the tree start at 2.4 metres deep and taper gradually to 1 metre as they get further from the trees' zone of influence.

Our neighbour is not the co-operative sort so we designed our foundations appropriately. The trees were there before we moved in and therefore we have to deal with it.

The tree is no issue for your future build.

I love silver birch trees. I'd much prefer that to the boring hawthorns next to us.

stuart45

I had a similar problem with our extension. Hawthorn and other trees close by in shrinkable clay.
Luckily BC were happy to use the NHBC calculator which was around 2.4 from the base of the trees. Could still have been costly but a couple of retired farmers dug it out and dumped the waste on their land for £200.
I have done a few jobs round here where piled foundations were required and this gets into more serious cash, although quite a few people extend without any Regs in this area.

Smodlet

I did not realise hawthorn was so problematical. We have one and OH assures me it is "slow growing". The soil here is not clay, though.

Am I correct in thinking silver birch are not particularly long-lived? There were a couple in the garden two doors up from our last house; we loved the look of them... Until December when our neighbours at the time used to hang the home-made Xmas decoration from hell from the one nearest us but it was their tree in their garden. I remember my singing teacher asking, "Is that legal?" when we showed it to her. :rotfl:

Gods, I miss that house and those neighbours; they and our immediate neighbours rescued one of our cats after she got stuck having attempted to climb their Virginia creeper, the little ditz. A bunch of chavs with screaming kids and a completely untrained boxer dog moved in and ruined the whole street; it only takes one household to do that.

Apologies for the ramble; good luck, OP.

hb2

Smodlet, I don't know what you consider 'long lived' in relation to trees. When we moved into our house, the 3 silver birch in the garden were well established. They looked equally healthy, albeit rather taller, when we moved out 29 years later.

stuart45

Smodlet wrote: »

I did not realise hawthorn was so problematical. We have one and OH assures me it is "slow growing". The soil here is not clay, though.

No real problem to your footings if you don't have shrinkable clay. They are not the worst type, It depends on a trees mature height and water demand.
I don't really like them though, not nice to work close to.

Smodlet

stuart45 wrote: »

No real problem to your footings if you don't have shrinkable clay. They are not the worst type, It depends on a trees mature height and water demand.
I don't really like them though, not nice to work close to.

OH has an attachment to the one we have, as he does to far too many plants (imho) He brought cuttings from our last garden with him and planted them here. You are right, the damned hawthorn gets in the way and is darned prickly.

I heard silver birches lasted about 50 years but have no idea what truth there is in that.

stuart45

They probably can live 50 years, that not long for a tree.
The Blackthorn is a lot worsr than the Hawthorn, A friend of mine had a really swollen hand after getting on the wrong side of one. Put me off Sloe gin.