Eucalyptus Tree Removal

[ACubed]

Greetings! I'm after some advice please - we've moved to a new house and there's a eucalyptus tree fairly close to the house. I love it but have been advised by both sets of parents to get rid, as the roots will damage the house.
Does anyone know if cutting the tree down to a stump will be enough, or would we have to get all the roots taken up to, and is that really expensive?
thanks.

Hi,
we had a Eucalyptus, Cider Gum, in our garden, which was far too large for the space it was in (was over 30ft tall). We used a tree surgeon to remove it and they treated the stump. It did not grow back, and after a few years and a lot of digging and cutting we removed the stump. We did check that is was not covered by a tree preservation order first with the local council.
From memory it was around £300 for 1/2 days work, this was over a decade ago and in London.

You can prune them back to a decent size though. Are you happy with the parents' advice? Maybe get a tree surgeon in to have a look and advise on whether it needs removing or pruning and price for both.

Not a eucalyptus but we had a huge, old cherry tree, removing the stump and roots was a massive piece of work and cost a lot, will ask DH if he remembers how much!

Thanks for the replies. If we were to cut it back ourselves does that stop roots growing more? I'm a bit of a gardening novice! Will ask a tree surgeon as well for some quotes.

cheers

How big is it? Are you comfortable felling a tree, it can be a dangerous business, with a risk of serious injury to both people and property?

You can buy tree stump killer at a DIY store. After cutting it to the ground and removing as much as possible, you paint the stuff on the bare wood and eventually it kills the roots and the sump.

Useful page from RHS

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=225

We removed several trees from a 60+ ft Lawsons Cypress to smaller specimens. The garden is better for it and the remaining trees are much healthier.
We got quotes from 3 tree surgeons and got the stumps ground out (they use a special machine for this) - make sure you know what they are going to do with the waste as this vary the cost. We had larger pieces left for us to dry & burn, smaller stuff was chipped and used on our borders. This was considerably cheaper than paying them to take it away.
Ask how they are going to remove, one guy was far too gung-ho in his approach to H&S that I worried about the trees falling and causing damage to the house/garden let alone himself (tree felling can be extremely dangerous, I have a former colleague who died when he decided to do some tree felling himself a few years back and it all went wrong so it is very much in the forefront of my mind).
Although I find it sad to take out trees sometimes it is necessary to severely prune / take them out for the health of the garden / surrounding buildings or because they are not in good condition. I try to replace with new specimens not necessarily the same, in more suitable locations to keep the growing cycle going.

Yes, keeping the branches shorter will stop the roots getting longer.

I have read that removing a big tree can cause more issues for house foundations than just leaving it there. Something to do with how the water it was sucking up is now changed. I think you need some proper advice though.

Thanks for all the replies, I'll get an expert to assess it so as not to damage anything!
cheers