Tree collapse question

[kirinm]

We live in a conservation area and our house is surrounded by very mature trees. A lime tree owned by a neighbour is already causing damage to our wall and actually we were expecting an engineer to come round in a week or two - the neighbour appreciates there is a real risk of the wall collapsing and causing significant damage to our property (and possibly actual injury).

Anyway, her tree collapsed today! It is about 50ft high and thank god, it fell away from our house. Insurers are going to have to be involved because I'm even more worried about the wall and now also heave.

But my question is... now this massive tree has fallen down, is there a risk it would cause instability to the soil which could put other trees close by at risk? There are multiple huge lime trees in various gardens which are very close to the one that has just fallen so I wonder if their roots could be impacted?

council's have tree conservationist ring & ask (or email with picture) they might be able to answer your question or give advice who to go to

It is extrememly unusual for a healthy large tree to just collapse.

Is it very windy where you are? Has the wind brought it down?

Or is it on a bank/slope?

Is the ground particularly wet?

I think you need a tree surgeon to come and give you advice.
In principle one tree coming down shouldn't bring any others down, butthat will depend on the cause, if the tree has blown down due to high winds and super saturated soil, then yes, there is a high chancce others will come down.

Thanks. It has been hard to see what is going on as there is a wall between our gardens but there is a lot of soil pushed up against the wall. I think there is a good chance the tree has been sat in soil at least a metre high for many years and it is saturated?

We have wondered whether it could be soil rather than roots causing the wall to bow too.

We are in London and it is windy but not so windy that you'd expect a tree to collapse.

I'm going to get a tree surgeon around to try and work out if we should be worried about any other trees. They are all so tall they tower over our building which is a 4 storey Victorian villa so not tiny by any stretch of the imagination.

I should say we don't own the entire building. This is a picture of the tree. The trunk looks wet to me.

That just looks like an old tree that’s rotted internally which is what they do at the end of their lives. Which would mean it’s not been taking much water for some time. I think you will likely be ok but an arborist will be able to advise.

I agree with Bluntness, that looks like a rotten tree.

When I said saturated, it means that the soil is very wet, like after flooding, and very wet soil cannot hold the roots and so the tree falls over. That can happen to a healthy treee.

But this one just looks old.

We've had a tree surgeon out this evening and he found fungi on the trunk which is what will have caused it. He said in theory, yes the loss of a tree can destabilise but he doesn't think it'll be an issue.

I wouldn’t call the council preservation department unless you want
preservation orders whacked on the remaining trees. You need a tree surgeon, or rather your neighbour does if they are their trees. You have the ammunition you need, now this has happened, to be quite firm about her paying for work on any remaining trees.
Out of interest is the wall you talk about a house wall or garden wall?

@BobaCobb

I wouldn’t call the council preservation department unless you want preservation orders whacked on the remaining trees. You need a tree surgeon, or rather your neighbour does if they are their trees. You have the ammunition you need, now this has happened, to be quite firm about her paying for work on any remaining trees. Out of interest is the wall you talk about a house wall or garden wall?

Garden wall but it is approximately a metre away from our building and needs immediate attention. We physically cannot do the work due to the sheer amount of soil on her side so it's not a problem we can fix on our own.

She has agreed to instruct a structural engineer as rebuilding / strengthening the wall is complicated. It's even more complicated now the tree has fallen as we are at serious risk of heave.

The trunk would also have been difficult to see given the decking that has been built above it. Her insurer has already declined to cover the damage to her next door neighbour so we are likely to be in for a long fight about any potential movement of our place.

@Bluntness100

That just looks like an old tree that’s rotted internally which is what they do at the end of their lives. Which would mean it’s not been taking much water for some time. I think you will likely be ok but an arborist will be able to advise.

This is why I'm hoping. That because it's not healthy, the soil isn't going to suddenly have an abundance of ground water it isn't used to. But I don't know how an arborist will be able to determine that.

Are they planning to replace it as that would soak so,e of the water that the tree used to take?

Op arborists are different to basic tree surgeons, although some do both.

They can look at the tree and basically advise on how long it would have been decaying internally and impact on the ground. I’d say that one has been dying for years. They still appear in full leaf so you cannot tell by looking at them.