Ash Tree Removal Near Barnard Castle

Felling a tree in one is the fastest and cheapest way to take it out, and on most domestic jobs it is not available. It needs a drop zone long enough for the full height of the tree, clear of fences, buildings, services and anything that has to stay standing.

This one had it. The tree stood with open grass in front of it, the ground was flat, and the fence line behind was clear of the direction it was going. The only thing in the way was grass.

The other half of the decision is the tree. Lean, weight distribution, crown balance, stem condition and wind all get checked before a saw goes anywhere near it. An ash with a heavy side or a soft butt is not a candidate, whatever the ground looks like.

A felling cut is two cuts and a hinge. The gob cut is taken out of the front of the stem, facing the direction the tree is going, and it sets the line. The back cut comes in from behind, level with or slightly above the gob, and stops short of it, leaving a strip of holding wood: the hinge.

The hinge is what steers the tree. Too thin and it snaps early and the stem goes wherever the weight takes it. Too thick and the tree sits back on the saw. On a stem this size the hinge is judged against the species and condition of the timber, and ash that has been stressed or is carrying dieback does not hold a hinge the way sound ash does.

Wedges go in behind the saw to stop the back cut closing and to tip the stem onto the hinge. The escape route is cleared at 45 degrees back from the stump and walked before the cut, not after.

Once it is down, the tree becomes a processing job. The crown is limbed out first to get the stem clear, then the stem is cut into lengths that can be lifted onto the truck.

The chain stays out of the soil. Dirt blunts a chain in seconds and a blunt chain cuts crooked, so the stem is rolled with a hookaroon rather than cut through the ground, and the butt is cut from the top down where it is sitting on the grass.

Brash goes through the chipper as it is cut, which keeps the work area clear and stops the pile at the base of the job turning into a wall you have to climb over for the rest of the day.

Ash dieback, caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, has moved through most of the ash in the North East. It does not kill a tree overnight. It thins the crown from the outside in, kills branches back into the stem and leaves deadwood standing overhead.

The practical effect is that ash is less predictable than it was. Diseased timber can be brittle, dead limbs can let go without warning, and the stem can carry decay where the crown has died back. That matters more on a felled tree than most people expect, because the hinge is the one part of the job that has to hold.

That does not mean every ash with dieback has to come out. It means the tree gets looked at properly before anyone commits it to a direction, and the cuts assume less strength than the timber looks like it has.

The trunk and the larger limbs were cut into lengths where the tree lay. Anything that could be lifted and loaded went onto the truck, and the brash went through the chipper.

If you want the timber left for firewood, we will log it and stack it where you want it. If you want the site clear, it leaves with us. On this job the field was left with nothing on it but short grass and a low stump.

The stump was cut as low as the saw allows. Taking it out completely is a separate job with a stump grinder, and it is worth deciding before the visit rather than after, because grinding a stump is easier before the ground around it has been walked over and raked.

A postcode, a few photos of the tree from different angles, and a note of anything close to it: fences, sheds, overhead lines, drains, the neighbour’s greenhouse. Access matters as much as the tree. If a chipper cannot get to the work area, everything has to be carried, and that changes the job.

If the tree sits in a conservation area or carries a Tree Preservation Order, permission is needed before any work starts. We check that before quoting so the date on the quote is a date we can actually work to.