Small (beech?) tree a metre from house

[honestsam]

Hi, I have a small tree (Beech I think) that is growing about a metre from the corner of my house. IMO the main stump is about 40 cm diameter and quickly seperates into 3 smaller stumps/branches that go on to form the rest of the tree. It's about as tall as the house.

It blocks the light and obviously it's not a good idea to have such a large tree growing so near the house but I worry about possible subsidence caused by cutting it down. Is it too small to warrant this?

I was thinking about cutting it down to ground level and leaving the stump there.

I have a very poor picture of the situation.

[big-all]

i pesonaly cant see a problem
if theres no sign off movement now cutting the tree down because its so small is very very unlikly to make any real difference

if you are worried chop it down 1/3 at a time over 3 years then any probs will have a chance to show

[honestsam]

Hi thanks. Yes that's my first thought. I've no real experience of this sort of thing but I kinda guessed it is usually very mature trees that will cause subsidence issues.

[James Morris]

Hi Sam,

British Beech trees have roots of 9-10 metres in length and they are quite thirsty chaps. Normally subsidence occurs when the ground surrounding the building foundations dries up, so I would assume (but not 100% sure) that by removing a tree that is absorbing water from your soil (and the type of soil is another consideration) you are removing a potential subsidence threat rather than creating one.

Nice picture BTW

James