Will wrote:
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 20:38:41 GMT, Will wrote:

The large ivy all over the wall of a friends house came down in a
recent storm. I have cut it back to about 6 ft from the ground and
noticed that the trunk is about 6 - 8 ins.diameter. My friend
wants
to keep it and not let it grow so rampant in the future .........
however is concerned that as the roots are so near and in fact
must
be going under the house would they be likely to cause any
structual
damage etc.
Not sure of name but it is the large leafed green & white
varigated
leaf type.

Thanks for any help

Many thanks for all your replies .... if it were me I would cut
the
trunk to ground level & try to kill it off - but not sure about the
hole it would leave as the roots rot down etc.

In this thread I hear the thud of sledgehammers cracking nuts. Yes,
it's a big ivy, and so it'll have a good root system. But why would
even a big ivy go down to the footings of the building? AFAIK, and
subject to correction by others who know better, they're pretty much
shallow rooters: as climbers, they don't need a "structural" root
system for support, but only a good feeding system.

Of course, as Nick says, free advice, like Outlook Express, is worth
precisely what you paid for it; but what's a surveyor going to say if
you call him in? He'll cover himself, because he's legally liable.
Surely he'll have to say he can't guarantee that the roots, or the
consequences of their removal, _won't_ cause structural damage, and
he'll charge you for the privilege.

But then what? You still either take the ivy out or leave it in. And
if you leave it in, one of these decades it'll die anyway.

It does occur to me, though, that there is one way of getting some
degree of reassurance free of charge. Estate agents are run by
chartered surveyors and the like: so pop into an estate agent's
office and ask what he or she thinks of it all in principle.

Mike.