Should you need a licence to be an arborist?

[nailer]

If having a license meant i could charge the right amount of money for the job i do then i'm all for it.

 

Marc, what`s stopping you ? You don`t need a license to give you permission.

 

when you go out for a meal do you ever ask if the chef is trained? could be some old tramp that happens to be good at cooking but you still pay your bill cos your happy with it!

 

`Happy with it!`; that`s all the customer wants. They really do not care if you have licenses, tickets, diplomas or swimming badges. Punctuality, courtesy and passion for your business and profession is what gets noticed.

 

imo

[Khriss]

Probably leaving myself wide open on this one but here goes:

 

Reading our local free paper this afternoon and looking through the small ads in the back (as you do), it struck me how many 'tree surgeons' have NPTC qualified and tree topping mentioned in the same ad.

 

Got me thinking, should the government bring in a licencing scheme for arborists. What I'm getting at is that you could get your NPTC tickets, have no idea about correct pruing, tree care (or BS3998) and call yourself a tree surgeon.

 

Slightly off topic I do find it worrying how easy it is to get your CS39 tickets. I'm at college at the moment, won't be touching a chainsaw until after Xmas and will have the opportunity to take four tickets by July. IMHO wouldn't it be better to have a prerequsite of a couple of years on the ground before you are allowed to take your climbing tickets ?

 

 

......................YES

 

 

 

NPTC tickets are meaningless

[Ian C]

Marc, what`s stopping you ? You don`t need a license to give you permission.

 

 

 

`Happy with it!`; that`s all the customer wants. They really do not care if you have licenses, tickets, diplomas or swimming badges. Punctuality, courtesy and passion for your business and profession is what gets noticed.

 

imo

 

quite agree, The work has to be carried out in a professional manner to a high standard, but life is strange, i have met well educated guys with all the diplomas you could ever want but give them a practicle job or a chainsaw there an accident waiting to happen.

 

Life is a mix of skills, some are good at the practicle stuff, some at the academic and a few at both, but if the work is done correctly, safely and to guidlines and the customer is happy thats all that matters not how many letters you got after your name.

[Tim Williams]

while I understand that tree topping is a bad practice and a bad term, unfortunately whether we proffesionals like it or not that is a term the general public understand. I think personally that by licencing arborists and educating the public we can improve the quality of the service as a whole. However I know that when I came out of college I had NPTC's and with a bit of on the job training i know as much and sometimes more than people who have proffesional qualifications so the licencing scheme might be very hard to get up and running as many may not be able to afford to do proffesional qualifications if it were based on that alone.

[Log-ologist]

topping is not the problem its the result of the problem.

 

The problem is that any fool can go into a shop and buy a chainsaw.

 

and they do.

[Zenfordinner]

IMO they mean jack poo.

 

You can be NPTC'd up to the eyeballs and will still "never" cut the grade.

 

Some people have it some dont, there will be seasoned tree cutters out there that still can't line up their gob cut and worst of all do not understand the dynamics of wood cutting, felling etc.

 

That is what you pick up along the way and learn through experience combines with an inquisitive mind that yearns for more

 

It's no good being able to put in a gob cut and back cut if you have no further understanding of the dynamics.

 

I first went into tree surgery 24 years ago for about 4 years and I watched a tree surgeon do a gob cut into soft wood and he didn't even stop to think, oblivious to the fact that there would be no holding wood. He had loads of experience of felling but to him a gob cut was a gob cut whether in rotten wood or sound wood.

 

To me it's like electricity, we all learn how to switch a light bulb on but very few understand how the light lights up

 

That is positively poetic, Mr. Lofthouse

[Marc]

Marc, what`s stopping you ? You don`t need a license to give you permission.

 

 

I'm talking from a freelance perspective.

 

Don't get me wrong nailer i already do get paid very well given i have little more than 18 months in the saddle and a little over 2 years in the professional industry.

Yet the day rate for a top freelance climber seems cap'd at an average 150 a day in my area, i don't think thats always enough considering the highly skilled and demanding job the top climbers have to do.

 

Basically i just feel we should be earning more, although i never became an arborist to become rich.

[Steve Bullman]

I'm talking from a freelance perspective.

 

Don't get me wrong nailer i already do get paid very well given i have little more than 18 months in the saddle and a little over 2 years in the professional industry.

Yet the day rate for a top freelance climber seems cap'd at an average 150 a day in my area, i don't think thats always enough considering the highly skilled and demanding job the top climbers have to do.

 

Basically i just feel we should be earning more, although i never became an arborist to become rich.

 

everyone feels they should be earning more wether they're earning £100 a day of £1000.

[Marc]

everyone feels they should be earning more wether they're earning £100 a day of £1000.

 

True:bored: its nothing but a dream to compete on a level playing field where we can all charge a good rate and win jobs on on our profesionalism and qaulity alone.

Only a tiny percentage of companies round here can claim to do that at the moment. And even those are losing jobs to cheaper contractors as some start to tighten their belts.

[Stuart A-C]

True:bored: its nothing but a dream to compete on a level playing field where we can all charge a good rate and win jobs on on our profesionalism and qaulity alone.

Only a tiny percentage of companies round here can claim to do that at the moment. And even those are losing jobs to cheaper contractors as some start to tighten their belts.

 

I blame the crack!