Could Ebay change tree work as we LOVE it.

[Gray]

nobody confirms 100 legal percent to hse regs, you just can't they change so much.

if you try to keep up you just spend all your proffits in the prosess. its always been the same for some time, chainsaw climbing courses have been broken down into about 20 blocks because someone somwhere wanted more proffit, if any of us are taking down a mature poplar in a confined space using roping down technique hse will have something to say, "have we notified the customer and surrounding neighbours to remain within a safe distance" making sure whatever we cut in lenth does not exceed 1/2 that distance.

if we use a crane do we bully the driver into showing us the vehicle's service log and that he's qualified to do the job. and who when chipping roadside has ever halted a pedestrian until you've turned it off so they can walk by, cos thats in your chipper course. in short good focused guys live long and get a good rep, idiots get hurt and then get rich(claims direct ect.) , thats what makes our life difficult.

the rest was just me havin a rant , because i'm old and grumpy so the wife tells me.

[Kev Stephenson]

It is however illegal to use a top handled saw in the work place without certification, its also illegal to use on the ground, due to kickback implications

 

Iain,

 

Is it really illegal or is it against HSE best practise? Illegal would suggest an arrestable offence.

 

Is it also stated that certification is required or is it suitable training (which I know usually leads to certification)? I know Stihl have recommended that CS38 is present to buy a 200T as it is an easy paper trail for proof of competence but is in house training not good enough?

 

I know Iain (amongst others on here) is an NPTC assessor so knows what is required to pass the various CS qualifications, does he however have to pay the NPTC fees for the bit of paper for all his staff or can he have an in house training program to the same standard? Would Stihl accept this as suitability to purchase a 200T and would this stand up to the HSE should an accident occur? I know it would be easier to just get the CS/NPTC paperwork but is it just money for the sake of it?

 

Playing devils advocate here so lets not have the slatings please.

 

Kev

[Grandad]

nobody confirms 100 legal percent to hse regs, you just can't they change so much.

if you try to keep up you just spend all your proffits in the prosess. its always been the same for some time, chainsaw climbing courses have been broken down into about 20 blocks because someone somwhere wanted more proffit, if any of us are taking down a mature poplar in a confined space using roping down technique hse will have something to say, "have we notified the customer and surrounding neighbours to remain within a safe distance" making sure whatever we cut in lenth does not exceed 1/2 that distance.

if we use a crane do we bully the driver into showing us the vehicle's service log and that he's qualified to do the job. and who when chipping roadside has ever halted a pedestrian until you've turned it off so they can walk by, cos thats in your chipper course. in short good focused guys live long and get a good rep, idiots get hurt and then get rich(claims direct ect.) , thats what makes our life difficult.

the rest was just me havin a rant , because i'm old and grumpy so the wife tells me.

 

Couldn't agree with you more, Gray. It seems to me that most of us have no idea, exactly what is legal, illegal or just recommended by the powers that be. What is more I think this "fog of ignorance" is generated deliberately by said "powers that be". Heads they win, tails we lose. If you worked exactly according to the letter of the law you could wave bye bye to any profit. We are forced to cut legal corners or go under...

Read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and you will see the political process at work, laid bare.

John, another grumpy old man.

[TREE-SURGEON-ESSEX]

The above post nails our industry trainers want us to train to give them a job plus give hse a job but ones we are paying for. Lets be honest nptc courses are walk thorughs i was doing 80ft take downs and using lowering kit before i done my cs30 because this is a job you learn by doing simples

[MikeTM150]

Now i'm gonna chuck in a thought here, there was a thread a while back about a chap who'd done his training course on chainsaws, think he said he'd done CS30/31 but don't quote me, yet after the 'training' he still didn't know he had to put petrol in the with 2 stroke oil to fill the fuel tank instead he mixed 2stroke with chain lub.

 

Now tell me if i'm wrong but surely that shold be the first basic part of your initial training course? And if the training misses basic instruction like this what does it actually say about the quality of the rest of the information you are taught???

 

Realised i've probably lined my neck up with the guilotine of death, and am gonna get teared to pieces but i think its a point that needs to be considered?:confused1:

[WorcsWuss]

The above post nails our industry trainers want us to train to give them a job plus give hse a job but ones we are paying for. Lets be honest nptc courses are walk thorughs i was doing 80ft take downs and using lowering kit before i done my cs30 because this is a job you learn by doing simples

 

This certainly is a job you learn by doing, but in 'doing' it are we not in an evironment with experienced people showing us the way?

That would be a form of training and I would agree that this is a perfectly acceptable method of learning a skill or trade, it's how I have done it afterall so I can't say too much.

 

However, there are many people starting out who don't have that facility so need to have formal training.

And then there must come a point where if you're fresh in where no one knows you and you want to be responsible for performing a task, then you need to be able to prove competency.

Which comes back to tickets.

 

I don't have any climbing or aerial tickets, but I still posess the skills to safely complete some tasks. I also have enough experience and have had some formal training and testing to be able to identify where work falls outside my skillset.

 

But so many people lack that basic ability.

Knowing what you can't do is as important as knowing what you can do in my book.

 

So, that ramble leads me back to the original question.

 

I have just bought a top handled saw off eBay. I don't have tickets specific to its use.

However I have plenty of experience of a top handled saw, having previously had an MS200T which I bought from a proper Stihl dealer, they didn't ask for tickets.

 

It's just like everything else. If you have enough money you can get whatever you want.

Look at footballers, who can barely tie their laces or spell their name, splashing out on cars far too fast for them which they then crash while hungover.

 

If you can only buy a top handled saw with a ticket, then all training providers will have to possess a stock of top handled saws to allow us to train in that ticket to allow us to buy and use one.

 

Then training gets even more prohibitively expensive in these lean times, thefts increase, the black market takes over, things get worse rather than better.

 

We all know that we are responsible for our own actions, if we buy something which we don't know how to use, it's our own bloody fault when it bites us.

Common sense must be allowed to prevail.

Idiots will always find a way to do things they shouldn't, no rules or regs will really stop them.

Honestly, it's just netting the gene pool, skimming off the rubbish...

 

Quite often the status quo is just fine, I think this is a case in point.

 

 

But please don't play them when I'm around...

 

Simon

[Daniël Bos]

I've never had any formal chainsaw training and don't intend to do any either.

I've felled a fair few hectares of wood in my short life so far and seen a fair few "qualified cock-ups". I don't think there would be any point, as previously mentioned qualified does not mean competent and you'd just create a more "shadowy" market for top-handled saws.

 

I don't think unknowing first-time users are likely to buy a top-handle anyway as they fetch stupid high prices on ebay.

[TREE-SURGEON-ESSEX]

Untill the day comes where is is clearly stated in law that only qualified operators can use chainsaws then there will never be a black and white answer.

 

You legally have to be gas registered to installl boilers the same should be for the dangerous tools we use. Its one of the few power tools i think you should be qualified to use as it can cause horrific damage but you cant police the world.

 

And as it is we have all got used to the system and use it good or bad to our advantage as i will admit i dont always do risk assesments on domestic jobs im terrible i know

[WorcsWuss]

And as it is we have all got used to the system and use it good or bad to our advantage as i will admit i dont always do risk assesments on domestic jobs im terrible i know

 

Obviously you're going straight to hell....

[Grandad]

Does anybody stop to think: "who is this person who is teaching/training me how to do this particular task, does he know what he is talking about?"

When I was working as a practical arb instructor at a college which will remain nameless, I and three others were sent to Land Rover at Solihull to do a winching course. It had been determined by HSE/HMG that training in the use of winches was required for HSE reasons. Anyway, there we were at Solihull, the actual training took about an hour, was very basic and the rest of the time was spent driving a Defender around the off-road driving course on site. After this, I was considered competent to teach others in winching techniques.... Had I stayed on at the college there was a real possibility that I could have been sent out to teach others on the basis of this extremely sketchy training session.

Tree surgeon Essex is right, these courses are often a "walk through". It's as much about the money and the power these "qualifications" give "them" over "us".