General Advice for starting out

[normandylumberjack]

Agree with all the above, Safety first, second and third!

Low and slow, and remember the mantra, " Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast"

 

Also, you know what they say about pride, it comes before a fall, in this industry that aint good! don't try to impress people, if your good enough to impress them, you wont have to try. If you don't enjoy it, like working in all weathers, or uneven work loads, dont look at arb/ forestry work.

Good luck, and hope it works out for you.

[Mike Hill]

Thing is...

 

You will attend courses to get the tickets,but to most employers they mean little more than you know the basics.More importantly you need experiance,years of it in fact before you will even be competent,then depending on your natural ability and how much you are prepared to push yourself you might,might be a good climber.

 

This all depends on getting a job,and without experiance you will be another ticketed novice calling all the firms looking for a job that probably dosn´t exist for someone without experiance.

 

If you are in a position to get free training,train in a feild that has a demand for workers.

[john p]

dime bag,as others have said, this industry is completely overrun with climbers/cutters,and every day the available work gets less,within 10miles of me there are probably 20 firms goin out every day cutting, we are running out of trees,please heed advice,rope access where its at for a sustainable career

[Pedroski]

we are running out of trees,please heed advice,rope access where its at for a sustainable career

 

We need to be pro-active, and go out planting, and encouraging people to plant....

[muppetlab]

I'm looking to start climbing in the next year and i'm not a youf. I'm more into conservation and management but have got grounds experience and held tickets for over 10 years although i don't currently earn a living from tree work. The way i see it is that the arb industry has done itself no favours. Climbing has to be one of the most dangerous jobs and people are getting paid peanuts. Granted people are undercutting but i can't understand why people are happy to work for nothing. My brother did his climbing ticket (cs38) a few years back to help out as a second climber for safety. Hes now a landscape gardener and does some quotes for the odd big tree job to his existing clients. For the big stuff he gets his mate who is the qualified climber etc and subs the job. Now heres the rub, My bro quotes a job at say £5-600, his mate who does the work tells him if he was quoting he'd have done it for less than £150. This i think is due to his skill as a salesman/businessman. People don't mind paying for a decent job. They know his work is good and therefore don't feel the need to question his rates and find someone to undercut him. Those of you running your own businesses need to look at why you charge such low rates. Its business after all and if you aint making money then why are you doing it. Its an expensive hobby and those people quoting ridiculously low prices are doing as much damage as the perceived oversupply of those retraining. I fully agree there needs to be more planting but the only way that there will be less tree workers around is if its economically unviable, which i guess is the way its heading with rates. When i did my training years ago there were few places to get your training and maybe a couple of unis in scotland and wales doing forestry degrees etc. Now theres tree courses everywhere. All industries are the same all these graduates and no jobs. We are just an overpopulated island with too many IT geeks.

[Steve_C]

Hi mate.

 

Guessing from your post you are leaving the forces? I left the Army 12 months ago and did a course with Kingswood training in Kent. Great course, very well run, very enjoyable and learnt loads. Best of all the Mob paid for the lot. My plan was to get a job in the industry, gain expirience and go from there. Did a bit of networking and had a few things lined up but very soon after I did the course I was offered a job in the security industry which paid three times more than I could ever see myself earning in tree work. 12 months on and still in the security industry but do some tree work on the side when it comes in and when I have the time which to be honest is not much of either. The lads on here are right when they say expirience is everything and the other down side is the amount of cash that needs to spent on kit/vehicles/machinery. Gotta say though the days I spend out in the open grafting for a buck and getting up a sweat are great - but romance never paid the bills!

 

Cheers

 

Steve

[Mark Bolam]

Honest post Steve, good on you.

[Carricktreeman]

Steve, is right I've seen this over and over again, Do some research, keep positive, never give up, to borrow a phase, who dares, wins,:thumbup:

[Spruce Pirate]

This may be getting off topic, but....

 

Are we confident for the future? A lot of negative replies on this - not a critisism, I would mostly agree there are a lot of firms chasing the same amount of work and a lot of newly qualified cutters and climbers with limited experience. Point being if the experinced guys are hoovering up all the work who replaces them when they retire / fall out of a tree?

 

Perhaps I should have started a new thread - could go for hours on this.

[Pedroski]

This may be getting off topic, but....

 

Are we confident for the future? A lot of negative replies on this - not a critisism, I would mostly agree there are a lot of firms chasing the same amount of work and a lot of newly qualified cutters and climbers with limited experience. Point being if the experinced guys are hoovering up all the work who replaces them when they retire / fall out of a tree?

 

Perhaps I should have started a new thread - could go for hours on this.

 

It's like any other work. Wanna be a brickie? Employers all want experience and want to pay low money. Go it alone, then how do you complete against all those already in the game? Same with everything - too many people looking for work and not enough customers to create the work. There are too many people here!