Marc

I was trying to highlight the complexity of the issues and you are of course right in many respects, although we are not the only country - Germany, France, Spain, Italy and even Greece are having an equally if not a greater influx of non nationals than we are. It's the attitude of well ship em off to there and help their bloody economy which is such a simplistic way of looking at it. There are a lot of racist Eastern Europeans I don't have the time of day for, yet so far in my experiences equal to some of us natives. Plenty of them are a waste of space spongers on our economic and benefit system, same again for British nationals (although you could argue it's their right). I say ship em all off and keep only those no matter the ethnic origin off to well I dunno Australia? It's also telling that this thread quickly turned to immigration but I do agree screw political correctness, if you don't like it say it, but remember there is positives to the movement of people!

If the economy is strong then labour is required and a benefit, if your economy is poor extra labour is no help. The analogy of well Greece is struggling ship the migrants there is flawed it will only worsen their economy and is a simplistic way of looking at it. Our problem is we are inherently racist, how many of us socialise with Eastern Europeans out of choice? Again this is a simplistic way of looking at a multi faceted problem but it is a point. I am married to a Romanian by the way and have been for 10 years, she studied law and gave up a good career prospect to remain in the U.K with me.

That's cost to business per man, paid day, course costs and loss of earnings.

Don't forget the fog lights!

Is that of the big Poplar?

Well we wouldn't want to upset the farming community they are struggling and on the poverty line enough as it is. Cynicism aside, personally I think it comes down to how to make large sweeping changes. Like MPH-KMH we have embraced metric but still work in mph, could you imagine the cost of changing the signs to km/h country wide easier to stick with status quo. 3.5tonne vehicles have slowly crept up in curb weight, dealers decieve- one guy I work for is adamant his 3.5t had a legal payload of 2ton trying to tell him that's chassis only and he probably has 1.5 ton of chip body crew and kit already loaded before chip is hard. But these modern 3.5ton vehicle can often handle the weight safely the likes of Cabstar make 4.5ton version and it's nigh on the same chassis and brakes. Tree surgeons are not the only trades to be affected by this weight limitation which is outdated with these modern vehicles that can take the weight and drive no differently. Same with trailer weights. When emissions come into play on the 6" machines it will be interesting to see how the likes of Timberwolf keep a 750kg plate weight with dpf/egr system added to engine. Realistically is a Forst ST6 any worse to tow than a TW230. For years I stuck my fingers up to the law, mainly because money had to be earnt mentality. Oddly now I am managing the crews I personally cannot send someone out without the correct license, 15+years ago we just got on with it. We all have our B+E now which was simple and painless, and will be going for C+E.

Branches at risk to snow usually stick out proud of the canopy profile allowing them to gather more snow, noting looks to proud on the the pictures you show just as you say a little bare in the centre, Yew is pretty hardy though so unlikely to be an issue. If you must a light prune to give a balanced profile (not symmetrical as trees are rarely perfect) We have removed 50% of the foliage in one bit before on mature Yews without issue then repeatedly battered them not condoning it but they do tolerate heavy handed actions.

I agree, when you say green cscs cards you men rolo? Can't remember the colour of mine of the top of my head. We have been waived the cscs due to our comprehensive rams staff qauls and accreditations, but I am aiming to get the team through ththe cscs again.

Not just Bartletts many others as well. Being aaac doesn't actually mean anything, in the scheme of things it is very affordable to us to be part of the aaac scheme and the support and help they offer makes it worth it. For us. I do get frustrated by it though, and when quoting it's not a selling point and I never make mention of the fact we are aaac approved as it really means nothing to the client imo, to say aaac contractors offer a higher quality service to industry approved code of practice is nonsense there are many companies who operate in our area who are not aaac approved who work to equally high standard to us and often cheaper. For us and commercial clients having chas or similar is more of a selling point, the ability to produce good quality RAMS also makes the difference, having CSCS is not this has been waived for us on many sites as we currently do not have it. I am looking at getting the core team through the "relevant" (I say relevant as some of us do have CSCS cards but they are just labourer cards) going for ROLO CSCS will cost us probably £700 per man with 8 to put through this, which is a bit of a burden but going forward for us it may help.

I dunno Mark some of my ridiculously overpriced technical gear has kept me dry in horizontal rain whilst beasting myself in up hills. I was fit so did t sweat profusely. Those jackets eventually got relegated to tree work in time and no matter what washing regime and retreatment they were about as good as anything else For me the cheap Berghaus from go outdoors or even waterproofs from quecha from decathlon are just as good as in this job as any top of the line event or for-tex shell

I think its a perfectly valid question, I too am curious as to why a Norcar wipes the floor with the rest as that's quite a statement and maybe we are missing something. I think through this whole thread no one has really said that either the Multi or Avant better than each other just have certain pro's and cons and like Stihl or Husky it seems we are divided in what we prefer. Yet here is someone late to the party who runs a Norcar, personally I think they do look good machine just top heavy and there was/is a video circulating where one topples over on level tarmac after turning to hard and fast, something I am sure can probably be replicated in either of the other machines in this thread.

Phoenix Nights is worth a shout.

We mounted a Rockinger on our mog with custom blade, not tried it in anger yet as not long after receiving our Unimog from Germany and having a body fabricated the engine ate itself. Personally it was not my decision, I would of gone for either a Werner or a 3 point forestry winch although this L38 2150 is road spec. We have a hydro winch on another mog, it's useless at pulling trees over as it's just to slow although has enough grunt to make recovery useful.

No I don't use it, read a few reports that that do and think like all things if well applied it's good. Problem is this is such an opinion based profession, read 3 reports on the same tree and they all vary on their thoughts and conclusion sometimes wildly. Sometimes in my own opinion all reports are valid just different outcomes based on someone's own experience and thoughts on good tree management. For example seen reports where felling is reccomended on a certain tree and I thought it was valid same tree different surveyor and they reccomended retain and I thought there was merit in that to.

i wouldn't change my job as I enjoy what I do, I like working with the guy we have with us at the moment the team spirit and everything that goes with it. I think pay is improving although far to many guys selling themselves short, (not talking individuals I mean the businesses and bonafide contractors). I do not live to work though, I work to live the flipside is having a passion for it does make it easier to appreciate results in your hard graft, what I mean by that is I don't resent working 6 days a week often doing 12 hour days. If I did resent it then I would look to change career.

Good looking rig right there, nice.

Snapped ours clean off one time! I'm not so keen on the new ram style, I'm a fan of simple engineering having rams on the outside and everything easily accessible and not fancy.

Personally I don't think there is much in it they are both good machines although dealer support does seem to be growing for Multione, we are lucky having both near us TVE in Abingdon for Avant I can recommend Matt, and David at DBM hire Binfield near Reading we went with Avant as we are familiar with them now and it does exactly what we want.

What are the advantages of increased flow? We had our Avant 635 stolen after the insurance came through we bought a 640 specs are largely the same and other than the hare and tortoise button giving an extra speed boost nothing has changed, same lift, same grab power, same torque. Can imagine it would be useful for certain attachments, but after trailing some like the flail-excavator-hedgecutter we decided the Avant is better off sticking to lifting, loading and pulling it excels at these tasks. Although the upgrade to the 640 was only about £1.4k still undecided if that's worth the extra speed. @Dean our fitter has suggested filling our tyres with gel that sets for added weight with the added bonus of no more flats, certainly something we will look at in the new year

I am aware of that although I feel it is just a backside covering excercise by DMM, it is still a valid point though. Hence this thread to gauge what other alternative people are using, I am going to try a mallion at some point, along with playing around with knot blocking but I would be interested in what alternative your using?

I'll take a pic in the new year if I remember I have some cord knocking around that I was going to use for this and have seen it done to good effect. I have untold amounts of gear, bizarrely have a bag of combi spanners. Point is keep it simple modyfying a rope grab for that scenario is complicating a simple task.

Why not use some 6mm cord to make a mini prussik/klemheist, nice, simple and works.

That sums it up nicely, DdRT is good if used correctly and unfortunately it is a poor ascent system, hence my earlier comments on the o-rig which I still think of as nothing more than a slick trick to use DdRT well you got to plan your climbs and avoid excessive arm hauling by using the tree to your advantage for me hitch redirecting helped by saving me having to ascend through forks which is horrible in DdRT. I have used SRT though for many years as an access system so would always be at the top of the tree with minimal effort and start my climbs from there in DdRT working down and once in the crown use that to your advantage.

i found it of little benefit, sure it's kind of slick the reality is your better off trying to not use it as it will only encourage you to use you arms to haul yourself around if that makes sense.

Yes we have noticed the same, our site which is well optimised is nearly half way down the 1st page, for me it's just a marketing ploy by Google, I even notice now on Facebook our competitors feature in my news feed complete with lovely images of guys in wife beaters felling trees at ground level in spikes and a harness, guess they are paying to have ads focused at me due to my search history and general browsing/Facebook views? Great targeting! Those that suddenly want that tree/hedge whatever sort in are unlikely to be targeted by these ads, they will just search, some will be naive and go straight to top page, some will see through it and choose the local guy who is organically top of the list. Internet sales have been over the last 10years not a great lead, wether this will change I do not know. What I do know from our experience is good reputation and positive feedback is where the business comes from.