Marc

We don’t expect anyone we use to provide insurance and I personally think it’s an insult for us as a company to expect that.

There are trees whose properties I’d feel comfortable with climbing dead, Beech is not one of them. We’ve rigged down dead horse chestnut probably the dumbest thing we have ever done it was like polystyrene. To be fair that’s a job I would of walked from...

Is that uprated from 7.5ton to take all the mods?

It’s a Unimog you can do what the hell you like, even get away with murder apparently. Hucks on the money, we used to take our Botex on the motorway... not anymore as we sold 2 of our Unimogs this week and bought a tractor. Tried to convert our Muller trailer with timber bolsters which is 13ton and road legal behind a Unimog on motorways.

Like Sequoia says you will struggle with underground guying. protecting stem could be useful, although find flipping bucket helps keep arm away from stem. obviously you can make this an intricate operation carefully airspading roots pruning, wrapping and eventually use a tree frame to support roots and lift, this takes time and preparation and often best with a crane. But like you point out the root system is dense, and off the several we have moved often the reverse bucket wrench her out technique has been the most efficient and effective approach with great success as they really do seem fairly hardy.

Tree spade will usually always be cheaper and less disruptive. We move trees like this often I’d probably reccomend ripping it out with a 25ton digger with bucket mounted other way round and slapping it in its new home. Moved a few around this size and always been quite brutal with them they seem pretty hardy with compact root balls. Over head guying will be required.

The only thing I like about a Leylandii hedge is the sound it makes going through a Bandit chipper. Although don’t mind a bit of Conny bashing, it’s about all I seem to do now on the weekends when I still work for others.

Very lovely Leylandii in Maidenhead that is TPO’d and rapidly reaching 30m doubt it’ll blow over anytime soon, and first Leylandii I’ve seen that has a TPO

Tori, bury your head in the sand and let him deal with it, as long as they are safe and checked over by a qualified Arborist your not obliged to do anything. however as stated here he is allowed to cut back to his boundary providing the trees are not protected which I doubt they are.

I can’t remember the whole thing and can no longer find it online, still anyone in there right mind would think twice even climbing it and he is hardly a spring chicken got to be over 100 in Arb years. it was planned, executed safely and no one died. We are all worth more, that’s why it’s important to understand what your doing and take no chances, even the worst trees can be tackled safely with the right approach wether that be mewp, crane or climb. Most accidents I see are just either gung ho or inexperience, i speak from personal experience on that.

Glad you clarified that, even with a MEWP that would of been a bold and possibly foolish manoeuvre, just because we shout or spec a mewp doesn’t make it safer. nothing wrong with climbing and rigging off dead trees have done it many times over the years. (And of course that legendary YouTube video of Tungsten Nuts) If thought out planned, safe and executed properly it is a safe possibility as long as all other options are first considered and ruled out. I have rigged many horrific trees, also walked from a few when I felt the job had not been considered or planned properly.

Simon, to compare a chipper to a Ford is an unfair comparison Ford operate on billions and is a multi national company. I also bought a brand new Volvo and that thing has been into the dealers more times than I care to remember with teething issues something that affected 1000's of people on the new 4cyl engines that they spent millions developing. chippers are produced in such limited numbers that our expectations for the cost sometimes don't realise. Although i honestly feel manufacturers should do more and don't always get it right. I feel your stress I really do but it happens, it's all part of the trial and tribulations of running a business. For me a lot of the new kit is a vast improvement on the old. My comments on the owner operator of Bandit machines thinking of going to Forst just demonstrates our wildly different opinions because for me they are totally different machines.

Wow only just noticed that, well I am the original and best being one of the first members here....

I probably shouldn't say it, we do maintain and service kit, although occasionally rads and filters can be choked. other than ensuring we keep to service schedules, changing blades, keeping greased and road legal we abuse the hell out of the kit. Its there to absolutely slagged day in day out, if it can't cope with it then something is wrong. To be fair other than the bigger kit - excluding Vermeer stuff which are bean cans full of electronics that break, and poorly aligned set up engine bay cooling systems. We spend a bit of time keeping on top of the problems and usually downtime is limited and to be expected with any plant, our old TW150 was like triggers broom and with the new TW230 being such a good bit of kit the guys make it work hard. What is not acceptable is taking undue amounts of time to resolve problems or burying your head in the sand in regards to design flaws, put your hands up breaks down are to be expected suck it up and put it right. Our TW230 was very unreliable but Timber Wolf acknowledged the problems to us and bent over backwards to sort it (I will add you do have to know how to apply pressure sometimes) even though the TW230 has spent nearly 4-5 weeks not earning money when it does I forgive it and know what I'll be buying next - another TW230 Our Forst ST6 has been flawless and hardly missed a beat even when we forced fed it with an excavator for a week, but I don't want another one because it annoys me hopefully the mark 2 will be better - Cough cough proper buttons/wide hopper feed table. i suppose what it comes down to is expectations of service and productivity. The Bandit is hands down best chipper we ever owned blows the Vermeers out of the park even if it was an emotional 15 month journey to actually get it. But I worked for someone who owns 2 big bandits now and he is going to trade them in for Forst ST8 because he think they are built better..... go figure.

I wouldn't buy anything used unless it's a little swapsy with someone I've worked with. Dont see the point.

It brings more advantages than disadvantages, Global did a great job getting the the chipper on air suspension and brakes, I was a little anxious at first but after living with it for a while now air brakes is the way forward it tows beautifully far better than our previous 15" chipper on over run brakes and torson axles. Having used 12"+ PTO powered chippers extensively I'd have a Bandit any day blows them away for our type of domestic and commercial arb.

And there lies the crux of the situation. We compete in the commercial sector and its brutal, I honestly don't see how they do it, the figures don't make sense to me.

£150 a day for a jobbing Arborist isn't a bad scratch Seeing the finances of big companies very few are earning a killing as the reinvestment and growth is expensive. Grass is always greener and I see that the effort V reward of running your own business whilst there takes another level of hard work. £150 a day isn't a bad scratch for a jobbing Arborist. jobbing chippy/Plasterer's etc charge similar.

Ours is box section steel. we had to extensively modify everything for towing behind the Unimog after the Heavy Duty hitches supplied by snapped on multiple occasions... when the say you can get away with murder on Ag they ain't kidding... we went with VBG and have a type approved ringfeder hitch supplied with appropriate d-value, even working out safety factor of the bolts... If you want to run heavy road tow chippers do it right...

Its an emotional subject.... it didn't come under 3.5ton it's on air suspension and brakes, with plastic mudguards fitted by the company that did the trailer conversion.

Its a 1390/15xp it was important to me to have the service deck having worked on big chippers for over 10 years so I specified them from Global these are custom. It shouldn't be difficult to have something made up, I'd stick with the plastic mudguards and mount something above them.

This is why a service deck is essential Been running the bandit hard, it takes an absolute beating in its stride, compared to others where bits would of fallen off by now.

We are in this grey area where we use self employed guys,, personally it benefits us to train and ensure our employees even self lf employed are trained so pay to put them through what tickets they need including paying them for the day. myself I paid for all my own training early on, it made me more employable and I enjoyed it - so put pen to paper work out what you need and approach various trainers, you could go the intensive route but that is an expensive all in one hit and you will not get much out of it other than some bits of paper. for me I got the basics first then worked with others got some experience I,e climbing so that when I did my basic tree climbing/aerial rescue I was already fairly profefcient this way on the course I felt I took more away with me. Also with this approach you can decide if you just want to go straight for the assume that or not. training is a mixed bag though, no offence some out there can teach you the syllabus and get you through your ticket but lack real world experience and some seemingly lack any relatable experience, personally I try to seek out those that have some real world experience people like Terry Banyard, Tony Darbyshire and Quentin Reynolds spring to mind. what ever route you decide to take good luck.

I obviously missed that, thanks for the link David.

I agree, except for length of time, the Lime I felled whilst it's subjective looking at the extent I'd of put the sule above 10 years of left alone. I have worked on Beech trees literally riddled with Kretz and Gano some of it recorded for the last 20 years, gano particularly on Beech is not a major issue yet most treat it as a death sentence. Not wanting to to send the thread off down another road. AdamBa as far as my experience goes it's not the TO's call to make, you own the tree it's your responsibility not his, you could ask to remove it on the grounds of the Kretz and possibly the TO will remove the TPO. Not always the case though as I have made such applications in the past and it has been turned down until I on behalf of the owner provided evidence of the extent of decay. Also TO's are not always experts in the field of tree health care... and neither am I just some bloke with a bit of knowledge gained from years of dealing with mature trees.