Quickthorn

After asking if there's any chance of a pay rise.. "You've got more chance of seeing a one legged cat bury a turd on a frozen pond"

Great effort from england, and shame about that try, ..I'm sure it was good. I think England's dignified response to that decision does them nothing but credit..just imagine the whingeing and hysterics you'd get from football (ie soccer) players! Well done to RSA, I think they deserved the win in the end.

Yes, that's the thing about Misc Provisions..if it gets to the stage where the council do the work, the bill will be absurdly high. This happened to a friend, who was ordered to secure a garage he owned, to prevent kids playing in it or something. He ignored the notice, so the council boarded up 2 windows and the doors..the bill for that (an easy mornings work for 1, although they probably sent at least 2) was £1000.

yes please

The LA might be able to invoke the Miscellaneous Provisions Act here. They give notice in writing that they want you to do such and such work by a certain date. If you fail to do it, they can bring in their own people and do it, then forward the bill to you. It's usually when something has been identified as a legal nuisance. Example: I raised a few crowns for a customer a few years back, because they'd had such a notice from the LA saying that they planned to run a new bus route along that road, and the lower branches of the trees would foul the tops of the buses. They were given a date by which to do the work, otherwise the council team would do it and submit a bill. (In fact, as far as I know, the new bus route never happened..)

Depends on area..where are you, bill? Two years ago, I was paying £50 / day for non climbing chainsaw operator employees with less than 1 years experience, that was Notts. I was due to up it to £60/day for one, but he wanted £100/day, and left. I do some work as a last resort for a bloke here in Lincs, as a self employed chainsaw hand (ground only); he'll only pay £8/hour. I think ground staff round here would struggle to get more than £50/day as employees.

I'm with them. It might be a bit restrictive regarding tree work..my policy doesn't cover any climbing. Sorry to sound like I'm p1ssing on your chips here, but I think you need to think carefully before starting a new business at this time, especially in Lincs. I'd really check out what the local market is like, and get all your costings straight before jumping in. If the company you work for isn't getting much tree work, perhaps that's because the market's gone flat. I know a few others that aren't doing as much this year. Personally, I have 2-4 weeks work ahead of me, and normally at this time of year I'm booked solid til after Christmas.

Of course, you can only charge up to what the local market will stand. If I was asking for some of the prices mentioned on here, I'd have an awful lot of time on my hands. Companies round here are sending 2 plus truck and chipper out for £300/day or so.

I only know one person who really made a go of charcoal. He made a living, but he was putting so much effort into it, it burnt him out (scuse the pun..!). Part of the problem's marketing it, and getting a network of outlets established. Here are a few figures, anyway.. I've read that, if you had 2 kilns on the go, one burning and one being loaded and unloaded, it's reckoned you could produce 4 tonnes a month or so. Once this is bagged up into 3 kg sacks, people here were selling it wholesale for £1/kg..so theoretically, that's £4,000/month. Whether that's feasible for 1 person to do, I'm not sure. I reckon you'd be at it 60 hours/week, and that would only cover loading from stacks near the kiln, burning, unloading, screening, weighing and packing. The conversion rate people get here is 6 tonnes seasoned cordwood producing 1 tonne charcoal, so for every month you intend to burn, you'd need 24 tonnes extracted stacked and seasoned for a year at the burn site. You still have to do all the admin stuff like buying bags, finding outlets, taking orders and making deliveries. Plus, you may have to move the kiln around to different woods several times a year. I'd say if you were producing that much, it would take 2 of you, so turning over £4,000, taking off all your overheads etc and dividing that by 2 doesn't leave you with much..I'd guess £250 a week. The bloke I know who did this is based in South Yorks. I could find a number for him if you wanted to take it further. Also, I know of a few courses that may happen next year, based in North Notts. If you're interested in those, I'll pm you a contact number.

..or a wizard's sleeve. also.."face like a sackful of spanners" or.."face like a burning orphanage" "If I had a face like that, I'd teach my arse to speak"

..just like the Japanese vs the British bike and car industry.

Hard to tell..they might have simply removed a buttress.

Most companies I know of, the profit isn't that massive..a lot of employees can't see the difference between turnover and profit (ie what the boss gets to keep). Also, where did the job come from in the first place? Every job has to be visited and quoted for, probably half of those may come back as goers, they all have to be planned for, and it's the boss that does all that..usually during evenings and weekends. When I had employees, if they did a 40 hour week, I would do 60. Perhaps I was being greedy here, but I felt I deserved a bit of pay for those extra hours.

Yes, and the sapwood is strong and resilient enough, unlike the heartwood. Once they've cross cut the butt, they quarter each section, cleave these and shape the clefts into blanks, using only the sapwood. After seasoning, the blanks will be worked into bat blades, often using hand tools such as draw knives, spokeshaves etc. The best quality stuff is at the base of the tree, and these will go for test match quality bats, which could sell for £400 + each - another reason why they try and fell them without making a sink cut.

Perhaps try making sapwood cuts into the hinge, so that the hinge is just heartwood. They only use the sapwood, so that might help protect it from splits or tears. I'd be interested to see some pictures..

I've got a short article on cricket bat willow. Part of it says.. "As the grain in this timber is especially long and the greatest value is nearest the ground, there must be no possibility of there being a split or tear during felling. this means that the tree must be felled with a single cut from front to back using wedges each side to prevent the saw from being trapped. The lack of a hinge to direct the fell necessitates the use of winch ropes, but nothing can be done to prevent the always possible kick back. " That's all it says on felling..

That doesn't sound good. The chimney will need to be swept somehow..any chance of fitting a door or cover on the elbow to allow access for the brushes? As for building regs, I'd agree with giving them the two fingers, in principle..but if the worst came to the worst, and there was a fire caused by the burner, would your buildings insurance company use it as a way of invalidating your policy?

If you have money, i'd think very, very hard before sinking it into a tree surgery business at the moment..maybe any business. If you've seen the news recently, you'll know there's a lot of uncertainty in the economy, and if there is a downturn, tree work will be one of the first things to go.

Well, I'm not bothered about owning..the only problem I've had is landlords' antics. This one's ok, apart from the fact that the rent goes up 6% p a.

Totally agree, Ed. I've had similar, with people leaving - along with a few of the tools, I suspect - once they think they know it all. I had one, who was always on about setting up on his own, had the nerve to tap up the council countryside officer for whom we were working, when he came on a site visit ! Also, in my experience, the ones who moan about how hard they're working to line their boss' pockets are also the first to plonk their arses down and roll a fag once the boss leaves the site.

Related to this.. I'm burning wood on an open fire at the place where I rent, but it's not that great. I think a lot of the heat just goes up the chimney, and it draws in a lot of cold air from outside, so the ground floor never warms up that much. There is a back boiler, which does an ok job of heating radiators and water. I can't really afford to spend a lot of money on having stoves and chimney liners fitted. however, a friend has suggested I simply fabricate a door with adjustable vents and fit it into the fireplace, then treat the whole thing as an insert stove. I'm not so sure about the idea, and am worried that it might cause expensive problems, or even a fire. Has anyone done something similar ?

Ditto that. I've had more than a few working for me that thought they'd do so much better on their own..none of them have really got anywhere, as far as I know. like others have said, you're probably looking at a 50% increase in your hours of work for a start.

Cabinet makers. A company called Titchmarsh & Goodwin of Suffolk advertise in the RFS journal for walnut min girth 80" butt length 6'. It would probably need to be grade 1.their number is 01473 252158

Probably teaching granny to suck eggs here, but.. If you burn wood, you need to keep the chimney swept clean..at least once a year, probably twice. The best way to get tar buildups is to burn unseasoned wood.

No..I've heard it called a fan cut before. As for the boring cut for the hung up tree, I've heard someone call that one a letterbox cut. I knew one guy who failed a unit he was taking retrospectively because he couldn't explain what a dog tooth cut was..even though he had used that cut many times before, but didn't know anyone called it a dog tooth cut; he called it something entirely different. He wasn't happy about that!