benedmonds

Growing on wood chip?

Laetiporus sulphureus. The Chicken of the Woods IMO.

I saw a presenatation by an Italian prof a few years back on it. It looked really flakey.. Only his daughter could read the results and the sun affected it. It's also bloody expensive!

You don't have to let trees grow to their full size, they can be cut down before then. I wouldn't worry about whats going to happen in ten years..

Partnerships can work. There are downsides but many benifits.. You need just the right partner.

The flat rate scheme you pay 9% but charge 17.5..

We dumped our subbie last month. We'd had been using him 3 or 4 days a week to keep on top of things at the start of the year (he's OK got farming stuff to do). The phone is very quiet and I'm also finding that council contracts are getting worth even less as everyone is dropping the price to get the work! 6 weeks work booked in would be great we've 2 at most..

There is a female tree in Christchurch New Zealand in the arts centre, they used to pick the stinking fruit from the MEWP.

Sorry first picture shows underside and dessicated bracket

Several brackets up to about 3m on an ash. aprox 30cm across. My thoughts are Inonotus hispidusbut most stock photo's have a a white underside. Second photo shows blck dessicated bracket.

Skyhuck - Sharpenning a chain on site is never as good as in a work shop.. and it holds the job up. I don't know what type of work you generally do but if you hit something with a big saw it takes way more than minutes to sharpen it. Chogging down urban trees and having to cut them in to small bits means you often incounter all sorts of crud at all sorts of levels. Just because I have eight chains on the go for a saw doesn't mean i'm going to use more chains in the long run. I rekon they last longer, as I don't knacker them by using them when blunt. I've blunted 8 chains on one trunk before, sharpenning big saws on site IMO is a last resort. And I hate the round files which sometimes only last one chain!

We carry at least two spare chains for each saw in each truck and have 7 or 8 chains of each size in use at one time. I won't use a blunt chain. When it's blunt we can quickly change it. All the blunt chains go on a big hook and on an early finish or in the morning if we're farting around our groundie can sharpen them with the grinder. It's way quicker than by hand and although it does require some skill and attention it's much easier to get it right on a machine. As to groundies that don't use a saw, we have a subbie, an ex farmer who is the best groundie you are ever likely to find. He will use a saw and we put him through the NPCT but most days he won't bother. He doesn't have to use chainsaw trousers so can drag and lump logs longer, better and faster.. Our other full time groundie is just frightening and I hold my breath everytime he picks a saw up and sticks it in the dirt!

I came back from a week off last week and the guys had fed one through the chipper.. Blew the bearing, flywheel etc.. £2500 later might get the chipper back..

This guy is often phoning me to buy our chip, unfortunately access to our pile and the fact its now mixed with horse poo means we've never bothered. I think you have to load it aswell. I'm not sure how much they pay. 01797 252 728

Fristads do a goretex hi viz. Not cheap but I love mine.. There is something about being in the pissing rain but still dry.. http://www.workweartrading.co.uk/prodselect.asp?pg=404

The other side has apparently fallen out now! I'll go and check it in the morning..

Who's using it online? I've done 3 so far but don't think it's set up properly for TPO applications.. I've had one letter back from the LPA asking for a plan even though I included one electronically.. What do you do when it asks for supporting documentation, which you don't require for TPO applications? It's a pain as it won't let you submit without all the "required info." I've been calling the file name "not required" and ticking the send by post box..? I've yet to have one accepted...

I've got the cannon D60, only 6MP, it was one of their pro digital SLRs a few years back. I love it. More sturdy then the 350's and the 400's. It's the lens that makes the difference and I had several from my cannon 35mm which work fine.

My labrador cross

I've said it before IMO the best vehicle for general domestic arb work is two 3.5 tonners. A single 3.5 tonner is too small most days, but there are lighter just as profitable days when a small truck is fine. I don't know how much more it costs to run a 7.5 tonner but I bet it's not much less than the two transits. Loads of other advantages of having two trucks, which I won't repeat.. Obviously 4wd is sometimes necessary but we've got that covered with a tractor and the Pinin.

I have had a powerstation ringing me offering £7 a ton. I'll see if I can find the number.

Does anyone have any information on different foundation designs. Or experience using piles or radial strip footings? How would you specify in a Method Statement? Would you need to have an engineer to have designed the size of piles? Would you then specify hand digging..? So many questions... Is there a good source of information anywhere which can show some of the solutions to construction in an RPA? I've done the BS5837 course at treescapes and I'm happy now writing a report where the buildings are not within the RPA but in the real world RPA's can be surfaced and using the correct design can be built over where can I find out about these other options?[/b

From the QTRA newsletter (which you qtra guys presumably get..) Goode v City of Burnside (2007) SAERDC4 (14 February 2007) A QTRA user who was concerned about the implications of this judgment has asked if we could make it available for public download on our website, which we have done and it can now be found on the downloads section of the website. Additionally, the following is an extract from a paper presented to the 2007 TreeNet annual symposium and seeks to illustrate the misinterpretation of QTRA that took place in this hearing. In the Australian case of Goode v City of Burnside [2007], the court considered an appeal against the Council’s decision to refuse permission for the removal of two River Red Gum trees (Eucalyptus camaldulensis sub sp. camaldulensis). Two issues were considered. 1) The risk from failure of the trees, or part thereof, 2) damage to the tree owner’s dwelling from root activity. The Judgment of Commissioner Hodgson makes various references to QTRA and its application by the Council’s arboriculturist Mr. Lodge. There are two important issues relating to QTRA that are raised in the judgement and there appears to be misunderstanding by the Commissioner of both the inputs and outputs of the QTRA method. Firstly, the Commissioner, at paragraph 18 of the judgment, states “In response to questions from the Court, Mr Lodge acknowledged that there was a fair measure of subjectivity entailed in the assignment of scores to the three criteria under this method (Matheny and Clark 1994). That being the case, I have little confidence in the rating arrived at as an accurate reflection of the risk associated with the subject trees.” At paragraph 25, the Commissioner says “It seems to me that the Ellison methodology suffers from the same defect as the Hazard Rating system, namely, that it requires a fair measure of subjectivity in determining the probability of failure and the size of branch most likely to fail, these in turn having a significant effect on impact potential”. The Commissioner proceeds at paragraph 27 to suggest, without any particular qualification, that he finds the evidence of Mr. Nicolle, expert for the Appellant, more persuasive. It is apparent from the Commissioner’s concerns over the subjective judgement required in the assessment of tree-failure risk, that he does not fully understand the underlying concepts. In the context of the Commissioner’s comments on this matter, the term ‘subjective’ is broadly synonymous with ‘judgement’ or ‘a person’s views’ (Concise Oxford English Dictionary 2007). It is not and has never been claimed that QTRA is wholly objective and it is clear that a risk assessment cannot be so. As with any method of assessing tree safety, the judgement of the assessor based upon his knowledge and experience is required whether the risk assessment is an overview of a large tree population or a detailed assessment of an individual tree and its situation. The evidence of Mr Nicolle on the matter of potential for branch failure was no less subjective than that of Mr Lodge who had in fact limited the subjective input to his assessment by applying the structure of the QTRA method. Secondly, the Commissioner states at paragraph 24 of the judgment “Mr Nicolle’s evidence was that the limbs most likely to fail in Tree 1 were 300mm or more in diameter. If that diameter were substituted for the 100mm diameter used in Mr Lodge’s calculation of risk of harm, with no other change, the risk would, on my calculations, become 1/592, clearly unacceptable against the criteria underlying Mr Lodge’s calculations. Were the probability of failure reduced to a level consistent with Mr Lodge’s survey of failure in this species, the risk of harm, based on the Ellison methodology, would be, on my calculations, 1/5,920, again greater than the posited acceptable level of risk of 1/10,000”. What the Commissioner did not consider is that large branches are inherently more stable than small branches and the 300mm diameter branch exhibiting no signs of significant defect would have a far lower likelihood of failure than the 100mm diameter branch and that this reduction in the ‘Probability of Failure‘ component of the QTRA would reduce the risk of harm in both cases to below the proposed acceptable threshold. Thirdly, At paragraph 21, the Commissioner cites the QTRA journal paper thus. “Having read that paper and carefully considered Mr Lodge’s evidence, I have significant reservations about the utility of the Quantified Tree Risk Assessment System in providing a reliable measure of the risk represented by a particular tree or trees. The precise nature of the way in which "Risk of Harm" is expressed suggests a level of accuracy and reliability not borne out by a close examination of the inputs to the calculation of that risk.” Here the Commissioner makes a reasoned observation and indeed is correct in that expressing the QTRA ‘Risk of Harm’ output to as many as four significant figures QTRA outputs infer a level of precision that does not exist. This is not a problem with the utility of the QTRA method, because inputs can involve precision, but with the way in which outputs are expressed. The QTRA system benefits from considerable input and feedback from licensed users through an internet discussion forum on which the topic of precision has been discussed. At the next revision the significant figures used in QTRA outputs will be reduced. Users of the Quantified Tree Risk Assessment system are trained in application of the system and should possess the skills to apply the method to the assessment of tree-failure risk. Providing evidence on the underlying principles of QTRA requires a greater level of understanding and currently few people have that in depth understanding of the subject. For the future, Quantified Tree Risk Assessment Limited will provide a review service and will compile a register of individuals who have attained sufficient understanding of the system to provide confidential review and guidance to other users.

Who has done the course and has an opinion? If you haven't done the course your opinion is valued (but less so...)

I think you've got to get them done by a big expensive machine. You can't just use an angle grinder... I might be wrong. We go to a local dealer it's not expensive. I think saturn blades sharpen too but you have to add postage.