benedmonds

I have not used anyone for tendering but I have looked into it a few times. I can't get my head around spending thousands on a gamble, when you can just get underpriced and I don't see how these experts are going to help on that score.. My latest unsuccessful bid came back today, after days of my time wasted. Winning bid £23,500. Mine £46,595.. At least I hadn't also wasted thousands on a consultant.. If you do try someone would be interested in the out come. You will need deep pockets. We used Paul Elcoat before we became ARB approved to bring us up to spec and he can help if he isn't already doing it for someone else.. [email protected] Carol Huslter at TEDs friend did the "getting tender ready" for the Arb association [email protected] Simon Cox has also been recommended to me but never actually got past a brief email conversation and his hourly rate.. [email protected]

£5000 buys a lot of gas. And nothing is free.. Your time, fuel, saws, log splitters, etc... If it is logs you are planning to burn and If you weren't burning them you could be selling them, so while you might not be paying for the logs each bag you burn is still lost income. The only way burning "waste wood" economically makes sense in my opinion is if you have a big biomass burner where the wood needs little processing.

When I was a student I worked as a street sweeper. Some of the guys on the teams used to chuck their lunch waste out the trucks.. So not sure making kids litter pick would help. Some people are just wnkwrs

Is it really worth doing? I love a log burner, but they are an expensive way to heat a room...

I have the TP link jobbies and it was working fine, but keeps not working, which is annoying... Spud yours sounds complicated... We are fibre to the box but copper to the house..

Not tree related but there is too much information on the whole internet, I don't know what to believe and I could do with unbiased simple advice.. Is it worth buying an after market wifi router? My wifi has been unreliable.. I have boosters but it has been crashing on some devices while being ok on others..? Will it be simple to install? Can I get one that I can set up restrictions, so I can boot the kids off when they are supposed to be revising or sleeping..

One of my lads uses samsung earbuds, they fit nice and have an ambient mode that is supposed to let you hear speech.

No animals.... While we could just get a contractor in, we requested funds thinking we might get a couple of hundred "to go towards a mower" the show committee who donated the cash were very generous and the money was donated so we could "buy" a mower, so feel our hands our bit tied... I had to accept the cheque and give a thank you speech, which was pretty embarrassing as all the other donations they had given out where for this or that worthy cause saving or making lives better. I got one of the biggest cheques to cut grass round our trees... A scythe mower and some folk with rakes might be best option..

No

I help maintain a community orchard, it covers about 1.5 acres, we have just been donate a chunk of cash from our village show and have got about £1,300 to buy a mower. We did do it one year with a 53cm walk behind but it is a pretty big space and we want a wild flower meadow.. We have been getting a local farmer to mow for us, but this means it is dependant on their timings, this has limited our ability to cut at suitable times for the wild flowers and the grass it not collected... What do folk think would be most suitable. My avant is too small to run a flail but could probably tow a powered one and we might be able to borrow the cricket clubs tractor (they use a tow behind gang mower) and that is currently the way I am thinking.. We would have to rake up the cuttings? I know hand scythes would be cheapest but we are all volunteers and time limited.. and have been given cash for mower... Are the sickle bar/scythe mowers any good?

Does anyone know what the safe working distances are from one of these?

Cheers [email protected]

Does anyone have a template for a hire agreement they would be willing to give me. For a chipper. "Will bring it back" "Will pay for repairs etc.."

Not sure a 6 inch chipper needs 130hp... I know nearly nothing about engines but you could skip all the emission legislation and jump straight to electric. Thinking about it electric probably could work well for chippers, up to speed very quickly and they often don't actually need to run for very long in the day. The weight of the batteries should not be a major issue (if you ignore the stupid sub 750kg market.) I am sure there is a marked for councils trying to be carbon neutral... But I agree we are probably more then a few years away..

Surely it would not take a rocket engineer to wire one of these up to a chipper. This is a ready to go system that hits 130 horsepower and a whopping 213 foot pounds of torque! A big battery pack and your good to go. Curtis 1238e-7621 HPEVS Dual AC-34 Brushless Motor Kit - 96 Volt, EV West - Electric Vehicle Parts, Components, EVSE Charging Stations, Electric Car Conversion Kits WWW.EVWEST.COM

Our little avant is not really up to powering a flail, anyone know, would one of these powered ones be better/work?

My guess is an electric chipper.. Do I win one if I am right?

I don't get your point. I think you will also find Rail track remove and actively prevent trees on their land growing large next to the tracks. Trees don't live forever, one day all these 1000s of big trees will need to be removed. In this case it is difficult, it will be difficult now and likely more difficult in the future.. The tree owner is responsible for the tree and have to ensure it is safe, long term the cheapest and surest is to remove it..

A report is not going to do anything but decrease their bank balance. It is a big tree next to a train line. It doesn't need work doing now.. but it will do one day. No survey can guarantee the tree is 100% safe. We all have some caveat in our surveys saying "trees are living creatures etc etc..." Yes they could keep putting the problem off, pay for annual surveys and hope the tree outlives them..

If it is a big chipper let us know asap as we need one..

I think I have a brand new never used one, still in a box. I exchanged mine after the recall but haven't climbed since.

No-one will buy the house, it has a massive tree that will cost £100,000s to remove... My original advice was do nothing (inspect), but the client wants to do something and the problem is not going to go away if they do nothing. The tree could outlive us all but someone will have to deal with it sometime...

Thanks for the ideas. I am not sure the crane removal option would work/be affordable. It would need to be a massive crane.. The tree is 45m from the road, it is probably 4 or 5m up a bank and about 25m tall. We would need a road closure. We would need to move residents from their homes. We would need ground stability testing, we had to cancel a crane job 5 mins away last year as railtrack got in a huff. I guess it could be done in the 45 min breaks between trains but I would probably need 2 days. Using a smaller crane just to lift the waste over the house might work although there is not a lot of space not covered by tree. I contemplated felling it into the gardens but it is weighted in such away that I think we would likely flatten half the house (although this still might be a cost effective way forward.) Doing without Railtrack permission is not something I would even contemplate. Potential fines would be astronomical....

After some inspiration... I have a client with a large beech 20m tall approx 5m from main railway line. Currently in good health, with no issues. Small garden with limited area to stack and narrow 1m wide access to get all the waste out... The client wants to reduce the tree.. First issue is that there is no point doing minor reduction as it is going to be a ball ache and so needs to last. But if we do 5m reduction, we are stressing the tree to a level that might create issues to a currently healthy tree... Then the practicalities.... Rail track need a track closure, if we are going to do any works which could fall within 3m of the track (so any works) Day time week day closure is about £100,000 a day. So not really an option. A full block could only be nights. Not sure on price yet.. Or Sundays would give 45 minutes on, half hour off and so on, at best, at least £1,800 a day. The Client has to pay the costs of Railtrack There is no point throwing men at it as the limited access is going to restrict the rate ot the works on the ground. I would want 2 days for the reduction in the day.. But with 45mins on 30 mins off that is going to push it to 3 days at least possibly 4. I have never tried reducing a tree at night? But don't think that is going to be quicker and pretty sure neighbours won't be happy with chipper running through the night. We could just remove the tree as long term it is an issue but that is going to take even longer... The cheapest option might be just felling it on the house and clearing it up.. Or stick head in sand and make sure they have decent insurance..

Not necessarily, in this case it is just as likely the client thought: "this chap doesn't know what he is doing, I will get a professional" (no offence intended Paul). While in many (most) instances price is the main factor it is not always. We often have clients who tell us we were not the cheapest quote, but we were; the most professional looking, trusted us, had been recommended by a friend, didn't like the other guy etc.. Also he could have priced too low.. If you get 3 quotes 2 are similar and one is way lower you are going to think something is wrong with the cheap one..