benedmonds

I am speaking from my experience. I know what I pay, what I can afford to pay and what freelancers ask for. Not what I read on an internet forum.. Suggesting that "Any subby/freelancer going out for much less than £200/day is on a hiding to nothing" is raising expectations . and you get threads like: https://arbtalk.co.uk/forums/topic/109455-time-to-hang-up-my-spikes/ Maybe I am doing it wrong and other tree surgery companies are somehow managing to charge double what I am, but I doubt it.. The market is filled with new wannabees who charge low rates either by mistake or to win work, dodgy folk not sticking to the rules, without insurance/training/waste management etc, employees and farmers doing it at the weekend for beer money and old timers who have not raised their rates in line with inflation.

At £200 a day you are not going to get any work round here.. No one around me asks that sort of rate unless they have a truck and chipper. Eggs as I understand it you are NOT a freelance climber and you do not employ Freelance climbers if you did you would not be in business..

As a freelancer you should set your day rate, if your not happy with it go elsewhere. If your employer is not happy with it they don't have to use you.. It's a market..

The trees are going to be in out of the way places so being un-slightly shouldn't be an issue, it you don't do straight lines it would be less noticeable.. Have you considered ring barking limbs rather then the whole trees, you could create a more varied potentially longer lasting DW habitat.. I like the blow torch idea but think you would be surprised how versatile trees are and it would only take a bit of intact cambium layer for the tree to survive the treatment. This will delight some.. £175 to kill a tree? https://www.gov.uk/countryside-stewardship-grants/creation-of-dead-wood-habitat-on-trees-te13 What happened to coronet cutting, it was a hot topic on hear a few years back.. Are folk still doing it, I haven't seen any done for ages..?

We have a hiab that can fit on our tractor, it does not have a grab and is never used.. we find loading logs quicker with the forks. has anyone used lifting tongs? for £100 it might not be a grab but might make the HIAB more useful? https://www.tcfengineering.co.uk/timber-tongs.html

Then write a report that is completely ignored by the developers... Depressing...

And you'll get fat... (er) or have to exercise..

Assuming it is you wanting to go Self Employed Look at it from your bosses point of view, he has trained you and got you to the position where you are and is paying you a reasonable wage, should be providing you holiday, ppe, pension, equipment, training etc.. He doesn't want you to leave if you are freelance you can drop him with no notice and leave him without a climber. He should NOT be employing you full time, but calling you freelance as that makes you an employee and he could be liable for holiday, pensions, tax etc.. If you are doing your own bits and bobs, can he trust that when a neighbour asks for works that you are going to give him the job or will you steal it? Is it in his interest to provide you a handy way of building a business that will be in direct competition to his own? As others have said if you are £90 a day PAYE the £130 is probably not going to be a pay rise and would probably cost the employer less.. It however could cause friction between other employees who might not understand the difference between PAYE and freelance rates. People on here are constantly comparing paye day rates with freelance rates in a stupid manner. We have done it the other way lots of times and taken on freelancers who then go full time, they get what looks like a big pay cut in their daily rates.. If I did it the other way I would be looking for a replacement employee pretty quick and as soon as he/she were found chances are you would lose that regular work.. It's not that simple..

I think you meant Eddie. But I agree with your advice do the level 4. Had Eddie still been working for me I would have encouraged him to do the level 4 but alas he decided to leave and is now poaching my staff... People do say the level 4 is a MAJOR commitment... Not sure it is ever going to lead to the "job of your dreams..." but could extend your lifespan in the tree industry beyond working on the tools.

Use that time you have sitting on your backside in the rain to do the level 4. The PTI is not a training course.. You used to be able to do one day a fortnight at tree life in Syston. http://www.treelifeac.co.uk/training/qcf-level-4

Our 2450 grinder has been having repeated issues with the remote... I have posted about it on here before.. We found someone to look and the remote and he changed some switches and sorted that for a while, but it is being temperamental again. We had a bandit engineer look at it and we now think the receiver unit is playing up. The guy who sorted the remote works out of the back of a dog grooming salon and I don't think can deal with the whole grinder. Bandit (sorry Dean) are not helpful, saying we have to send the unit to the states, cost and turnaround make this a poor proposition, especially as we are not 100% sure what the issue is.. Surely there must be a localish electrical engineer who can help..

I might be wrong but I think the 3 door has a 3 ton limit. I took the seats out wrapped the windows and registered it as a van, the 4x4 never worked and never got round to getting it fixed it as we got a LR 130 for the off road stuff. I am pretty sure the previous owner had used it pretty hard, but we never had any mechanical issues. It ended up mainly used for quoting and it was so thirsty I had to get rid. I did like driving it. and if I could justify it would get a land cruiser in an instant..

I'd consider swapping our 130 for one of these.. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORD-F350-SUPERDUTY-7-3-POWER-STROKE-Diesel/202245039731?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D43781%26meid%3Df705db3d37ec47d3b965ae1760415424%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D282804180870%26itm%3D202245039731&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

The OP doesn't need anything tax deductible except an axe.. Split the wood yourself whenever you get a spare hour. Leave it to season for 2 years, don't spend any money, sell small quantities (sacks possibly barrow bags) at a relatively high price to local people. Hand ball everything. How much "beer money" do you need.

If its beer money, just use an axe on "free" arb arisings..

When it first changed I didn't like it. I have got used to it now it doesn't take long..

Anyone seen these? http://jsbmini.com/en/

I don't think there is an easy way.. Just do the C1+ E training... then you can drive a 7.5 tonner with the 3.5 ton trailer.. Assuming you have your Operators licence.. Or go down the agri route.. with a mog?

They are only 10 inches, too small to make that worthwhile. We did it with a whole tree chipper with really big butts once. Although top be honest since moving to 10 inch chippers we have not bothered with the whole tree chippers. Anything over 10 inches can be transported pretty well in log form and little point processing it further on site.. The log in the foreground was split with a digger so it could be chipped.. Made a right mess..

I am not sure. In the early days we rammed it full of chip and took it over a weight bridge and it was just over the 6.5. I did post it on here but it was many years ago.. I have never weighed it empty..

On a pre 97 licence you are restricted to the 8.25 GTW as previously stated.. The smaller iveco comes in a 6.5, 6 and 5ton variant. Ours has been a good truck.. way better then the 3.5 ton version.. The 7.5 tonner is considerably bigger but on your pre97 licence you can only tow 750kgs... Unfortunately I don't believe you can just add the trailer bit, you have to do the whole HGV training.. We have not had the 7.5 tonner long but it is a different beast to the 6 tonner..

My "web consultants" used to post things on my facebook, that I would see and immediately take off as it was utter rubbish and used to make me cringe... My web site is still full of bits that I don't like to look at as it's naff. But I don't trust anyone to sort it out and am too busy (and a luddite) to try and do it myself..

I have ignored 2 calls from our nice lady at yell last week, I just can't face the hard sell. They sit you down and talk at you and show graphs, fiddle with calculators tell you about the number of hits on their web site etc etc... . Being on the boarder of 3 books it always cost us a fortune but it is coming down each year.. We still have a presence, no idea if its worth it ... Its the internet guys now who are the real sharks. Twice I have been duped... I was promised the world from this one firm and we were paying £500 a month so expected a fair bit.. To be fair I think they did a lot at the start, building the web site and creating some links but after a year or so all we were getting was a sheet showing us how we ranked in google. I asked them to explain what they were doing each month for us and they couldn't/wouldn't. When I said we no longer wanted there services they threatened to shut down our web site, and would post me the files on a DVD... Luckily I owned the domain so they couldn't in the end but I found NO difference in calls after we dropped them.. I need to find a web guru who I can trust... Any recommendations..?