benedmonds

I spent a summer in Bimini in the Bahamas tagging sharks with them, 20 years ago.. Apparently they will normally last the life of the shark and they are still doing it. http://www.biminisharklab.com/Shark Research

It's tricky, the council TO's rarely care about the ongoing costs. I have an appeal in at the moment where a client can't sell his house as the garden is basically a tree... He has been living there 40 years with this tree, a nice enough tree but totally unsuitable for a small garden. It is unfair that to sell his house he would have to massively reduce the cost of his property. He is paying a HUGE cost for the perceived benefit of the many..

My ear piece goes in at 7am and stays in till dinner..

I noticed my EE booster did not work at speeds around 2mg.

I have an EE signal booster. Without it I can't get a signal in the house. I don't know how it works but you need to have reasonable broadband as it did not work when broadband was running at 2mg. Now with fibre at 60mg It is fine.. My solution when it wasn't working was to leave my phone hanging outside the front door were I could get a signal and wear my Bluetooth earpiece while in the house... Not an elegant solution but it meant I missed less calls...

The kanga is lower only 1.2m so just high enough to get the logs onto the back but not really high enough to tip them off. If I could get one for £3,000 I think I would as on certain sites they would be very useful. But you do need a road way across lawns.. What we need is a mini hovercraft.. or even better a drone..

We demoed a kanga today, on the sort of domestic job that make up a lot of our work. Clearing a back garden felling some smallish trees largest 15m tall. probably a 3.5 tonner load of logs and a 7.5 tonner of chip.. So a fair amount to shift. The tracks are 800 wide but the grab is 900. The passage way was 890.. We get it in the small garden and handball the grab in, and didn't take me long to realise it was going to make a massive mess.. I am sure they have their uses but for the domestic stuff that makes up 90% of my work, I can't see it being much help. On bigger sites maybe but then a bigger machine would be better.. http://www.kangaloader.co.uk/shop/i-3-3-kanga-tk216---kid---2-series--tracked-mini-loader---16hp-honda-petrol/

I know there have been a few threads in the past but nothing for a while. I am talking really mini. The walk behinds, kanga, skidster, boxter, etc.. Are they any good for domestic tree work.. The avant etc are too big to get into most domestic gardens and we have a proper tractor we use if access is good, these smaller walk behinds look like they could be helpful but who uses one and are they worth the hefty price tag..

We were insured with them for years, one year I checked the small print in our renewal and it mentioned we were not covered to work at height.. No one at NFU had thought to highlight this to us..

I saw you...

Katie ran a course for us. Worth doing. Much better then the non specific red cross ones.. we had space for a few more so invited other local arb firms. Helped keep costs down. .

We are considering no replacing ours, the guys love them but they are just not up to the abuse they get. I have a feeling they are being used when really a 200t would be more suitable... I am sure an owner operator who looks after and moves to a bigger saw when they need to would get many happy years use but when not loved they don't seem to last long.

Different thread..

I have had this and some staff find it difficult to understand that it costs more than just their days wages. If you take additional time of unpaid then it should theoretically effect your holiday entitlement... and it is a pain in the planning.. I try to be fair and accommodating and will let guys work a day in liew on Saturdays if they need extra days off. We also stipulate in the contract that we can choose when a certain number of the days off are as we want a shutdown over Christmas..

Me too.. again it makes me think some of us old timers are keeping the rates down.. I am at the cheaper half, where I have always tried to compete on doing a better more efficient job.

Following on from the thread on rates, I thought we could try a poll. Many (including myself) are not comfortable putting actual figures on a public forum and I find even in private most don't share their rates and the few that do may not be representative.. A poll should allow us to anonymously post rates and see where we fit in the scheme of things... My hope is that some will realise the error of their ways and increase their rates...Allowing us all to earn more for less work.. I know there will be regional differences but to try to minimise that can anyone from the SE and London just not take part..you can have your own poll I also know people have different kit and therefore different rates but if you adjust your quote for a team consisting of climber, second climber and groundie with a 3.5 ton truck and 6 inch chipper. An average 8 hour day, standard domestic or commercial works... To make it comparable include VAT if VAT registered

In a commercial operation it is difficult to give the new climbers the climbing experience, as that would mean the the work is being completed at a slower rate and the climber is working on the ground and therefore not working to their potential. This is why it is so expensive to train staff. its not the cost of the courses its the time.. You need to find an employer who is willing to give you the opportunity to get the experience. It is catch 22, you are slow and uneconomic so you don't get the experience, and as you don't get any experience you never get faster.. Do as other have said. Practice in your own time, always offer to jump up the small stuff. Offer to do a bit at the start or the end if there is time. Work doubly hard on the ground so there is an extra time for you to fanny about in the tree.. One thing I used to do on big reduces was have the newbee up the tree at the start, as at that point you would normally have 2 guys watching you...it gave them the opportunity to climb the tree, see me doing it and do a bit but when the groundie was becoming swamped I would send them down.. The other really useful thing is to work for a company doing street trees as there is almost always the opportunity to do some climbing during the day..

If you can tow over 750kgs don't bother with a sub 750Kg machine.... They must make some compromises to keep the weight down. If you are looking a used machine you can get big chippers for similar costs to the smaller ones that can last longer..

How much do you sell a 3.5 ton truck load of chip for? Don't post if you give it away, I am not interested... Most of our chip goes to biomass we are paid around £8 or £9 a ton.. but we get a few calls for can I have truck load, I am happy to do it but the faff loading and delivering means I don't think it's really worth doing for less then £80. Yet we sell our bulk bags of logs delivered locally for that.. There is a lot more work in logs...

Place we went great for beginners and about 1 third the price of the alps..

Making efficiency savings are great, in the same way being a bigger size company can also make savings as costs are not always proportional. But more profit from your increased efficiency would be nicer.. and if you are charging the same as 10 years ago you might be helping to keep prices down... I agree competition is healthy and there has been alot of talk about what the market allows etc, but we can't compare prices like a supermarket.. I rarely know what others have charged, sometimes I hear and my price seems expensive sometimes the opposite.. From the feedback on this thread is sounds like many go out quoting, thinking what do I need to win this job.. My prices have increased a little below the rates they should have, if others in the industry are doing the same we are contributing to setting the market rate. I don't have a solution and am not suggesting price fixing. It is a pretty easy industry to set up in. A few months training a few grands kit and your a tree surgeon. Ex forces guys can get free training and have the resources to set up, new guys out of college with a few grand inheritance, off you go.. It is also a lifestyle career with people doing it because they enjoy it and have huge amounts of kit that is paid for and they are never going to replace so do it like a hobby,.. It is not an easy industry to become rich from in my experience although you can make a living.. There are many reasons the rates are what they are but I think some of us who have been in it along time are not helping... How many of us have a Mrs Miggin's hedge that we have been doing for years that is still the same price...? As was discussed in another thread, expectations have changed, 20 years ago we were happy to live with old cars and no heating, today everyone expects the newest mobile, TV, warm house and a new car. That's good it's progress.. My reason for starting the thread was highlight the fact that some of us might not be moving with the times.. and if everyone increased their rates I could go skiing in the alps instead of the Czech rebublic..

The guys are enjoying our new yellow Eurocargo..

Threads on here about wages are always end up stupid as folk end up not comparing like for like. Also remember (this has been discussed here before) the HMRC would classify your groundie as employed and therefore technically could claim all the benefits you have not been giving them... so be careful with your £130 groundie, the HMRC turn around and chase his employer the tax he hasn't been paying. and He could take you to an employment tribunal and get his holiday pay, sick pay and even sue for unfair dismissal.. It is why I have moved over from employing people "free lance" to employed. Unfortunately potential employees see threads like this and think they should be on £130 a day grounding "that's what Bootroyd pays..."

Is this PAYE, paying for their training, 28 days holiday, sick leave, pension, etc.. thats £33,800 a year, you must be doing something right...

Why would I want to buy a house in the SE? I grew up in London and moved away the first opportunity I got. I am not moaning. merely pointing out that many of us have not raised our prices as much as we should have and that the truths often stated like house prices always going up are not as true as we all thought when you actually look at it. Maybe the oft stated truth that it is new startups that keep the prices down is actually wrong, maybe it is old timers who's prices haven't kept track on inflation is keeping them down.