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arboriculturist

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Everything posted by arboriculturist

  1. arboriculturist
  2. arboriculturist
    If you have the infrastructure in place like gdh, you want to fully utilise that investment. Many industries run 24/7/365 therefore maximum the return on investment. That's taking things to the extreme of course. Just look at processed food manufacturing and how many of the largest player process their competitors products to optimise their facilities usage. The very best business entrepreneurs are able to develop 'seasonal' business to extend the seasonal norm into a far longer time span. Very quickly that became clear to me and I use every marketing strategy I know of to increase turnover even if the margins are reduced at certain times of year.
  3. arboriculturist
    Most people don't seem to cover their stacks and also the labour cost needs to be factored in, as well as prevailing outside air temperature conditions.
  4. arboriculturist
    How much do you think it would cost to dry per cube without the RHI tarrif with your chip boiler? Thanks
  5. arboriculturist
    We recently bought the Echo polewith HD gearbox. The cutting teeth are not as long as the rear handle Stihl which I would suggest is why it is not so easy to cut the really thick material. They are a tiny bit shorter than the Stihl pole. This is clearly a design which is engineered to protect the gears. Fitted 6 gearboxes to the Stihl even though greased after each fuul days cutting. Echo excellent on coniferous hedges.
  6. arboriculturist
    Rob D from Chainsaw Bars has just posted the special offer below - for those of you who missed out on his Black Friday deal this is the next best thing: https://www.chainsawbars.co.uk/?s=Echo+2511&submit=Search&post_type=product
  7. arboriculturist
    Just emailed you to see if any left at this Black Friday special price.
  8. arboriculturist
    It's also interesting when you deliver a cube, just how many new customer's say ' that's a lot of wood'. Sort of demonstrates what they have been used to.
  9. arboriculturist
    No more regulation please! Just sell by the m3 like all professional setups in the industry do. People soon work out the difference between a 'load' and a m3. Ignore those who choose to underprice others. We raised our prices and it made no difference to sales whatsoever as we focus on quality and those customers who are prepared to pay for a consistent quality product. Ash and Woodworks seem to operate along these lines and their businesses appear to be thriving.
  10. arboriculturist
    As has been said previously - set up a partnership registration with HMRC. To do this you would need to deregister the existing business then register afresh. Most importantly you need to pay a Solicitor to draft a Partnership agreement and get a decent Accountant. Good luck.
  11. arboriculturist
    Well you do have a small pole barn (pb) already ! The beauty of a pole barn is the higher you go stacking, the better the airflow, comined with more meterage for the same footprint. We do every possible move we can to improve airflow to Accelerate Drying. Unless you want to keep your operation completely off the radar, surely it is worth explooring the possibility of a PB, even though you are in the national park ?
  12. arboriculturist
    Clear tarp will have virtually no effect apart from keeping the rain of - most likely reduce air movement. Any covering needs to be well away from the top of the timber i.e min 300mm. Pole barn, quick and easy with a tractor auger and Tele G poles.
  13. arboriculturist
    Our Posch deck has 3 chains so not huge gaps. The short lengths get grabbed and into a trailer or dumper that can be moved to front of the deck. Then one person can drop all the short lengths into the conveyor channel while another processes the lot at one go. That the most efficient way we could deal with shorts. When grading through the stacks we swing and stack all bad bends and oversize to one side, where it gets crosscut and machine loaded to be moved as above or to a verticle splitter. Never touch the timber by hand until moving from dumper or trailer to conveyor channel or splitter table. Works well for us.
  14. arboriculturist
    Jameson every time. The solid filled poles designed for utility as they don't form condensation internally are not worth the extra unless you do full on utility work. Get the largest capacity loppper head Jameson do, together with the double U shape hook as you can push and pull hung up branches with it. Also get the alloy blade connecting head, but don't buy the blade - it has a usefull hook as part of the head. Get the alloy head and get it adapted to take Silky blades - nothing compares with a Zubat silky blade fitted. This is our setup we have used forever and having used the rest I would never change. Go to the workWARE website and put your postcode in the Find a dealer field - Then shop around. http://www.workware.co.uk/brands.php?brand=Jameson Good luck
  15. arboriculturist
    Totally agree - however we keep an oil can with machine in a tub at all times and oil blades every 10 mins continual use and re-grease gearbox every 10 hours. Stihl gearboxes still fail. We will soon be in the Echo era - as nothing can touch the 2511 for a climbing saw.
  16. arboriculturist
    Thanks for the replies. The Stihls gearboxes are underengineered for the job, so it going to be the Echo HCA-265ES-LW If its anything like their saws, its going to be a top knotch machine.
  17. arboriculturist
    Having used Stihl pole hedgetrimmers for at least 15 years and replaced about 7 sets of cutting head gear sets despite regular greasing - its time for a change of make, as changing those gears is a tedious task. Having used Echo saws and also searched previous threads - the Echo HCA-265ES-LW Long Reach Hedge Cutter seems to come to the top of the pile. I would welcome others opinions for sure though.
  18. arboriculturist
    As has been said previously, to make a worthwhile return retailing Firewood requires investment. The minimum requirement being a processor and log deck, something to load the log deck and tip your containers, containers to store and dry the product in, a pole barn, a tipping delivery vehicle. If you unable to finance that sort of setup it's just not a viable business model for the amount of hours you would have to spend on mindless toil through inefficiency. Apologies if this appears blunt but this is business basics. Most of us started the hard way of course.
  19. arboriculturist
    £5 a tonne - you have to do something to address that ! Have you equated the additional cost of drying green wood versus that you stack on the other side of the hill? If the cost is negligable at least you could keep the drying barn supplied from an 8 wheeler. (If tight, I am sure you have good excavator skills). To avoid double handling we have everything delivered on an 8 wheeler so it gets unloaded perfectly orientated for us to load straight onto the log deck. I am constantly looking at time and motion and ways to increase efficiency.
  20. arboriculturist
    Looks like you managed to take 5 minutes off work to fly your drone. Must be a pain to move all that timber back to the Farm to process but you will have crunched the numbers before you built your drying shed. We live on a hill, but I do all I can not to double handle anything - not always easy. Enjoyed the video footage though, couldn't quite see my sister's house at the end of the main drive.
  21. arboriculturist
    Make sure if you buy IBC's with containers in, make sure they don't have brake fluid, caustic products or similar in, as you will find it hard to deal with them or move them on, Like I mentioned I will post some photos when I get round to it. Good luck.
  22. arboriculturist
    I keep meaning to put the time to getting some good photos, however our setup is very similar to Tree Station if you get chance to google them.
  23. arboriculturist
    Containerisation is a long term investment. The long term benefits far outweight the cost - no manual handling, massive reduction in labour costs, Firewood drys significantly faster in ventilated containers etc. 1000 containers dried = iro 90K. We sell a lot of timber and wouldn't consider bagging Firewood.
  24. arboriculturist
    Have you ever seen a potato grower manhandle potatoes? Knowone has ever made a decent living handling potatoes - well not in the UK.
  25. arboriculturist
    Having been registered for VAT for Firewood sales for a few years now, I am finally looking at the pros and cons of being registered. It's always good good to seek the wisdom of others but here are few of the pros and cons I have encountered. Con's If you have more than 1 business then one of the businesses has to be a partnership or Ltd. This means additional overheads e.g. Seperate accounts for each business, can't share equipment / vehicles between businesses, can't use staff common to both businesses etc. Pro's Vat can be reclaimed on purchases. Roundwood is purchased @20% vat and Firewood is sold @5% to consumers. I'll be interested in other's views.

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