Topcat

Buzz, managed to get a decent storage area on concrete,good access etc. Only have about 30 ton at present that might be some good.Just worried that the farmi running on 540pto might be making chips to big. Is there anything that should not go in the pile.Conifer etc.

Thou will not blow little pile of customers dead husbands ashes all over garden.(whoopps) Thou will take the Pi** out of copper for trying to give groundie a ticket for no driving license whilst sat in right seat of left hand drive mog.(best 10 mins of fun ever). The wife will accept that PPE has more right to be in the washer than her smalls.It paid for the thing and the thong in the first place.Same rule applies to sawdust on carpet, mud and woodchip on drive and urgent chiansaw repairs on kitchen table.

There are two cases where you probably want a road closed. Prunning large tree you should be able to get away with 1 lane closed and men with stop/go an manage yourself. The other is a dangerous tree take down over/ next to road. You don't ask the highways,you tell them.If they don't shut the road,you do and there is nothing they can do about it as long as you manage it and tell all who need to know. Forget 6 weeks or 5 days. The last one I did was in Guisborough high street on a saturday. (Yorkshire man will back me up on this). Viewed the trees on Friday, sorted the contractor,contacted highways at about 3pm. Same response as some seem to be getting on here.Cost,6wks etc,etc. Speak to the relevant dept director and remind him about who's head is on the block once dangerous trees have been ID.by 7.30 sat morning,emergency closure,couple of signs on lamp posts, road blocked both ends,total closure till we finished. Say yes,sir to the council and they take 1 step forward.Say no, your wrong and is your job really worth the risk and they fall over backwards. If all fails get the police involved,the best traffic lights going is a police car with the xmas tree on top.

Sounds to me like the tree is dangerous. I'm 99% sure that there was a case where the contractor got a job but did not do the work in a reasonable time scale and the tree failed. It went to court and the judge ruled that 14 days was plenty of time for work to be completed (dangerous) from getting job. Thats why there is misc 5 of the highways act,to allow for closure in such cases. Take some pics,email them to the highways dept,tell them that you want the road closed within x no of days and if not you will close it yourself and do the work.Remind them in no uncertain terms that they have a legal responsibility. Don't let them bully you, turn on them instead. It's suprising how things can change once you put things in writing. If you have to do it yourself, tell the police and let them know why,they may even send a car to help. In the past we have had the fire brigade and used it as a training session with them cutting up on the road.

dam HSE, spoil it again

For £1600 you could probably get a helicopter (£360 hr,like the video on a thread on here) quicker and more fun.At least you could take the customer for a quick fly around and they would feel they got something for their money

Never been charged for an emergency closure. From what I understand the highways have to close the road to protect users once it as been brought to their attention. Otherwise they are knowingly putting people at risk.

we burn about 30 tons a year on the open fire and yes it is cheap when it comes off the job..luvvily jubbly..Saying that it's making more sense to sell the wood and buy oil at present. Log wood is becomming a viable commodity.

Never paid for than £300 and that was only once. Can't you find something to class it as dangerous and get an emergency shut down under the highways misc provision?

Here's a copy of email just received from a new customer. I'm nearly out of seasoned wood and made it clear to her.It's all going out loose at £120 for 2 cube. Shows how desperate people are and it seems to be getting worse. "Thanks for getting back to me. We would be grateful for whatever you can supply us with. If you did have at least some seasoned we could have we would be very grateful and then perhaps a trailer load of recently cut stuff (sort of sept/oct so it would be right for next autumn?)that we could season ourselves for next year? yes, also interested in the locally cut rings too. could i perhpas get my hubby to call you tomorrow? his name is james so you know who he is when he calls! if you had enough capacity for one more regular customer we would be good customers : )

Wife called to say she won a grand at bingo.......but when she gets home says she had to share it 4 ways......Mmmmmm only 2 went....I'm been stitched up,sounds like her mate came up with a good way to do me out of my share..after all I gave her the £20 to go with.lol

A few years back we used to have guys that would come to the job with their own kit and clear all the timber for free as we were dismatling. Timber wagon would take butts and any thing over 10". Now their charging so we do logs ourselves.

See if she's got a few friends to bring along and we'll all have a party...lol

We have two kids and looked into fostering.You have to go on a course run by the council. Everything seemed ok till about week 6 when the girls taking the course said this was the time when most changed thier mind. The do's and don'ts of the legal side just out weighed the good. I take my hat off to any one doing it and it's stupid that our legal system made us hesitate when all we wanted to do was give a kid a better life during what must be a bad time for them...Good luck and let us all know how you get on

Into my 31st year now.Started doing logs and then bought a black & decker electric saw out of mums cataloge for £17 first takedown a silver birch for £18 (had to get cash for saw). Remember p/x me escort £375 against a new Honda acty 1/2 ton pickup on tick,£66 a month x18 months. Never looked back,had me first range rover within 3 years,but made more money then than now for sure.

did a 4 min film back in 2000 for the we're in business awards which was shown at the dome and on bbc. Production crew followed us for a day. Taking down a dead Ash with camera man laying on his back under tree while I dropped top was felt to be a bit risky.Ended up throwing a 4 foot branch off steps towards camera,all of 6' off ground.Looked and sounded spot on once it was all edited. We got £1500 expenses for filming,2 nights in london ,50 tickets to the dome so we booked a coach and took a load of our private customers..we took 2nd place and won a glass plate apparently worth £5000 and shed loads of work from all the press coverage....come to think of it,I can cash in the plate if things don't pick up,might get a fiver...lol

we are going in a bit cheaper,today we did a bad one but got £650 (3 men) plus all the ash wood, turned out a little easier then we thought. Another guy quoted £1200 which I think was taking the micheal.

Some good pics of real jobs on this thread.This is what we SHOULD get paid the real money for. It's ok having balls of steal but when you know how bad a tree really is and take it on,you need real skill to get it down. Talking of which, my 84 with 36" bar packed in today whilst on a Knackered ash over busy road. Got it topped out and had to fell 40' butt with 254 husky with 14" bar. About 3 times bar length, bore through oversized gob, cut some big ears and a good tug with the mog.Had to be done customer was stood with lots of paper with pics of queen on and out on a big bender starting tomoz nite.lol

cpl of points to be careful of. I got pulled with 7.5 tonner with mini digger on and towing mini digger trailer empty. Trailer weigh's under 750k empty. The bobby was a decent chap (I should have shot him before he turns bad,I know..lol). although the wagon whilst loaded with the digger was well under 7.5 ton,the trailer could legally carry 2 ton.So in theory I could have been grossing at 7.5 ton wagon,750k trailer weight plus a trailer load of 2 ton.If he wanted to nick me I would have been classed as driving 10250k. As for older people been better drivers,I've had loads of older guys that can't reverse without ending up in Knots, brake to late and heavy,put all the load on the back of the trailer and wonder why they snake all over and end up with brown pants. My 10 yr old can, operate the mini digger , reverse the Toyota or mog with a trailer just as good as anyone. The best lads are from farming back ground. They have driven big out fits with high loads and they think about what they are doing and don't mind grafting.IMHO,get a mog and temp a young farm lad with £100 over ag wage and your on a winner.

£450 FOR 25 NETS..I would deliver them,light the fire, cook the food and sort the wife out

we sell by the net,the dumpy bag and the loose load.Just deliver a bag to a local trading standards officer and you will soon be pointed in the right direction. There' your logs sir,How many is in the bag? well,it's a bag. Yes but I need to know that every bag gives me the same amount for my money...brown pants time. His advice was always have a min content clearly marked on the bag or invoice. weight can vary,wet or dry? volume depends how much air. Nets now have a min content of 5 logs, dumpy min 50 logs and trailer, min 100 logs. Sounds stupid but once you explain reason to customer never had a problem. Have also noticed that some of the big merchants on the net have started quoting No of logs in bags.

I've been involved in woodchip and cattle corals for a while.There's been a lot of interest from beef farmers especially in the north and border,some farmers are keeping 100's of cattle outside on chip. Keeping cattle in corals over winter on straw costs about £80 per head if you use wood chip it can come down to £8 per head. The corals have to be constructed in a certain way and the chip has to be big and the sasmo chipper is the preffered unit. If you think of a cow laid on wet straw,it losses heat or stands back up and uses energy (more food).If the coral is chip on stone the liquids the cow produces run through and the top stays dry.cow is happy to lay down and stays dry..Try google "cattle corals" or contact a company called Yorwaste. There's been some good work about,cutting farmers woods to produce chip for them

Seems their are a few mean chainsaw men that are also a dab hand in the kitchen. Spent this aft making my stuffing, Havin goose,so in went the liver,heart with minced pork, and some other goodies...just don't let the kids see,they think it's special paxo. Then on to me full leg of ham (cheap at £30),bone it out myself and give a decent size joint to the two groundies. still leaves plenty to see us to new year. cover in mustard and dark sugar,,just grab a slice as you pass. Just waiting for my last batch of mince pies to come out the oven.........Ahhh thats why I'm on here at 9pm xmas eve and am not billy no mates..all the best and may 2009 be agood one.

NFU.... Mog, farmi 10" chipper and Muller trailer £450 all covered.

Friend has a little cottage on Arran. We went for weekend and entered the Clay pigeon shoot. Shot in pairs and we got 3rd,let us have the cash but not the little trophy..lol Where else could you go and practice on a beach with a 12 bore.Drive to the pub at about 11pm drive back about 2am a little worse. T'is ok though because the cops had to come over on the ferry,and the locals had a deal with the ferry man. Went fishing and the wifes could'nt find us for about 6 hrs....Arran oh bliss,I hope it has not changed to much since we were there..lol