Dean Lofthouse
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Everything posted by Dean Lofthouse
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I had one last week where they hadn't made us a drink all day and the cheeky b@stard came out talking to us with a freshly made mug of tea.
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Pressure washer would be great, if it didn't involve water. TCT blades are ok if there aren't any stones and if they were cheaper. There have been loads of occasions where I have wished I had something petrol /small and portable with and airline and blow gun just to clean round a small root ball. I've been looking round on google trying to find if they do a high volume high pressure miniature screw or hydrovane that you could link to a little two stroke engine .
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Couldn't get an excavator in, we are going to have trouble getting the root ball out and thats only going to be about 700mm high when we have done. Airspade would be too big to carry about with you. It would need to be about the size of a small suitcase genny. it would, in effect, be a miniture airspade.
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Did this job today, smallish tree planted in a raised bed. Took out the crown, dug round it severing what roots we could then attached winch 20ft up the stem and pulled it over. We are going to spend probably two hours picking out the soil from the root ball to make it light enough to manouver by hand through a small gate. Access is terrible so it is the only way. It would be good if someone could invent a small two stroke hydrovane compressor, that you could use as a mini air poker to clean out the root ball. Something that was hand portable. Would also come in handy to clean out soil around a root so you could cut with chainsaw without knackering a chain. Come on you engineers, come up with something, there'd certainly be a market for them.
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You say some seals have been replaced on the carb, have you replaced the diaphram pump and the plastic flappers I call them at the other side of the carb. In other words a complete seal and diaphram kit. Mine looked ok but the plastic had gone hard and the one way flaps weren't sealing, gave the same symptoms you described
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I only find anchor points externally from the basket (when they are available) simply to make me feel safe after what happened, on a machine with a known fault. The odds of what happened to me happening again on another machine are very very slight. It was a catastrophic failure of a major saftey system. Just as brakes failing on a car would be potentially fatal, but how many people do you know or have heard of being killed thru brake failure. Probably non and that's out of millions of cars on the road. If your pet lion mauled you once and you got away with it, you wouldn't put yourself in a situation where it could do it again. crap analogy, I know.
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Skyhuck, behave yourself.
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Yes but I'd rather take my chances with a branch slowing my fall than going with the picker. The oak you did looked as though the main stem was solid, you couldn't have rigged the branches down without deadwood flying all over the road. Similar if there'd been a greenhouse or conservatory. Matt did exactly what the platform comes in handy for, to bring the extremities in bit by bit by hand so he could control the deadwood in sensative areas.
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If there's a loophole Skyhuck, they'll find it and they did. I wasn't actually doing tree work, I was doing a favour for a friend without pay, he wanted to point his gable end. The insurance said, because it wasn't tree work they wouldn't pay out and he was not an employee, I was his employee. Most people who are insured will find out when they come to claim, that infact, most of them are not.
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Yes but, I never have two people in and use it on maximum leg settings. If I am doing a job where it is going to full height and or outreach I always anchor on to the tree or anything but the basket. With one person in and maximum leg extension you simply can't tip it over. It's only when you have two people in or have the legs so they are not fully extended that the sensors come into play and I can't trust electronic sensors anymore
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It got rather complicated legally. The manufacturers were italian and just before had been bought out by another company. my passenger started legal proceeding against me, I had to start them against the supplier as a result and they must have started against the manufacturer. In the end I realised the only winners were going to be the laywers, so I managed to persuade my passenger to drop his case, so I could drop mine and they could drop theirs. In the end I lost a lot of money but I've still got my health.
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I bought the machine as a demo machine, more or less brand new, had about 180 hours on it. Developed an hydraulic fault where it allowed us to carry on going out. We came down from 45ft, the privet hedge saved our lives although my passenger was badly injured, three broken ribs, brken hand, broken foot and slight head injuries, lucky B@stard, had 6 weeks off work. I stepped out of the basket and said to him, "best frikking fairground ride I've ever been on" Don't think he appreciated it, as he then started having a fit on the floor, something to do with shock. Ex squaddies, so sympathetic.
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Haven't you ever seen evergreen poplars ? :wave:
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Didn't have time to Sh1t myself. I was more worried about hitting the wifes car, you can see the car in my avtar, it has been reversed back, it was at the side of the bucket, it missed the car by 6 inch!! I would have been in the Sh1t then
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Was it a 15m machine Buzz? looks like you may have struggled a bit for outreach on the far side. How did you find it for speed once you got used to the controls, ie was it faster than rigging and lowering? One little tip I'd give anyone using a mewp is take your long climbing rope up with you, they are such a pain to lower the basket back down with the hand pump if it packs in for any reason you can abseil down
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Rhododendron Grants for removal
Dean Lofthouse replied to Dean Lofthouse's topic in Tree health care
I sent an email on Saturday, but as yet no reply, will keep you informed when they do reply -
The only problem with contracts, disclaimers or whatever they have to sign is, people are cagey about signing anything and presume you are dodgy and trying to get out of any damage or crap workmanship you may do. It would lose you the job on a domestic quote
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She just sounds like a pratt. What I try and do where possible or where I think the client may be an @rse is take a before and after photo. Because unless you see the pile of brash on the floor, sometimes it's hard to comprehend how much has actually been done. Especailly on a reduction, to the untrained eye the tree would probably look no different, infact if you topped the frikking tree it probably wouldn't look any different to some. Pics are a good reference as to how it looked before though, then you can bin them when you get your payment
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What??? The mental shaved girl look ?
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You'll get a JCB drivers belly sat in that crane seat. Just pure laziness if you ask me. :wave:
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I'd make Pete leave some of that crap on his harness on the ground, it would half his weight and he would work far quicker. :wave:
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Something you wish to share with us Ed ???
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Or another word maybe "Brainwashed"
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Wouldn't be the first time for me, I've got a habit of forgetting to disconnect booby traps.
