Tom D

I have found that on the laptop, hovering the cursor over the activity button brings up the drop down but on the iPad (pro) you have to tap the button to get the dropdown but tapping automatically loads the 'all activity' page. So it may depend on what device you're using. EDIT: you can do it on the iPad if you're gentle...

I may have discovered Eggs problem as it has started happening to me now. When clicking on activity to get the drop down it simply loads the 'all activity 'page without allowing you to click any of the drop down options.. it wasn't doing this earlier.

Here..

Just tick topics and then you should only get single threads.

Either hit all activity which brings up every post in order of posting (newest first) or create your own customised list. That's what I have done. Go to activity, then my activity streams, then create stream, the select what you want and give it a name. Go for topics and then you will just get a list of threads...

I'm getting the hang of it now, it's way better than the old site.

I think the AA are within their rights, the BSI however.....

That's bad, hope he makes a swift recovery.

Absolutely!

That's a lot of chip!

I was scared of the new mogs and tractors with all the electronics,but tbh they are fine. Just bite the bullet and spend 70k on a decent new shape mog, it will last for years and be better than constantly trying to keep a 20 year old machine going.

Eggs, our business isn't just basic tree work, we have 9 employees, two being myself and my wife. One is a full time consultant ( arb and ecology) two are area / team managers one is a floating extra, (he can work with whichever squad is busy, he is also now doing arb consultancy work) and the rest are climbers. So it's hard to calculate the profit from one squad as sometimes we are working as a 2 man team, sometimes 3 or 5. Some jobs use basic kit some use all the toys. I would say that we are making a good 20% on that 650 as an average. The most profitable work we do is site clearance, as it's usually just a 2 man job one on the valtra and heizohack and one on the saw, we aim for and usually break the £1k per day on that. We would be loosing money if we worked for £350 per day, even with a 2 man squad and basic kit, that's for sure. But some of our rivals charge that and seem to make it work, I'm not sure how...

Lol, I don't think it's as simple as some are cheap and some expensive, it's more that different setups are suited to different jobs. I often loose out on small takedowns and hedge work to transit and TW guys, but as soon as the DBH goes beyond about 18" we come out cheaper. And on site clearance work the transit guys are way off what we charge. I suspect that's just the way it is. But it's not that we're more expensive on small jobs because we have bigger kit, it's because we don't work cheap. We weren't any cheaper when we had the transit and we aren't cheaper now. We charge the same for a job as we have been for years, we just get through it quicker. We want £650 for a day minimum for a squad, but there's guys out there offering the same for £350... yet in 15 years they haven't put us out of business...

Ours is a u20 and tows 18 ton, she'd be pretty slow towing that though, she has an 8 cube chip bin and gross weight 9.5 ton. The thing you have to remember is if you gross 21 ton in at 20 ton vehicle your only 5% over. Whereas gross 4.5 ton on a 3.5 tonner and you're 30% over. And its very easy to gross 4.5 on a 3.5tonner, like I said we managed 5.6 (75% over) on our transit and we often had that van that full so we must have been over 5 ton on a regular basis.

That would be nasty, but we don't usually haul with the tractor, it's just a crane and chipping unit, we chip to waste and drive home again. Here's a scenario for you. Your on your way back from a job in your 16 plate transit, it's 3/4 full and weighs 4.6 tons, you're towing a 750kg timberwolf. Whilst going down a country road an old lady pulls out in front of you, she simply doesnt look, (we've all seen this happen on occasion). So you brake but you still hit her at 30-40mph, she suffers head injuries and is taken to hospital. Because her injuries are life threatening the police do a full inspection of the crash scene and your vehicle and its load are taken away for testing. The cops look at your dash cam footage and accept that you weren't at fault. That night the old lady dies. The cops weigh your van and chipper and decide that even though you were not the cause of the accident your excessive weight had an impact on the severity of the accident by increasing your stopping distance, you are charged with causing death by dangerous driving. (Yes that is what you would be charged with!) The cops tell you that the maximum sentence is 14 years, minimum 1 year. Your insurance company refuses to payout and the old lady's family sue you for everything that you have.

I had a detached pec, it was a long recovery. The thing is if you push it too hard too early and tear it again it's much harder to repair a second time..

Tbh Mathew the mog is no wider than the transit was and it's actually more manoeuvrable. I don't mind having kit sitting around. It tends to hold its money and it's there when you need it. I hadn't used the heizohack since April, and then I just did 5k with it in 3 days this week. I have a bandit 250 sitting there that has only done 1 job!

That's maybe true, but that shows that it's all about the brains behind the business. Not the kit that you have. However there's only so much a transit and 6" chipper can make in a year. If you want to earn decent money you need to think big. There are guys with huge amounts of specialist kit who will make extremely good money, but it takes a lot of organising and you need to be proper dedicated. We are somewhere in between. I think that the guys running small kit dishing out holier than thou sermons to the rest of us need to take a look at their own situation. And perhaps spend a couple of quid visiting a public weighbridge. In fact anyone who can post a picture of a fully loaded 3.5 tonner on a weighbridge and show me that it's legal gets £50 fr Jones voucher courtesy of TD Trees.

Is that only if hauling goods? So what does a crane driver need?

The beech is actually prunus cerasifera.

our mog has a tacho. but thats not really the point. To let lou know where i am on this issue i'll tell you how I got here. When I started out 16 Years ago I had a business partner, we each had a 4x4, one of us towed a chipper and the other towed a tipping chip bin trailer, it was a pain in the arse setup but it was legal. After a few years he left and I bought a 3.5 tonner to tow the chipper. Like every other 3.5 tonner out there I was probably running about overloaded some of the time. I ran 3.5 tonners for the last 13 years until recently when we took out 6 cube capacity transit on a weigh bridge, it weighed 5.6 tons. I decided that this was dangerous and the fact that it had cost a fortune in repairs lately convinced me to buy a mog. So I know where you transit guys are coming from. It boils down to this: A tiny percentage of tree surgeons are running legally all the time, staying within their weight limits. A few more are Mog owners and are potentially committing tax fraud by running on red... but they aren't endangering other road users. The majority run 3.5 tonners and are illegally overloaded much of the time, but they aren't committing tax fraud. So which do you want to be? staying perfectly legal can be difficult: put up with a tiny payload, or get additional driver training O licence etc, only to have the driver leave and have to do it all again. If you are caught running on red you may be fined, if you are caught overloaded you may be fined too. But, if you have an accident while overloaded you could loose everything, licence, your insurance will refuse to pay out, and if you kill or injure someone you will likely go to jail. Pick your poison...........

It always makes me smile when this comes up, you go out of your way to get a sub 750kg chipper so that you can stay 'legal' and then tow it with a van with a 5-7 cube chip capacity so your illegal as soon as you quarter fill it! Any 3.5 tonner with more than 2.5 cube chip capacity will be illegal when loaded. And 2.5 cube is not a lot of chip. What I meant with the mog thing was there is no need to worry about the 3.5 ton limit as it's a tractor and anyone can drive it however heavy it it. And as for reliability, so far ours has been way more reliable than our transit was. There's nothing to be scared of with a mog, it's just bigger (and better)

I use these. Tool Sharpening Services - Saw and Tooling Services They are local so we just drop in, great service though, I get heizohack knives done for about £2.50 each, bigger knives are more obviously. You could call and ask about sending knives by courier...

I've thought that before. I have to say though having really gone down the mog route, the mog is the answer. Front mount chipper, timber trailer behind. Very hard to beat.

It's surprising the energy flails can generate in projectiles.. i was using mine on the alpine ( cabless) and I hit an old fence, it sucked it up and wrapped it around the flail. A small piece of high tensile wire came off and hit me on the arm, it was cold and I was well wrapped up, it still stuck in my arm.