Tom D

So you managed to get it all split then Kes, Is it all bagged too? Have you tried Monty Pearson?

What about these? I had a client who was using them, they burn long and very hot, Quite impressive. like a dense chipboard they are.Blazers Fuels - Fuel Logs

Nice work guys, like the pine atree, and after humping a fair bit of timber in the last two days I am pretty jealous of your crane Stevie.

I do still have your details mate, I'll call if I have anything. I might have a day for you next week. I'll be in touch.

No. The only conflict of interest that I could see would be if I was asked to write a report on another contractors work / negligence etc. In which case I'd refuse to do it.

Not much, 5k's worth a year maybe, I like to provide a complete service so if a client asks I will do surveys. I have also done a few planning surveys. I may start pushing it a bit more as I get older, I did the tech cert last year with that in mind.

I'm with bryant kesek, they didn't asdk for any quals. Maybe quals will drop the price a little?

The 8mm beeline is good so I hear but the 10mm stuff is constructed differently and is very poor. I had some that developed a hernia after 1 use.

Only for hedges... I have one of those folding ones but its rarely used on a tree. If I'm being honest I just dont feel safe on them, I'd feel safer freeclimbing.

Larch is great stuff for outdoor building, very rot resistant. I build my greenhouse out of it, I have never treated it.

Me too, been working on the machines this week, nothing more annoying when you're lying under a chipper on a cold concrete floor than having to wriggle all the way out to answer the phone only to get mr Health and safety calendar.

Are you getting a lot? My phone has been red hot this week, each time I eagerly answer it hoping for a job it turns out to be some twonk selling stuff I don't need. I know we all get one now and again but lately its been ridiculous.

LOL I was moving it for my dad, his forklifts are pish in the snow.

First pic was between Penicuick and Peebles, we had around 18" level, but where it drifted it was much deeper.

Check the booys aren't too tight, as this squashes the air spaces in the socks reducing the insulation. If you don't need a steel then get some quality hiking boots as I reckon the steel in the toecap draws heat away from your feet. Or just work harder.

It is important to consider the colour of the seat... Microsoft Word - Document4.pdf

A few mor of mine.

Could be genuine, but it pays to be cynical. This is a totaly un related scam. My Dad nearly got taken for £40k a few weeks ago, he got an order for 5 specialist sprayers (he makes and sells crop sprayers). The order was from a company in Saudi Arabia, after a few months of discussions as to the specification which included details of the vehicles to which the machines were to be fitted being sent over and an agreement that an engineer would go over from scotland to saudi once the machines were ready to set them up. When the order was confirmed my dad asked for the money up front, standard practice under the circumstances. Sure enough a payment was wired directly into his account for £90k ish, the order was 50k ish, the next day they got a call from the saudis saying there had been a mistake and could they please transfer the extra 40k back. Luckily at this point my Dad got suspicious and called the cops. It is now in the hands of the serious fraud squad. Apparently the way it works is they issue a bad cheque into a foreign bank and immediately draw a bankers draft against it paying this streight into the "marks" account, if he then pays the over payment back (to a different account) he looses out as as soon as the first bank realises they have been done they claw back all the money.

I dont think there'e that much wrong with the job as such, however that is way more than 50% of the leaf area, much more like 80% and I also think that your client has a point, that level of reduction will have had a detrimental effect on the roots. Ok the crown is much smaller now and has a vastly reduced sail, but to say that has had no detrimental affect is wrong IMO. If you were asked to do as much as poss without damaging the tree I'd have said anything over 30% of the leaf area would be pushing it. BTW if I ever do a reduction, I always quote a percentage, and always a height percentage at that. It is easier for the client to understand that way.

I reckon Lee's original post is pretty accurate, Its extremely hard to get from being a small business to being a big business in this game. And as others have said there are all sorts of guys laid off from various backgrounds, mostly construction, willing to have a go at tree cutting, and stevies right, its not rocket science. The only thing we have on our side is our ever more litigeous society, which though annoying, creates fear and fear creates work for surveyors and then contractors. The legal system is one sector which I don't see shrinking over the next 10 years.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HEgdRkuF-U&feature=PlayList&p=2C7AE82B53655EDD&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=30]YouTube - RAF Harrier low flyby Afghanistan 1[/ame] I would love a shot in one!

Nice work, I've been missing my battered old landy these last couple of weeks, I've been a bit chicken in the new one on the snow, too scared of bending it, with the old one it was a lot more fun.

Good evening Mike, some very nice scenery in your neck of the woods. How did you get that out then? When are you heading back to the frozen north?

So if you do a few jobs in a day, lets say fell 1 syc and one pine and then prune a maple on the way home, you get back and start hand-balling logs around into different "species" piles???? That way madness lies. If you do a rough time and motion study of the log business you'll see it is no where near as profitable as the tree work itself. Any extra labour is seriously eating into your profits. Don't get me wrong if it works for you go for it, but I bet you could charge just the same for a well seasoned mixed load.

I cant beleive you guys can be arsed to separate it. I worked out that our pile is roughly 80% hardwood and so thats how I advertise it, not only do I have no complaints but I have had several letters from satisfied customers. I find splitting it green is the key and if you do that and store it somwhere windy almost any timber will dry in a year, I find the really wet stuff like willow and poplar dry really fast once split, Cherry takes longest it seems. If you burn wood properly on a stove, softwood is fine and lasts plenty long enough, I can easily keep my rayburn in all night on leylandii or spruce. To burn properly you need to fill the stove each time, not put one log on now and again, after each fill burn rapidly for 20-30 mins to drive off any moisture and volatile chemicals like tar. This rapid burn keeps the flue hot and helps prevent the tar from condensing untill it reaches the open air. Burning with the door open will slow this process down and cool the flue as well as sucking the warm air from your room. Once the 30 mins is up close down the air supply as the remaining wood should now be charcoal and will burn slowly without taring up the flue. All wood will give off tar while it burns, modern stoves with secondary air supplies are designed to burn off this tar as it is produced, however if the wood is wet the stove can not reach the required temperature to burn this tar. Conifers contain more resin than hardwoods but resin and tar are quite different things, wet hardwoods will produce more tar than dry conifer. My mum who lives in Yorkshire keeps asking me to take logs down to her as the stuff she gets is poor, this is a major pita as I'd far rather visit her in the car than the landy. Her local guy sells hardwood that feels really dry but once split is still really wet in the middle, the bark is still well stuck on which is a giveaway. I reckon it must be cut, split and then stored indoors so the outside drys fast and makes them feel dry when they're not. If anyone can supply small dry logs in Wetwang let me know LOL.