Tom D

So if your van blows up tomorrow can you afford a new one? Chipper? what happens when you kit is worn out and needs replacing? can you afford to go out tomorrow and buy a second hand chipper, £6-8k? Its a H&S requirement that you have 2 guys on site when climbing, how can you work alone? If you are a gardener and just do hedges and wee stuff then fair enough but I was referring to tree surgeons / arborists in the posts I made. Having kit that is paid for doesn't mean that you should be cheaper, its just a different way of working from someone who hires it in and claims the cost against tax. Do you work part time? That would be different. Is there a company in your area who is vat reg?

I'll stand by it. If your under that vat threshold you are only turning 60something? How can this pay you a decent wage? your overheads must be close to 50K? van, chipper, wages etc. how much do you spend on staff? You personally can't be taking much more than 10k a year? As recent discussions have shown, benefit claimants get much more than that! I learned the hard way, started out working a 2 man team for £220 a day, utter madness. I have been there and done that, its no way to live. Going vat reg will loose you work. But thats no reason not to do it, you will win work that you otherwise wouldn't get. There will always be someone out there cheaper than you. Just let them be, they can do the jobs for the customers for whom price is the only issue and you can do the jobs for the customers who value service more highly. I have won countless jobs where I was much more expensive than the next quote, because people believe that we will provide them with a better/ safer/ higher quality service. I am not saying that I am better than you. But being vat reg and giving the impression that I am a bigger more successful company will often win the day. There is a guy near me who is dirt cheap, he does a few logs, and fencing, and lambing in the spring, he will do jobs for less than half of what I will. I just let him get on with it, he will always be busy, but he is only one guy, there is only so much work he can do. He can't do it all. He does all the skin flints and I do the rest. Imagine the guys at the BMW salesroom all crying because Kia and Hyundi are much cheaper. Does a BMW do anything a kia does not? why doesn't everyone drive Kias? because for MANY people price isn't the only issue. This principle works with all jobs, not just the small ones. I am currently working on a £50k LA contract that was won over another firm who were £0000's cheaper, yet I won because of the quality of our work, H&S, quals etc. Invest in quality and charge more.

We had a similar problem for a while, the engineer who came out was good and traced the fault to a neighbour 1/4 mile up the road who had damaged the cable putting the drive in. It was repaired but then a while later the line got struck by lightening and when they repaired it they only patched it up, our broadband is fine but our phone line is crap, very faint. We can't get them to replace it as its nearly 4 miles of cable and it only serves about 10 people. simple economics and one of the bad points of living in the sticks. I wish they could invest some of the money they are spending giving city folk fibre optic broadband on improving rural services. I get 1.2 meg, fibre gives 20meg!

Take your business bank statements for the last year and add up ALL your outgoings, (you can do this on line and export it into an excel sheet to add it up if you know how, just don't ask me) then divide that figure by 200. this gives you an accurate break even day rate figure, then add £200 to that and you have a proper day rate. It breaks my heart when I see how cheap some of the people on here work, If you are one of them, take heed, you will either end up giving up and going back to work for someone else or leaving the industry altogether. This is a great job and you should be able to make a decent living from it, if you are one of the ones who posts up that you are saving up for a new rope, hitch climber, chainsaw or other small piece of kit THEN YOU AREN'T CHARGING ENOUGH. A two man team should turnover 80k minimum, any less and you are doing something wrong, if you work part time or look after your kids some of the time thats different, but if you are out there working full time then you should be making a decent wage.

how long will it take you?

I think the solution is to change the way benefits are paid rather than reduce them, paid in vouchers (on a smart card) which can only be redeemed against essentials, food clothes etc, NOT sky tv, booze, fags, and sportswear.

what about western red cedar?

it is a bit of a joke that you can get 30k+ on benefits when there will be many couples out there who both work 40hrs a week and take home less. 26k seems like a lot when you look at it like that!

Not often, but thats part of the reason for the charge.

My minimum is 180. Unless I happen to be working next door.

£300 minimum. I can't believe how cheap some of you guys are! I won't do any programmed job for less than £180, even if its just a 5 minute job. Ok if you are next door working on another job than I'll do wee things for £50 but £180 is a minimum charge for any programmed job.

I find semi chisel is rubbish for boring, stick with full chisel, just try a different brand if you can't get on with the one you have. One tip I have is to apply pressure in the direction of the pulling side of the bar as you bore in, rather than just go straight in.

Looking at the lichen is seems to be real, or a VERY good fake...

10 days!!! looked more like 60 foot to me. I'd have that done in a day easy..... might need to fell a few of those ferns to get the tractor in though.

Is that the riko trailer?

It is surprising how a city looks so deferent when viewed from a high vantage point, this is edinburgh when viewed from Blackford hill, looks like a park....

Its January! fix it in april.

Should I tighten or slacken them? Tractor does 40k only does it at near top speed.

hitch hook is ok, I wouldn't want to mess with the tyre pressures, I might try tightening the springs and see if that does anything.

does that have any adjustment on it? Mines a tractor type trailer.

I wouldn't normally rig / speed line small trees like that, cut and chuck, 550-650+vat

I'm based around edinburgh, I pay 20k + bonuses, so maybe 22-24k. Who is the job with?

The really dangerous ones are on slopes, on the flat, chances are the root plate will fall back into the hole it came from. If a tree has fallen down hill, it could fall the other way on top of the cutter. Multiple windblows are also dangerous as they can put unexpected tensions into the wood. We did some yesterday, one root plate had 5 trees on it, it was at least 12 foot high.

I have a red rock trailer with a sprung drawbar it has a 9.5 ton payload, when loaded it bounces a lot, building up a resonance giving a permanent bounce which clatters on the pickup hitch in an annoying way. The springs on the drawbar have bolts through them which could be adjusted, anyone know how to adjust them to get rid of the bounce?

I love my 385xp, as much for its reliability over that last 9 years as for its performance.