Alycidon

Fair enough. A

I have had Auto Discos since about 1994, sold the first 200 series after 274,000, now run a TD5 and have got to 230,000 with it. Excellent bits of kit, mine pulls big trailers at max weight, takes a ton of wheat across a ploughed field if I want it to, mine does what it was designed for, gets cleaned when it rains etc. The wife now has her own Defender TD5 as well. Other than routine maintenance the Disco TD5 has only needed to be recovered once when 2 fuel injectors seized up at about 180,000. Plenty of scrap and accident damaged ones to get cheap low mileage replacements, cant do that with a Japanese one so easily. The 200 was faultless. So a fan yes but I do hear that the Disco 3 is a nightmare on parts costs and availability ( no aftermarket parts much so main dealer only at high cost) , mate who repairs them for a living recently had one brought in for a few odds and ends, parts alone were over £1500 !!. Suspension air compressor, rear air springs were the main culprits. A

Looks an excellent system for any suitably equipped tailgate and the money back offer is probably unequalled. It deserves to succeed. A

Hi Steve, Might be an idea to add a second haulage rate for 50 miles as 25 miles is maybe restricting likely customers. A A

The problem with UK military is that if someone makes a decision to change a supplier and its a good decision nobody takes any notice and they get no recognition for it. If they make a decision that is bad then their record will have a black mark on it for life. Hence there is no incentive to change anything. The US military on the other hand work in totally the opposite way and their Sargents are encouraged to use their initative. A

The only way you might be able to in future talk this round is by advising that lots of small logs will give better flame patterns that bigger logs. They will burn faster as well but there's no need to tell him that. At present I only do one length, 240mm. A

Better that an a pound a net !!. If they decided that they wanted to be a big player in a given market they undercut all the competition until they are forced out of business then put the price back up while driving the cost price down. Thats how companies like that operate. A

One or two of my farmer friends have had horrific renewal quotes. Another has a a major fire, farm buildings he had insured for X amount they are only offering 50% of the insured value. Shop around. A

Its now been removed, might be an idea to talk to Fuelwood to see if they are aware of any being stolen. I am sure that the Police could trace it through E bay and an e mail address if needed. Sounds like a fraud to me as well. A

There's a place just down the road from us producing wood pellets for pellet boilers out of perfect processor size cord. I don't know how wasteful of energy the process of making pellets is, but I'll bet it's at least as bad if not worse than kiln drying. If it were a waste product that was being made into pellets it would probably be justifiable, but decent wood that could just be cut up, air dried then shoved in a stove? Bonkers. Grind it down to sawdust, dry it, then pass it through a high pressure extruder to pelletise it, pellets come out warm and pliable. It takes a lot of high energy to do that, when I looked at the idea a few years ago processing costs were about £20 a ton in decent volumes. Product is sold at about £200 a ton + delivery, the major player in that market keeps the price just below oil per kw. A

Ask Pellheat, they are well advanced in using alternative pellet materials. Pretty sure they have trialled pelleted cardboard. A

The only benefit of KD over your (and my) barn dried product is that the kilning process kills off any woodworm etc. Your product is in no way inferior and if at 16% or less is probably better. A

Well it does to get the same amount of heat into the room, ie 16% MC will produce a lot more heat from a log than 25%MC as less of the energy in the log is used to evaporate the water in the log. So the drier the log the hotter it burns so the more heat is produced. Personally I am buying cord now for use in winter 12-13. I probably have enough stock to maybe cover into early 13-14. Take it when its available, it certainly wont be going down in price but it is cheaper now than it was during a part of the 1990s so I was reading the other day somewhere. A

My brother is pretty handy with a welder, he spent most of last winter trying to build a splitter that worked. What was happening was the force the ram was generating was bending the ram mounting brackets, he gave up in the end when I bought an elderly small one. For the money you might as well have a unit that has been profesionally designed and built to do the job. A

10 inches is to long really for most stoves in use, it can be a bit if a struggle to get them in and thats not good news with a hot stove. I cut at 240mm which is really as long as you want to be, that fits most stove openings which are usually narrower than the firebox perfectly. A

Agree a price per ton then put the trailer over a weigh bridge. Some trailers have self weigh systems on them, talk to your local timber hauliers. A

What sort of cost delivered to NN6 7PQ post code. About 40 miles from Bedford, I used to commute it every day !!. A

Forget newspapers, they are looked at once and are tomorrows chip papers. If there is a local village directory then that is kept and continually referred to by householders, thats what to go for. A decent sized sign in a field is also worth doing. Sounds like we can all learn something from Facebook, I always thought is was kids and women, maybe it is but if they are ordering then listen. A

Leaving logs in a basket beside the fire in the spring is a bad bad idea for this reason, at the end of the day quite a lot of wood has woodworm holes in it, this is where the woodworm have come out of the log and gone looking for new wood to lay their eggs on. Most dead wood that you process will be infected with woodworm when it was standing. A

Yes, it should be no problem because as a trader they will reclaim the VAT you charge and pay the VAT they collect. A

Using big dia cord I am sure you will, my little JAPA can manage about 13 cube in a long day and about 10 in an average day given 200/250mm cord cutting at 240mm. A

I think you are misunderstanding me, I was not talking about wood but stoves that I had imported. Another wrinkle is wood pellets, sell them for burning then 5%, sell them for pet bedding then its 20%. A

I would like a look and a play with it when and if you get it, looks a real nice tool to me. Advice on backup and spares availability would also be nice. A

If you are selling fuel to the person that is going to burn it then 5% is chargeable. If that person is intending to resell it then you must charge the full 20% rate. It might be arguable that selling cord to an end user could be charged at 5% but 25 tons for a single end user is a huge amount and the VAT inspector may take some convincing. Get it wrong and you have to pay not only the shortfall in tax but also a fine of the same amount and thats for a first offence. When I had a fall out with the VAT a couple of years ago one of their inspectors told me 'its not our job to tell you, its your job to find out'. I did my return last week, in the last quarted I imported some stoves from Ireland (Eire), they came in charged in sterling and zero rated.I rang the VAT help desk to ask advise on how this invoice should be shown on my return, what they told me did not make sense, I rang my accountants, it did not make sense with them either, the accountants rang the VAT and received info that was 100% different to what the VAT helpdesk told me, now how do you put that through !!!!. I went with the accountants version. A