Rupe

If the company that uses you does not think that you follow there spec or use best practice then they should stop using you. Ultimatly if you make a mistake it will be their fault for making the decision to get you in for the job. There insurance covers this, mine covers me to use self employed people, if they are crap, hungover or whatever then that is my poor judgement. I can't then go after them in the event of an accident. Plus the groundie is under contant instruction anyway. MAybe in the event of a job being carried out by a SE climber and a SE groundie with no company employed person or the boss on site then that might cause problems but again that would be negligence on the part of the company owner. Don't forget we are NOT talkign about sub contracting. That is totally different. We discussed this before and the two best reason for having insurance as a SE climber were. 1. to look good for the tax man WTF!! and 2. to help the companies you work for to get contracts WTF again! If no 2 is an issue then get the company you are working for to pay your insurance. As far as the tax man is concerned, I agree that we have to make it look like we are sub-contracting and insurance would help, but if you are working for enough different people and maybe doign some easy private work aswell then that should cover it. Word your invoice as job done, not days worked. Its the tax mans job to get your tax, not check if your insured. If you are woking for mostly one company then you shouldn't be self employed and wasting money on insurance won't change that. 85% for one comany is too much for self employed status, you should be employed.

This has been brought up before, but payign insurance so that it look good to the tax man? WTF!! Insuracne is supposed to be for insurance!

Where do I start!!!!! Are you going to be a sub contractor?? Answer is no you are not!! You are goign to be sefl employed working for various companies with those companies, so you will be covered by there insurance. A sub contractor is a totally differnet thing so forget that. You don't need insurance, you're still a student for god sake. Unless you are takign on you rown jobs why would you be insured? If you are the gorundie on a job for someone else and a branch goes through the garage and desptroys the aston martin, is that going ot be your fault? Of course not, its however is doing the job, not the climber or the groundie but the company who supplied the quote for the work. I've got a good window you can throw 400 quid out if you want!

What sort of money are they new??

A tent for big wall climbing or hanging up in a tree.

I was a bit worried about searchign that on google but it wasn't so bad. BUT, no thanks! Thats the epitome of awful camping, worse than a campsite. Tree boat and two trees next to a river is all you need or a bit of woodland, tucked away. No permission but no fees either, and no other people! Some of the locations looked great though. And "glamping"! What an awful word, nearly as bad as "staycation" .

Not technically legal in this country, seatbelts and all that, but i'd do the same!

Give the wood to the farmer for nowt as a thankyou for giving you access. You can't really sell the stuff so just put it in your tree surgery yard with all the other crap.

I use a lot of pine as kindling, usually offcuts soem some wonky shelves I've put up, and its the best!

Can poplar be used for kindling? Its used for matches but I guess thats not the same thing! I've load of poplar in cord 6-9 inch diameter to get rid of. I keep sneakign a few in with a load of logs but its not dented the pile yet!

You can see why 2000 quid is not much incentive for people to get rid of an old perfectly ok car just to go into more debt to buy a Honda thats been sat in a car park for over a year!

I was abit gutted when I saw the date plate, my last one was only 2 months old! Date in service and hours are what really matters, plus if you trade them in within say 4-5 years then I guess you'll go back to the same dealer and part ex it, in which case they should believe you! If you are keeping it until its a hangin old wreck (6 years, just kidding) like 10 years old and then selling it for 1000 quid then a few months here and there won't make much difference.

The 07 check you mention, was that on the engine? They could have been sat on a shelf for ages before being used!

I bough t one end of march this year and the plate said june 2008. I spoke to the dealer and they said there is a backlog of stock due to a slow down in sales. Theres not much that you can do, its perfectly normal for them to do it. Its like this 2000 quid scrapage for old cars, its just a desperate attempt to clear back log. I think you should sell it as a 2009 or at least "in service 2009". I do wonder though, if you bought it due to lookign at them at the trade show and then you got an older one then you would or should be able to complain. I hope they did you a good deal, if the backlog is that big they should be keen to sell them! I paid 11k for mine and they chucked in 2 extra sets of blades and a 2 yr warranty.

You need a bit of space at the back so you can stand up and have logs passed to you, i.e. you cant have a full lenght roof. Other than that the longer the better IMO.

Definatly the sort of project I'll be looking at doing in the future.

I think prices are risign or staying high due to more people holidaying here instead of abroad. I want one, don't mind admitting it, but it would travel and I don't see the point of parkign in a feild with a load of other people when a pub car park will do just as well. Its the same as camping. I like camping and I hate campsites.

Yeah that would be good. Like a tempory additional height at the back. I had looked at that and it may still happen. One issue is the ladders would have to be removed before the flap could be raised and I hardly ever use ladders but can't bring myself not to carry them. If the roof goes right to the back of the tipper (or very nearly) then most chippers should be able to get the chip into the back without it going everywhere. In the original pics on this thread, the box is just under 8foot long (8ft sheet folded at the ends) and the tipper is 9 and bit feet long. There will be another piece atached to fillin this gap and that will come out over the tailgate a bit to help prevent side loss due to wind.

Yes, did consider sloping it forward, but the height at the rear of the box is what dictates how easily chips go in, if its high enough there then a slope doesn't improve things. Wind resistance maybe improved but your still driving a brick. As for water run off, not sure about that. Surely the water will run over the edges if its flat on top. Also a flat roof will be easier to mount some kind of roof rack and/or rollers for ladders.

That looks very similar to a tractor that a tree contractor near me uses. He has a trailer with hydraulic wheel heights, you can lift the wheels so the whole trailer lies on the floor and you can walk straight in the back or wheelbarrow loads of wood straight in. It also has a timeber crane on it somewhere (maybe that goes on instead of the walk in trailer) not sure though, not seen it around in ages.

Beat me to it.

A stumpgrinder would be a good start!

I can't be doing with curves Dean! Curves belong on women not on my chip box! Id have to cut a curved front section to fill the gap or have a higher front section than I have already to allow for the curve. I can see how the strength would increase though. I can make steel cross beam out of folded sheet, L section or top hats like on the sides. The roof can bolt to that and I can make triangle brackets at either side for strength.

Any suggestion Dean?? I'm favouring 3mm chequer plate aluminium so far but need to find out what it costs, have never bought any before.

A potential customer who panics at 50 quid is not a very good potential customer!! Another thing to look at is how many trees they have. If the 50 or 100 quid job is all they are ever goign to need then stick to the price. If they have loads of trees but just want this one small job doign for now then do it cheap. I know we all need work but cuttign doen the one and only tree in a garden is a dead end. We need to look for routes to more work not just the work itself. If every job you do leads to 2 more then you will always be ok. Sometimes you can suss out the job over the phone, if I have been recoemnded by anothe rcustomer then I'm there quickly, if its from the council recomended list then I'm there quick enough but knowing I'm competing against others on the list and ig its from yellow pages (I only have a free line entry) then I ask questions and might not bother going to look. This may sound silly as like I said we all need the work at the moemnt, but recently I've been to look at a few yp jobs and they had been done by the tiem I got there!