Rupe

You can go over rda on vitamins. Just makes expensive wee.

Sun's out. Guns out!! Good work Reg. I might have to make another video one day. Srt all the way here now!! Took me a while to get round to it but had a load of snow damaged corsicans this year (50 plus so far) so had to learn quick!! No going back. Ddrt for little trees and maybe some take downs.

My advice would be don't do anymore cs courses. Doing 30/31 shows that your serious about a change of career and means you can do some saw work straight away. But anything else would be a waste of your time and money at this stage. It's possible that you won't get on with tree work. Can I ask how old you are? I've helped 2 people in your position and neither were cut out for tree work no matter how keen they seemed.

Nope! Clear up might take longer but getting it down looks easy.

Rig it back over the fence. No worries.

Her employees are all full time paye holidays etc. No punters and they still get paid. Lucky the shop is rammed most days.

My gf charges £18 per head and has 4 other full time cutters in her shop. But the rent is 40k a year before any bills are paid.

You were the climber Steve, so not a tool for you to buy. Work to the standards set by the companies you work for and the groundies/kit that they provide.

I've used both but owned a GRCS for 15 years now. Its a great tool but remember it's a groundie s tool not a climbers tool, so for it to work well you need a good operator and ideally keep the same operator for as long as possible.

I've got the long one. It is too long most times but too short one day would be annoying.

Removable in the tree I haven't quite sorted yet!!

Well, I think I'm pretty much converted! Got over a few issues that I now think are not even issues! Got my head round base anchors, top anchors, moving TIP and redirects inc removable ones. Cant imagine doing much Ddrt but I probably will for small stuff thats not worth throwlining. Also got an ms150. How things have changed! Can hardly lift my 200T now!

Specified to who?

So what I mean is you only really get crown reduction from 15 to 35%. After that you are in height reduction territory and therefore nearly pollard ing territory. 15% is so little off no one will notice. 25% is a bit more leaving a very natural appearance that no one will really notice but the effects of extra light etc should be felt. 35% is (depending on species) about as far as you can go and still leave some resemblance of normal appearance. Should be quite noticeable even to the un trained eye. So those could be your definitions. Using meters is tricky because you can't measure and cut. So a 2m lateral reduction can't be done if there is no secondary branch at 2m. And if there is and the secondary branch is 1m long then you've only achieved 1m reduction. But distance reductions are fine for planning applications. Reduce by 2m means "not exceeding" 2m. So you can reduce to 3m and leave 1m secondary growth or whatever you want to do to achieve the appearance required within that specification. But you can't cut to that specification so the client shouldn't told that you are going to reduce their tree by Xm. You can explain using the vagueness of the % system better. As long as you know what they are after and you achieve it within the limits of the planning consent then everyone's happy. Try not go get too caught up in the maths of a volume reduction, it's just trees and they don't conform to maths.

Apologies, my post meant to say 35% is not far off pollard ing territory. Slight typo there. The rest is as a see it and works for me. How I explain it to clients is totally different, not using distance or %. How I explain it the the tree officer is different and in whatever form they ask for. And how I explain it to the climber is different too. We all speak different tree languages and speaking to clients with arb speak or tree officer speak does not work too well in my opinion.

125% of 25% reduction? Yes, meaningless really.

I like percentages, mostly because of the vagueness of it and them impossibility of measuring. You can't cut to a pre determined distance (2m reduction) if there isn't a growth point at 2m. So as Steve said earlier do what's right for the tree, and within the limitations of the planning consent. So a 25% reduction does not mean you reduce it by 25%. It means 25% is the limit of your reduction. The quote to the client can be worded very differently than the planning application. So you achieve what the client wants and has agreed and you don't exceed the planning allowance and everyone is happy. The problem can arise with clients obtaining permission and then expecting you to achieve exactly what's printed on the bit of paper. Crown volume reduction s are usually only 15 to 35%. After that your in pollard ing territory or at least your beyond the point of a natural looking reduction. The pictures show no suitable pruning points achieved so the percentages are irrelevant it's just bad work for that species.

I was just thinking the other day that I am climbing the tree more now, which I love. So yes when it suits I'll climb the tree and let the hitch/wrench follow me. Giving my arms a good work out but not hurting wrists etc. And no more footlock ing has been great for my one dodgy ankle (probably caused by footlock ing in the first place)

Ah yes, thanks Rich, I have heard of that. Is the akimbo taking its place these days? Whats the verdict on that thing?

Yes, some kind of vt thing. Different every time I tie it! Have sussed retrieving anchors and redirects but using the tail of my rope means untying the hitch which I would prefer to leave on the rope. All good though, really getting the hang of it. Did 6 limes without moving my first TIP the other day.

Whats a BDB?

Ive stopped using my zig zag for srt. That lives on the ddrt rope. SRT going really well though, got the hang of top tying and redericts etc. Done a few jobs were I wonder how I would have manged without it!

I was wondering if the 12 hr day was due to travel to and from? If so then not the companies fault, or the groundies if he lives nearer.

Who was it that told you there was loads of work? Did you do any further research? If theres work then you can get it without any tickets, maybe a chainsaw use cert would be handy and then get the rest as you go along. Getting climbing certs and buying kit does not guarantee anybody anything. Theres 100's of people with that who will never get passed a weeks trial with any company, for various reasons I'm sure,

Apologies for my phone spelling!!