Rupe

Thats kind of crazy! YOu are allowed to carry you own medicines that you have had prescribed to you or bought from the chemist for coughs/colds/asthma/diabetes/headaches the list goes on and on, and you would keep those in a seperate place form the first aid kit, be it your lunch bag or whatever, and when you feel ill you adminsiter yourself whatever you need. Thats is essentially your first aid kit and can have whatever you like in it. Maybe RC trainer #1 is speaking purely from an accident point of veiw, cut, burn etc. in which case he might be right but I think he might need to get out more!!

Hodge "I have heard of company's that use subcontractors to insist the subcontractor has their own insurance even though they are being employed on a daily basis to carry out work for the said company, this way the company can avoid having employers liabillity. some say this is correct some say not?? What happens in the event of an incident.?? " I think this is one if the massive misunderstandings with insurance. Some think that employers liability insurance is there to cover damage done BY their employees, so if they dont have it they insist on "subbies" having PLI to cover there own damages. This is a huge mistake! EL is to cover damage/injury done TO an employee, its to safeguard the employees and includes those self employed hired in for the day to work for that firm. Iin fact it safegaurds the employer aswell) EL does not cover any damage/injury that employees (self employed/subbies etc) do to the public or the clients. SO my company has PL, and any damge/injury caused to the public/client (any third party basically) by me, or any of the people working for me or under my control is covered. (regardless of weather I have EL or not) I am then covered by my EL for any damage/injury caused to my employees (self employed, subbies etc.) while they are working for me, so if they get injured I am covered for any liability for their injuries, that does not definatly mean they get a pay out for those injuries, it just means my liability is covered. So this is why there is no need to have multiple PL on one job, the main contractors should have it covered. Its illegal for that main contractor not to have EL but if he doesnt have it then no amount of extra PL will help, and he is only going to be in trouble when a worker injures themselves. I think the misunderstanding is from EL. It means Employers Liability, NOT employees liablity, therefore it is not there to cover damage done BY employees, and therefore cannot be replaced by those employees having their own insurance, because when we talk about "subbies" with their own insurance we are speaking about PL.

If you don't know the history/age then a loler inspector is likely to fail it on principle. Yes blaze is hard on the hands. If your Prussia is slipping then it likely the diameter of the Prussia rope is too high in comparison to the blaze or that it's not flexible enough to wrap tightly round the blaze.

Of the actual first aid kit? Yes.

I'm not even allowed to carry a personal kit according to him as HSE will also investigate it's contents in the event of a serious incident. Surely they would only investigate "its" contents in the event of a seriouse accident if "its" contents were used in that accident. So, you can have a personal first aid kit that is not marked (with a red cross or anything) and in there you can have whatever you want but of course you cant then use it on saomeone else in an accident and if you did you would be investigated for it. I think that is what the red cross guy must be trying to say. If the extra kit is personal, and stays personal then there is no need for it or its contents to ever be investigated. But putting celox onto somebody else could be an infringment of HSE rules as its is not included in a statutory first aid kit, and that is why (as we have discussed) it is not included in the FAW course, which is merely a cover all first aid course for shelf stackers, librarians, tree cutters and all other work places.

Its not illegal to think of it!

I think the colours have come out funny and it looks yellow but isnt. Cant be sure though but XTC (red and white) is my guess.

Oh dear god!!!!

Yep, lots of cans of worms everywhere!! I agree. I think if you verbally reccomend someone and say you leave it to there judgement if they use that person or not then you dont have any moral/legal problems, but yes I can see where it would leave things awkward!! And if you lose work because of it then that is definatly no good! I know quite a few builders and if my clients ask me for a builder I say NO. Mostly becasue I wouldnt let any of them in my house let alone a clients!! Going back to your earlier example, with your fully insured bona fide subcontractor that you got in to do some work on your site and you were "only" clearing up. IF he cut himself and blead to death in the tree while you were unable to rescue him, then I think you would find out pretty quickly who was in charge on that job. This would of course not be public liability issue, but you would be seen as the employer and be in some serious trouble. I am not suggesting this is likely to happen and I am not saying you shouldnt get a climber in, I am just saying that calling him a bona fide subcontractor is not necessarily going to make every situation all above board. A true bona fide subcontractor is a tree surgery outfit/company in their own right, not an individual with or without PL insurance.

Yes I hear what your saying, its all a bit of a mindfield really, so I am tryign to explain it from my understanding. So lets forget about the aerial rescue thing for now. Your example sounds ok, you have hired in a bona fide subcontractor with insurance. But if you are working with him then its not really subcontracted out. Maybe it is, but as you have quoted for the job your insurance will be claimed on first and then they can try and claim from the climbers insurance. If they are successful in that is very hard to say but I would think that your client would be covered by your insurance (and then possibly by the climbers) in case something went wrong, because you seem to have done the right thing by getting a sub contractor with insurance. If you had tree surgery insurance and you got a climber in and did the ground work for him as in your example above then I think (only my opinion) that any claim would stop with you, as he would be seen as an employee and not a bona fide subcontractor and therefore his insurance would not be required. The only way for a landscaper (using your example) to completly remove themselves from the insurance issue is to give the client the number of the tree surgeon (individual or company) that you recomend and then let them organsie the job themselves. If the tree surgeon then gives you some £££ then all well and good. So if you quote and take exactly the same amount of £££ for doing so you become partly liable.

It looks like a 16 strand tree rope to me, definatly not a rock climbing rope. Maybe XTC You need a loler inspector to look at it really to be sure, but the frays alone arent too bad. I would be more concerned about its age, and what use it has had previously. If its ten years old and has been used for rigging then no you cant use it for climbing regadless of any frays.

In the work situation its not your liability, its the company you work for, weather they are insured or not. In the car driving analogy that you give its always your liability weather insured or not, if your told you are insured to drive another car and you crash it and then it turns out you were not insured then, sadly, that is still your liability and you is in trouble.

If you have quoted to the customer for the tree work then you are driving the vehicle, and he is not a bona fide subcontractor if he doesnt have an aerial rescue qualified groundy with him who would ideally also do the clearing. In your example I think you are actually employing him, but for now we'll say he is a subcontractor. Your insurance is still required for the job. Where you have said that your insurance allows you for sub-contracting out to a bona fide sub-contractor, thats great but that subcontractor should be a two man team and he is employing the groundie (ideally that is) but even so you would still be in charge and responsible for the whole thing, so the client would claim on your insurance if it went wrong. Your insurance would say its fine, your allowed to use bonafide subcontractors and they would pursue the subcontractors insurance, when it later turned out that he was working alone (with you as groundie) it could fall back on you, but maybe it wont. What I am getting at is that his insurance is not to be relied on if you are still the one runnign the job for the client.

I came up with an analogy that explains my reasoning behind advising self employed people why they dont need seperate insurance when working for an insured company. Bare with me and I will try and word it so it makes sense!! Imagine you are driving along the road with a passenger. You are fully qualified and insured to drive that vehicle. The passenger also has a full driving license and insurance to drive any vehicle. You get to an awkward junction, you look right and the passenger looks left, he says all clear and its all clear yourside aswell so you pull out. Just then a car comes fast (but not speeding) from the left and there is a collision. Now is that the fault of the passenger? Do you try and claim on his insurance? After all he said it was safe to pull out. Surely he should have his own insurance to cover him for telling you it was safe to pull out? Or do you recognise that you were driving and therefore its your insurace that needs contacting to sort the situation. (this is just an analogy so of course I'm ignoring the other drivers insurance!) So in tree work its important to acknowledge who is driving the vehicle, and who are the passengers.

Yes, thats whats going wrong IMO. I spoke to an insuracne company and they said if someone phones them and say they are working a "subby" then they will happilly sell them insurance for tree work. A few years ago it was impossible to get PL without EL because the insurers knew there had to be two poeple on site and one must be employing the other. I do not know why this has changed but individuals are now buying PL insurance and working as self employed climbers and in nearly every case this is a waste of time and money. Thats why I try and get people to stop using the word "subby" because even when used as nickname for self employed its still suggest seperate working conditions.

You can do that, but if its your job then you need the insurance not the guy you have chosen to get in for the day. You need to have insurance to cover who you have chosen to do the work because that choice IS YOUR work method and needs insuring. If you choose to hire in a muppet who smashes everything in site, then its your insurance, so choose wisely and get someone good but you still cover them. If your main job is not tree work and therefore you dont have the correct insurance then you need to hire in a company to do the work, i.e. bona fide subcontractors, and then you leave them to it. But they need to have seen the job first and agreed a price, in writting and then they carry out the risk assessments etc and then they CHOOSE the method of carrying out the work. You insurance will still need to have an inclusion for hiring in sub contractors, because if anything goes wrong the client will go to you first, therefore even with a completly subcontracted tree company doing the work with their own insurance you still have some liability if you are making some money from the deal. So, in you example above, yes you can hire in a trained arborist for a day and he is self employed with his own insurance but if it goes wrong its down to you to sort out, you cant pass the buck to an individaul that you have "employed" for the day.

Oh, ok, I get it! So you still have insurance as if your self employed, that's good. Not really sure what to advise then, but if your vehicle is doing work as well as miles then you need to get good rates based on hours not necessarily miles.

Yes that's a difficult situation, warranty is supposed to be honoured by any official Stihl retailer but because tools are not supposed to be posted that kind of implies that you (everybody) would buy from their local and get warranty issues sorted there as well. When that is not the case they get the hump. If I bought from listers (for example only) I would go to them with any warranty issues. In fact many years ago they replaced an 066 that I seized on day one!! I kind of missed the "running in period" and went flat out!! They replaced it no worries, quite surprised!! Imagine if I took that to different retailer!!

Dave, knowing who you mean in cheltenham, all I would say is that I am surprised you go there at all!! They are a minor stihl dealer, so they have to buy stock from George Carr's in Bristol who are the regions distributer dealer. They are a lawn mower shop primarily and will doubtless be busy due to a sudden rush of muppetts wanting to mow their postage stamps but havnt fixed/services the mower from last year. The shop in question has never given two hoots about those in the trade, they simply are not interested. Problem is you need to take out a mortgate to go to Listers in Ciren for servicing, saw purchase yes as they buy direct from Stihl, but servicing is very expensive. My best local advice mate would be cleeve garden machinery, not officially stihl repairers but they know there stuff!

bedfordshire, google it.

Good work Craig!!!!

You really dont need one! Lanyards dont realyl need it IMO, its only there cos the grillion is expensive, but a decent rope lanyard doesnt need it.

Thats the ones!!

Just run at them at speed and you'll soon be up them! Or swing out so that you end up at the top of the slope. Webbing loops are loops made out of webbing, you can make them out of rope but then they are called something else but the name escapes me.

There ya go, the conversation went on to the knot I was on about, I called it the ray mears bivi knot at the time!