Gnarlyoak

Nick Berry! What you been up to since you left Heartbeat. Glad you gave up the singing career! Might be worth giving people some idea of your location mate. Presumably if you're somewhere like Land's End, you don't want to be traipsing all the way to John O'Groats for your wood.

The neighbour should be liable for any damage caused by the failure of their tree. But how your potential customer wants to deal with that issue is up to them, but they would be best advised to contact their insurance company. Confirm who is paying you. If your sure that they will pay, have the request put in writing then do the job, taking lots of pictures before; during and after. When the dust settles let the two neighbours fight over who'se ultimately responsible with their insurance companies. Should'nt be your problem mate, your a Tree Care Professional not a Neighbourhood Watch Negotiator. The bun fight over liability and who pays the costs should be left to the insurance company leeches.

Anyone else a "guerrilla allotmenteer"? I live in a flat with no outdoor space, just behind me is a railway viaduct, and just behind that is a narrow strip of land sandiwiched between a fence and the wall of the viaduct. So one year I invented a little project to clear a portion of it, of all the sapling; weeds; brambles and accumilation of rubbish & other detritus, and turned it into a small veg patch for personal pleasure and to put a bit of homegrown veg on the table. Grow a mix of everything, mostly from seed stock and packets, plus a few rasberry canes. This will be my 5th year and this post has prompted me to get the seed catalogues out & start planning. Have it laid out in about 7 beds. Rotate the crops every year. Manage it as organically as possible, but did have to resort to biological warfare last year to protect carrots and parsnip from carrot fly with mixed results. I also grow a couple of small beds of wildflowers to encourage beneficial insects and to tempt away the notso beneficial insects from attacking my crops. Every year I seem to get more bees and hover flies. Last year was exceptionally poor, constant rain and grey skies meant little grew well, then after I broke my ankle what little there was rotted in the incessant rain as I was'nt able to go out and harvest much. Still nibbling on a few leeks and sprouts which is all that is still in the ground at the moment. The most successful crop to date year on year is mange tout. Always end up with more than I can eat or give away. Usually self sufficient in potatoes for 4-5 mnths of the year, but last years bad weather meant only half that! Will add some pics of my sneaky plot at a later date.

Bet it must have taken our European cousins hours to fill in the risk assessment for this job!

I think Kayt wants my number. Though maybe she does'nt realise it yet. Some of the other mugshots look familiar. Is it Crimewatch?

Hi mate, Guess you've tried the usual suspects for posting your CV to, Arbjobs; CTC (Complete Tree Care); Earborist. Just a thought, double check your spelling; punctuation and grammar and if you have'nt already, run your CV through a spell checker. Good luck in your search, hope you find something soon.

Nonesense. Ibuprofen and paracetamol in combination is perfectly safe. It has been recommended to me by my GP for dealing with arthritic pain in my hips, the "Double Bubble" I call it. Medically proven that the combo is more effective than either drug taken solo. However, the important thing to remember is that it is easy to overdose on paracetamol which does bad things to your liver and can lead to death. Other potential unwanted side effects inculde dyspepsia; gastrointestinal blood loss and diarrhoea. Avoid taking any other medications that contain paracetamol and limit daily combination dose to 1200 mg Ibuprofen & 3000 mg Paracetamol. Thats 2 tabs of each three times a day. P.S. Though I might be a surgeon, I am not a qualified medical professional.

Cheers Andy, you make a good point, and you put it well. Totally get where you're coming from mate. I know I'll learn from own personal experience and make sure I'm adequately covered from now on. Must confess though that whilst I would'nt have instigated any action myself, if it had been 'offered' I would have gladly accepted. Apologies to OP, we seem to have totally derailed his thread. Sorry.

Yeah I hear what your saying Andy. But the guy I was working for is a decent hardworking bloke same as most of us, I count him as a friend, and I'm his "go to" guy when he needs a climber. Certainly hope and expect to work for him again (could be as early as next wk as it happens, weather permitting) so would certainly have wanted to steer clear of any unpleasant tussle between insurance companies that might have soured a good working relationship. Even if I did have proper insurance cover and was'nt on such good terms with an employer, I think I would still find it personally difficult to claim against a 3rd party if I knew that it was an error or mistake on my part that caused an accident leading to my own personal injury. Whereby the end result was only injury to myself and nothing else.

Sorry I know nothing about the MTD top handle, so can't advise. But, please make sure if your going to be using a chainsaw from a ladder, that you are safely tied to the tree before you start cutting. You Tube and the like are full of clips of people "cutting" from ladders before the limb or stem falls to ground taking out the ladders and wiping out the person using them! eg: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEpXASQ7seY&NR=1&feature=fvwp]Tree Trimming accident - YouTube[/ame] Stay safe.

To be fair they guy who folded owing me the larger amount, had promised to make it up to me, based on any future work I do for him, but by then I'd had my accident which put me out of commsion for a few months. But he did pay for my PTS referesher at the end of November. So he may still be good for the rest of it in due course. As for the other guy, he dropped a load of people in it, and I still consider now and again popping round in the small hours to say hello........ I'm with you on that. I'm still not back at work following my accident, (though hope to be soon), 4 months having to get by on benefits is no fun, but I've never once considered trying to make a claim against the guy I was working for. At the end of the day I fully accept that it was my own stupid error that caused my fall, so personally and morally don't feel that I have any justification trying to milk his insurance company. Besides I think I put him through enough trauma forcing him to feel totally useless and helpless watching me fall 40ft out of the tree in the first place. He tells me it still gives him the odd sleepless night. Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing and you never think its going to happen to you, but I do wish I'd had proper full personal accident cover. The policy I did have covered me for the relatively short hospital stay, but only really pays out if you lose the odd limb or two, or end up in a wheelchair or a wooden box. 3-4 months with your feet up convalescing at home you do in your own time and at your own expense!! I really can't stand this "where there's blame there's a claim" compensation culture thats taken root in this country. Its a bloody disgrace that so few people seem to take responsibility for their own actions these days and instead seem to want to find some other third party to milk for their own personal gain. Again I was scammed myself last year. Had a "tiny" bump in a traffic queue last year. Just a bumper kiss, which di'nt leave a mark let alone a dent in any bodywork. Exchanged details with the chap who seemed satisfied that no harm had been done and thought nothing else of it myself. Then 4 weeks letter get a letter from my insurance ask for details of my "accident" because the third party was claiming for personal injury. Up shot he was claiming thousands for whiplash injuries and time off work. My arse, the lying $%!&! In the end my insurance company finally settled the claim for £500. So he gets £500 simply for lying about injuries that never happened, and I lose my NCD and will end up having to pay double for my van insurance this year. Now there's someone else on the list of people I'd like to visit in the small hours and leave him with a real backache he would'nt forget in a hurry. All in all, I'm not sorry to see the end of 2012, but I'll still be feeling the consequences physically and financially for some time to come.

Gustharts recommendation is a decent easy to use and understand guide for different types of rigging systems. Its published by ISA so does use some American terminology and imperial (pounds & feet) measurements. But well worth having on the bookshelf nonetheless.

God we are a strange lot. I was watching the events unfold on live on BBC News24 this morning and every time I saw the shot of the back of the truck and the chipper I just kept wondering "whose chipper is that, whose chipper is that.....?" despite the drama taking place in the centre of London village. As if up here in Manchesterland I'd have a clue who the hell they were if I'd known the name of the bloody company......

Burn away. The amount of hydrogen cyanide present in the fresh new leaves of laurel is miniscule. Burning it, especially at this time of year will do you no harm whatsoever, unless you stick your head in the fire whilst breathing in copious amounts of smoke, in which case carbon monoxide poisoning and burning could be an issue.

Maybe all you need to do is ask for one Andy. I provide a full detailed invoice for each and every job I do, even if the guy or company I'm working for does'nt want one. I still make one out so that I have a copy for my accounts. But to go back to the original post, I've have'nt yet had a problem with a new client (yet, ), but last year had two guys I trusted and had worked for regularly for years suddenly go under owing me money. £520 & £1080 respectively, both carried on trading the following week under different names. Both use to come on here an'all. So now like Skyhuck says, I do ask for payment at the end of the job or end of the week, whichever is sooner. Simply can't afford to to sweat my nads off risking life and limb and then get burned for £1600 each year.

To be honest mate, I think many of the Ozzy firms that look for climbers on here are usually looking for experienced people who can hit the ground running so to spk. You could try looking through some of the old posts on the employment thread, get a few contact details and approach some of the posters directly via PM to see what they expect. I don't want to burst your bubble, but please bear in mind that a 10 week intensive course is not going to make you the worlds best tree surgeon. It will provide you with some insight into how and why we cut trees, and teach you (hopefully) to pass your tree climbing and aerial rescue assessments. Remember that your "qualification" at the end of it is simply a piece of paper! It can take years of experience to become a safe, competent and productive climber. Seriously mate, I'm not trying pee on your chips, but you might need to curb your expectations. Whatever you may have seen or been told whilst working on the ground, working in the canopy is a whole different ball game. Just my 2p's worth. Don't give up on your ambition, but keep it real. Best of luck.

Sorry son, welcome to the real world. We (country/industry) are into our 5th year of recession/depression. There are a lot of large/medium & small one man band tree firms chasing what few £'s are being spent on tree work at the moment, not to mention the haveago'urselvers & the dodgy flybynights with a chainsaw and a van looking to beguile; rip-off and take advantage of the stupid, or the elderly. Colleges are churning you lot out by the hundreds every year into an already saturated market. There are a lot of lads in your position and even more trying to get into the industry without the benefit of going to college, becasue they fancy doing something a bit different! Why not become a fireman, run a small gardening business on the side and just do tree work in your spare time. Thats one route that some others on this forum may choose to take! Sorry if thats not what you want to hear, but reality sucks mate. If you are determined though, then the best advice would be to be true to yourself and persevere, something will come up eventually but you may need to be patient. You could try offering your services on a free trial to potential employer, show your willingness and abilities and they may take you on. You could try carrying out some voluntary work in wildlife or countryside conservation projects. You may get the opportunity to gain some practical experience on the stuff you learn at college, and it would look good on a CV. Good luck.

No, no cure. Resistant trees will evolve in time. The most important thing to remember is to not "kill" ash trees just because they are ash trees. Be sure they actually have the disease first.

Ah-haa, irritating exploit attacks appears to have stopped now! Has anything been changed? It was still bleeping and causing slow down of browser yesterday (Sun) pm, but all clear today (Mon).

For your purposes I would suggest you could just do CS30/31 for now. If your going to be felling anything bigger than a "small" tree at this stage, you would be better getting in someone with experience. Even some small tree's may require some climbing & dismantling before the stem can be felled. So at some point CS38/39 (or whatever the new certification is now) will be necessary if you intend to really get into tree work. As for costs of course and assessments, they is what they is. There are usually no quick cheap fixes to be had in this area. Assessment costs are fixed, and set by the assessment body, NPTC; LANTRA. Might save a few pounds on training costs if you shop around and are prepared to travel. Must be nice to have a full time job, a guaranteed civil service pension; a gardening business on the side and still some free time to do some tree work. Do you think there would be any opportunities out there for myself and other hardworking treemen to run our own fire service on the side and be freelance police officers on our evenings off? Not having a pop mate, we live in a free capitalist society, so each to there own. But, if your interested, I'll be eating dinner around 6pm so if you'd like to take some food of my table and watch the kids go hungry. Feel free. Not really, have'nt got any kids. Eaten them already. Tasted like chicken. All the best.

No Steve, no Norton have I. Kapersky is my main security platform, backed up by AVG.

Not visited site for a few days, but been getting similar ever since came on earlier today. Does'nt seem to do anything sinister but does cause system to slow down a little. Old windows PC, running XP & protected by Kapersky. Only seems to affect Arbtalk. No updates or changes made to system or software since I last visited! Seems to be some dodgy Java gif thats giving the problem. This is what Kapersky is telling me:- Object: Google Event: Detected: HEUR:Exploit.Java.CVE-2013-0422.gen Had 30 of these in last 45 mins. If you follow the link it just takes you to the Google search engine page?

Have you tried searching "Horse Logging" here on the Arbtalk site? There are a few horse threads on this subject. Try talking to AT member Cousin Jack, or visit his facebook/website.

King Alfreds Cakes - daldinia concentrica More info here:- Daldinia concentrica - King Alfreds Cakes - David Humphries’s Fungi Directory - Arbtalk.co.uk | Discussion Forum for Arborists

You might be better off passing on the MDF, it contains high levels of formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds that can pose a risk to human health in high concentrations. From Wicki: WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in 1995, classified it as a "probable human carcinogen". Further information and evaluation of all known data led the IARC to reclassify formaldehyde as a "known human carcinogen" associated with nasal sinus cancer and nasopharyngeal cancer, and possibly with leukaemia in June 2004. Certainly don't want to be burning that on an open fire. Probably best to avoid plywood for the same reasons. The glue that binds the sheets of veneers together contains formaldehyde. Not the same concentrations as MDF and none of the potential cancer causing volatile organic compounds, but not really worth the risk for the volumes you've indicated. As previously stated wood thats been painted, stained or treated is also probably best avoided from being burnt inside the house.