gensetsteve

If we had a crystal ball and could tell what the winter was going to do we could be minted. If it was going to be a hard winter you could buy in a 1000 tonnes of cord and sell the lot. But if its mild you dont want to be sat on £50,000 of wood. I forgot to mention the double dip recession and the storms which killed alot of business. One customer of ours spends £1200 a year and had a huge ash tree blow into the garden. Unless you have a large retailer taking your wood I would keep it as a side line and not put all your eggs in one basket.

I thought after selling logs for six years I would post my experience of last winter. It may help someone decide how to run their business. We have had a good and enjoyable time untill winter 2011. The winter did not really happen and our sales were down. We are just slightly more expensive than our local competitors at £130 for 1.5 cu metres tipped. Our logs are a mix of seasoned beech ash oak and sycamore now. Luckily logs are a side line to boost our income. I may have missed a trick and am open advice and views. We have a good advert which works a treat and we dont normally need to advertise but last winter we did. Most of our wood is bought in cord at around £40-£50 a tonne so if we drop our prices it wont be worth doing. My conclusion is if its a mild winter the cheap loads will last and business will be slow. If its cold and wood is short cash in and charge what you like. But last winter heating oil was 40% cheaper than 2010 so that did not help either. Logs are worth doing if you have arisings and time on your hands but the biomass market is pushing the price of cord through the roof because of their 50% subsidy. I have no idea how much we will do for this winter but I still have half the cord from last spring.

Unless desperate to keep our customers supplied we would not bother with offcuts its too time consuming.

I would say £5 for unseasoned chestnut now would be about right. In a hard winter £7 . Is it sweet chestnut or horse I find horse ok to burn on stove or open but very light when seasoned. Sweet chestnut spits like made on open fire.

You may be able to get round the tacho rule if you stay close to home not sure, u will need to check. My discovery will handle 250kg on the hitch if you have nothing in the boot you need to keep rear axle under 1800 kg. The hitch will wear out quick . If you mount crane in middle things would be alot better. I would fit an engine on the draw bar I find electric pumps painfully slow. Otherwise it looks a good bit of kit if you have good access.

Sycamore feels lighter than ash when seasoned and tends to go black as it dries I seem to remember. If ash grows as well on your land I would go with that.

Sorry about the rant but the thought of getting the wash board and mangle out after a 14 hr day in the pouring rain sort of hit a nerve.

If we all sign on the dole we would have time to wash up in between daytime tv and meals out at Weatherspoons. Not having a go at anyone on here but getting sick of being told to work harder for less by the politicians and the eco warriors. If you have a business and kids and both work labour saving devices are a god send.

being really tight when we got our new washer I worked out which programme was the most effiecent for the money spent. The eco programme took longer used the same electric but used less water. How sad am I

I have a radial arm saw with tct blade the other day it was grabbing in the timber. I was cutting pine I had some green oak and that cut like butter with no problems at all. It could be the sap builds up in on the blade or because the wood is so soft the teeth dig in more.

Another thing to check if anyone else has this problem is when engine is cold remove rad cap start engine. If after 30 seconds engine is pressurising cap keep realeasing it should not keep pressurising after 5-10 seconds also you may see bubbles comming up through radiator. I have had engines with no cross contamination but compression gases entering coolant system will boil coolant very quickly. On bad cases its often not boiling but gas escaping. The cap should pressurise slowly ie 4-5 minutes after start.

If thats how you measure it you would be paying £80 a tonne. As you measure the stack you need to remove 45% for air space if its nice cordwood, more if its bent crappy stuff.

Are you about to take your second set of exams how many years do you have left.

I have had a very similar body built onto ours and its a great truck. The main problem you have now if its the same as ours is it weighs 2000kg on the bridge and the max weight is 2500kg. To help the problem ours has a set of coil springs in between the bump stops I think its a common trick in the hilux world and the springs must be sourced from another vehicle. For rear lights the bodybuiler fitted a set of iveco pattern lights which suit it well and gives you four rear side lights which is handy if a bulb blows.

What caused the crack, frozen block or something else ?

Some how your own are never as bad. running a small additional 4 seat hatch has to be cheaper than o licence 12 week checks etc. It could give you an additional 400kg payload. You dont need to drive it or own up to owning it

If it was me I would establish some facts. I would do as alcidon says and take a net of known dry logs eg beech not more ash. While there, cut an old log in half and check with meter if its over 20% it could be a problem if its near 40% it is a problem. You only have his word for when he had chimney swept so could be a hardware problem not software. Talking of software rightly or wrongly we always cut the rotten smelly stuff out the middle 1/2" along one edge ok but big chunks of rot dont produce good btu's and weigh nothing when dry if it looks a bit iffy we burn it on our own fires and share it out with the boys.

allcool radiators possibly in luton serious players on our big stuff.

Double cab or single cab wont make alot of difference to the outcome unless you have 3 fatties sat in the back. A bench seat and 150kg of extra tin. Rather than carry crew send them in a corsa you wont have to suffer the farting all day either.

I can only speak for my own business but if generator sales drop so does our staffing level . With less staff its harder to do quotes. Also we have noticed alot more people asking for quotes for work that will never be done its a paper exercise to keep there office looking busy. It costs about 2 hrs to take a phone call and prepare a quote so £78 we make about £500 on a 10k generator we get about 1 in 10 so why bother ?

I have never used a machine without in feed conveyor. Is this a problem does it create more work. I never gave a thought to loading right handed. Having loaded the hakki from the left for the last 6 years would feel strange right to left. your set up would actually suit my yard better.

I would imagine while they are inspecting the logs he will offer to do a load just for them especially since he has so much time on his hands. Anyone who spends 3 days and £150 on diesel dragging 10-20 tonnes of cord has to be an idiot.

Tip master quoted about 4-5k 2 years ago for that sort of job. I got mine done by boulters in Tadley with high sides 3 tonne ram and new rear lights dividers etc mine came out at 3k with vat. I doubt you could buy the materials for £1400

I would say he bought the logs for something to write about or if not it was handy at the time. His experience of buying cordwood it would not surprise me if he suddenly started doing loads for people. A word to the inland revenue if you find this the case. I would get someone to ring him and record the conversation then approach the editor and get a full page editorial on HIS page, which you write, followed by 6 months of quarter page adverts starting in august. Dont let it get to you, keep the high ground but I would not let it drop. I cant believe the editor will put up much of a fight, who needs the hassle. Good luck with what you decide to do. If he complains about the kindling I will bring my handbag

We have one its happiest at 8 in over that its easier to chainsaw into rings otherwise you spend time feeding logs back in or un jamming splitter. A cery fast machine for 8 in stuff but I think you need a 1x37