jaime bray

So how does all this make the brake lights work? Mine don't!!!!! I can tell you its not a bulb as I can see the bulb through the smashed lens. There is definitely power going to them, because when you touch the loose wire it sends a little pulse through the finger of the lad that works for me. I don't touch it... I don't trust electricity, you cant see it coming. Although, the loose wire under the body that can also be used to lift the tipping body can sometimes give off a shock too

Woodcutter, just reading arb associations guide to use of mewps in arboriculture. Section 7 states that it is not acceptable for chainsaws to be used in close proximity without a barrier in place. The barrier is required to prevent the mewp operator sustaining a chainsaw injury. The weight of barrier should be taken into account in relation to the materials load that can be placed in the mewp, its rated load. The barrier in the picture appears to be from floor of bucket to circa 6ft high, made of metal mesh. Presumably mesh to enable communication. The Hse comment that the guide sets out systems and techniques that can be considered as good practice and help anyone in business meet their legal obligations.

Just to clarify, do you mean both men using a saw in the mewp, or one person directing the mewp, and attaching lowering lines etc to assist? I presume you mean the latter.

Bit unfair that , do you know how expensive the paper is for a consultants report? You start hitting the 120-160gsm stuff its the vermeer of staples stock of paper. Mark bolam gets 600quid for half hour 'price this job' thread lol

If Carlsberg did tree work, that would be how they'd do it. Mustard that job was. At 7.57 does that small branch pop off right close to his head or are camera angles playing a part in it?

CJM I say court broadly, this could be lower level hearings or appeals to the secretary of state etc. Didn't mean 'in the dock, banged to rights gavnah' styly

Within the realms of consultancy and expert witness work, depending on what your specialism is, you can be in court a few times a year. Whether you are acting on behalf of a developer going against a councils decision not to permit a development or defending a trees retention/removal pertaining to a subsidence claim, or heaven forbid defending a client in the event that their trees have fallen over and caused serious injury or damage to property or person, in such circumstances, I believe it to be the case, that at times, your professional qualifications are used to ASSIST the court in ascertaining whether your expert opinion is worthy in relation to the matter being addressed and should be given due consideration.

I think its fair to say as in many industries but particularly arb that once a climber gets to the end of the climbing career they depart for a different industry if there is no pathway into a company with broader career opportunities or post climber supervisory roles. Whilst this results in a huge loss of skill set to the industry it seems to be the accepted practice and is such a shame. The trick is to plan for this moment, you need to ask yourself if you could work for somebody else or are you a lone soldier. This will enable you to direct your route in a way that will permit you too stay in the industry if you want. Can you carry out tree reports, mortgage surveys, development survey work without qualifications? Do you need the quals or can you just read up about it and start consulting? This i suppose is similar to the question; do I need chainsaw certs to be a tree surgeon in the sense of being self employed and making a living. It may be the case that you only need level 5-6 quals if you end up in court defending your advise etc. read up about it and go from there, I always envisaged having kids that would want to be tree surgeons, and they take over my business giving me an income and early retirement, I' had two girls and a boy, the girls aren't interested yet,(11 &9) the boy loves it, but he's only four. My other desire for offering them a job was to guarantee that they had an avenue to work when leaving school if they didn't develop academically as well as they needed to. So on this basis,I looked at setting up own consultancy practice, at worst to offer them admin work as girls didn't like manual aspect, yet. I have nd arb 1996, but wanted to be academically defendable should I go to court. So I went and did rfs cert arb to refresh memory, then did tech cert followed immediately by pd arb old format before it changed. This also gave me an insurance policy to go into lecturing should I have unfortunate accident. I have a close friend in the industry that taught me and came to work for me eventually. Whilst he worked for me I offered him tech cert study but he couldn't commit to it as he wanted to be free lance and earn more money. He never achieved a academic qual and is now very battered. He applies for jobs at large estates with estate skills etc but is declined due to having little academic quals. I see this and feel for him, but am glad that I took the opportunity to achieve pd arb when I did. I do feel that it puts my mind at rest knowing I have other avenues of employment in industry still, which are likely to be associated with attaining these quals. So what has achieving level 6 qual given me? Opportunity to establish a consultancy practice, in the confidence that I know the nuts and bolts and have been assessed at this level of academia to boost that confidence. Thus giving my children an opportunity for apossible career should they wish to. An insurance policy in the sense of lecturing or consultancy or training etc. Many other things to many to list, but I know that I do not regret doing what I did. It is too easy to not attain academic qualifications that may just give you the edge over somebody else at interview or be of assistance in defending your knowledge in court. If you are thinking about it then you are in the right path as this is the first recognition of it before its too late.

I did one Friday mark, I'm dreading the councils process response email

Done. One question I have been wondering and your survey may provide a opportunity for it to be answered with amendment, when the chain on a battery saw goes a bit blunt, does it still enable the operator to cut as a petrol saw does, or does it really affect the power available and consequently need sharpening immediately. I know that a saw shouldn't be used with a chain that isn't razor sharp, but sometimes when its late on the day and you are cracking on, you do not sharpen the saw and put up with it for that last few bits etc, or when shredding for chipper late on.

Its the sucking me in that lures me back every year. Paul the rep is a lovely shim. Golf ball through a hosepipe springs to mind

Nice thought that David, I wonder if Westonbirt would be interested in a designated space for such sentiment . Mind you, the paperwork associated with that may make it a cumbersome process.

Treetop Arboriculture (CPTC Coventrys premier tree care company, operating throughout Coventry Warwickshire and the West midlands, how can I help you?) lol P.S I don't say the bracketed bit to customers before anyone comments,only say it when people from industry ring me,especially local companies haha

Shlek fingerless gloves with wrist strap are good and comfy. That's Shlek, not sire how easy to get hold of anymore I bought five pair at arbshow many moons ago

That was a great video, good work there. Bit of discussion really, at points towards the end when you were lowering down the large diameter stem to the back and you still had the main stem present offering a high lowering anchor point, in such situations i try and apply the methods used in crane work, utilising a high tip tie off, especially with the option of winding up the lowering device, simulating the crane, and cutting through the stem to allow a gentler disconnection of the holding fibres, i find it really reduces the swing effect. Do many others do this? Comment made on video and my not being able to truly gauge angles within crown,of branch orientation etc. Very accomplished climb that.

Posted at 11.28 pm. You got 32 minutes left yet. The day could still bight you on the backside yet. Haha:sneaky2: Got to site,set up job, all vans blocked in, and a nightmare reverse up a tight gully. Realised I had forgotten petrol, drained all machines as and when into saw in use at that time. Awaited gf to bring combo can from yard, she didn't realise was almost empty. I turned and said haha that's Friday 13th for you. Managed to scrape through with just enough for blower at end of job. Completely forgot about It thereafter and had very productive end to the week.serviced everything ready for next week. Proper job be that my lover!

The google lot are scared to enter cov, as the last time google maps van was driven into the city it left with no wheels

Lol, bizarrely every local competitor,or at least those i know of are in it. Must be a Coventry thing. Theres a mock of Coventry in there for someone, bolam will wallop that for six

I have to say, whilst I can understand where many are coming from I personally do very well off yellow pages and yel.com I don't have a website which may make a difference to the situation, but I get about 10-15 enquiries a month off it. Have had some excellent leads to. I ask every customer where they got my number from to analyse marketing,and advertising. I do think that sometimes it can be based on the area size of your yel or Thompson book as to how successful the books are in your area.

You could blast over there and do the leaflet drop at the weekend, in hope that more people will ring you and you may get more lawns etc to do when there. Sometimes the success of a leaflet drop can depend on the day of the week you do the drop. Also mention that you do tree planting to as they may wish to get some screening put in place. Many people don't agree with leaflet dropping,and do not get much work from them, but I have had customers ring me because their friend/family member had received my leaflet through their door and they had passed it on. Right time right place, if you aren't out earning then people won't see the van or hear the power tools and trigger their quest for quotes of any garden requirements.

The Arb Association are running a ROLO course this year, its new to the programme. Unsure of the content etc but may be worth a look on their website.

I am sole trader status company, however I pay myself a weekly wage that covers all my personal out goings for home life. This payment is transferred into my personal bank account, whereby I then make two further transfers. 1 too the joint account where all the bills etc come out of. 2 too my business money manager tax account where I put away 25% of the weekly wage for my tax. This account is a 14 day notice account so I vcant touch it at free will. Obviously this is all worked out so that the cost of bills etc are covered and then I add the required amount to constitute my weekly tax and NI contributions as if I am employed by the company. It often covers the costs, excluding the payment on account that has to be made, so at least I have something put away for the six month bank raid that occurs. Works for me, and resembles a similar, not identical scenario, to running a limited company whereby I would be employed.

As spoken since 1968. Although the saying 'do as I say not as I do' springs to mind

Also, all chip to be left on site! Where abouts? Doesn't look like there are to many reasonable places to chip such an amount of arising brash into. From the picture it looks like the chip would soon begin to fall/roll down the embankment. Or will you be chipping into wagon and tipping around the corner

Several questions you need to ask yourself really. 1. Do you or anybody working for you have the correct traffic management qualifications to design/set up traffic management? If not then you need to outsource this requirement for this job or get the tickets. 2. Have you checked the road traffic at various peak times of the day, enabling you to have a better understanding of the traffic management requirements? For all we know there could be a blind bend behind the position you took the picture. The road resembles some roads around me that in a picture look harmless, but through local knowledge I know that they are a rat run and cars and large vans go very fast along them with out a worry in the world. To be confronted by a tree crew taking down a tree like this could possibly result in a crash or your crew getting injured. 3. Time wise, have you considered the time involved in contacting elec company and arranging cut offs etc? This may mean that the tree is in full leaf and consequently arising branch removal will be heavier. The manner in which you wish to do the job may change as you may not be able to hand held larger pieces as easily and you may have conflicts with phone wire and elec cable beyond what the job looks likely to have now. 4. Have you contacted the owner of the driveway nearby to see if you can utilise the drive, or maybe you can not block that drive at all. Your traffic management and the length of your workzone may be altered by this finding. This may affect your traffic management requirements. If you deploy your own signage, you would be prudent to make sure that it is compliant with road traffic management guidelines, a few cones and a tree cutting sign will not protect you in court should anything go wrong. 5 Also worth considering, the labourers, will they need some induction to the site etc? Few ground rules of their duties and what not to do and when to do it. I could think of nothing worse on a site like that than having to worry about the labourers not having appropriate consideration or recognition of the site and wandering around aimlessly possibly resulting in climber causing himself or them injury through having to do a last second alteration to his work to avoid them, or a passing car having to take aversive action. All of this is taking time out of your allotted work time with elec cut off or peak traffic times for instance. Planning the job in situations like this is essential. Really are so many elements to treework that asking for a price based on one picture and a little discussion can very quickly result in you being out of pocket or in court. I recommend you assess the job with your professional knowledge and experience, price it accordingly, and go with it. only you know your business model and your expenses to break even and make profit. Yours are most likely to be different to ours, as is everybody else. Good luck and enjoy