daltontrees

i have thought about this quite a lot and tried various things over the years. The Platipus thing is a good idea for installing the ground anchors although I have also used angle iron driven in at 30 degrees to horizontal which has an advantage over Platipus in that you don't need to take so much care over the final direction of the guy wires. Local blacksmith would cut you a few 600mmm pointed lengths. But (and maybe the manufacturer will tell me I'm wrong), guying a 30 ft (?semi-mature) tree at the proportion of total height you would normally do for a rootballed standard is doing the tree no favours in the long run. Guying rootballed trees is to stop the rootball rotating in its hole until roots develop to stop this. The guys should be slackened or removed as soon as the tree can stand it. Your situation sounds different, but the proble is the same, the tree becoming dependent on the guys. What is really needed is some way to prevent excessive movement (the sort that is causing additional root damage or even windthrow) but to allow for some movement that the tree needs to produce the reaction of new rooting and new tension wood whle allowing for repair to damaged roots. The higher up you guy the tree, the more it will become dependent. And rigid guy wires under tension will be the worst thing for it. I would suggest a dynamic rope guy (through a hose pipe or anti-fray sheath - or even pipe insulation I have used) that is to say arope with a bit of bounce in it. Old rock climbing ropes are good for this, and an 11mm will be immensely strong. I have had good results with ground anchors set up, rope round tree at chosen point wiht hose and figure of 8 on the bight (you need to tie this once the rope is round the tree, not that hard), then hook the knot with a ratchet strap attached to the anchor and pretension the tree and tie your rope to the anchor. As you ease off the ratchet strap it partly pretensions the rope, leaving a bit of bounce to accommodate normal winds but to prevent extreme movement in extreme winds. If I had any Cobra bracing with shock absorbers, I'd be tempted to use that instead, it's almost the perfect solution and capable of adjustment for time. I am saving it for a fussy client, perfect way to learn Cobra while on the ground. I'd give the root area a damn good feed too, and mulch it.

Good outcome, sir. I am sure you will have earned the company's respect by approaching a solution in a well-informed but measured way. And tehy'll have learned a lesson which may stand them in good stead in the future.

Next time try 'Timmy Time' theme tune, it's a belter. Shaun's seconds cousin, on speed.

"Poor Old Joe" by Stephen Foster. Guess you didn't know the song 'cos it's an odd one for tree dismantling.

Sounds like you had a binding contract. The starting position is that you are entitled to loss of profits and compensation for abortive costs. You are not entitled to the contract sum. But if you had programmed in the work (and hopefully confirmed the dates to the client) then you are generally entitled to the profit you would have made on the job plus the cost of labour for any employees who were unable to be put to useful purposes elsewhere by you. The loss of profits is the only heading under which you are likely to recoup the money and time for quoting for the job and providing all the paperwork. And don't rant about it to the client. But put it in writing to them that you have observed (quote dates etc.) that the work is being carried out be someone else and do they want to stand down? Until they say yes you have to keep your side of teh contract, give them firm dates and RA/MS. Until they confirm, if you behave as if you accept that you haven't got the job you won't be on a very strong footing to claim anything.

This is amusing if you have 10 minutes to spare.

http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/video-forum/70996-roadside-spruce.html Have alook at Tim's video, he manages it with consistent skill that olympic diver Tom Daley would be proud of.

I like how you managed to stack the logs from 20 metres up. Very tidy.

Sorry to learn of your condition, Paul. 80% isn't that bad, could be a whole lot worse and not hearing saws at full belt could be a good thing. My sister had tinitus about 10 years ago and had to have an operation involving tking a vein from her leg and plumbing it in to her ear. She's a senior midwife and it doesn't get in her way although she is probably 50% deaf in one ear. NHS hearing aids are a bit intrusive but privately bought ones are pretty discrete. Could you get one that attaches to a mike and a headset for the guy on the ground? These are commonly available and I am sure if you were determined you could get a hearing aid adapted. I don't know what you could do about the vertigo, I think all the balance mechanisms are in the ear.

What are you using to get these pictures? Looks like an ultra wide angle with macro. Here's one from last week with macro lens.

K. d. Prognosis not good.

Definitely Lime, probably Tilia x europaea.

For anyone who's interested, the scottish High Hedges Act comes shambling into force on 1st April 2014, how appropriate because any Council getting a High Hedges application on the first day and then consulting the new Government 'guidance' will rightly think they are having an elaborate April Fool joke played on them. Did I give the impression there that the guidance is pants. Sorry. Pants are at least useful. High Hedges law - High Hedges Scotland help advice representation

No Tim, I respectfully disagree, they'll be more like this...

At leat it's staying good-natured here on Arbtalk. Thankfully the public don't have chainsaws, hee hee. There will be very few marginals that are embittered by losing after a healthy debate and a genuine democratic debate and referendum. The winners will gloat, the losers resent, nothing is more certain in human nature than that. But nothing would be more repulsive and repugnant than not having the debate. There's no such thing as right or wrong , nebver any clear black or white, just shades of grey and collective opinions. And your average jakey in Scotland is too mean to waste 30p on an Irn Bru bottle for a Molotov cocktail.

I expect the camera guy was holding the otehr end to pull the tree over in the right direction. But note the change in camera angle when it becomes clear that it's all going to go horribly wrong.

Pithiest? Adn do you mean which one goes pithiest? Or do you mean which one goes pithy first?

Surely not? 5 million people times £1100 is £5.5 billion a year. Is that really how much the rest of UK is subsidising Scotland. What about Wales and Northern Ireland? Are they being subsidised too?

Stadard Life actually said that they were making contingency plans to relocate much of their operations from Scotland if tehre was independence without monetary union. They're just saying they as investment managers need monetary stability. Duuuuh! They also said a decade ago that if Scotland got a devolved parliament they would move out. Still waiting... RBS is owned by foreign shareholders (predominantly) and the UK government. Not particularly a scottish problem. Whta I want to know is what will New Scotland Yard be called after inependence. Will it be forced to move to Scotland?

I can't even figure out what he was TRYING to do.

It eems literally impossible to get an objective set of figures on this. People have been discussing an arguing about it for decades. If you have definitive figures adn a source reference I would be pleased to have a look. But really what I meant was that the points in favour of independence were valid and, whereas there are no doubt many against independence that are just as valid, saying hte guy's points are invalid is not a coherent argument. And more importantly still, if scotland gets independence then no amout of apportioning of curent revenues and assets is going to predicate what happens in the future because scotland will have to reinvent itself as a grown-up, non-complaining country that maximises resources, exploits markets, reins in expenditure and makes the most of everything. It's not governments that do that, it's people. What the SNP says it will do with and for Scotland is virtually irrelevant, we should assume that they can and will all be papped out and we start again. Forgetting the past and taking forward no preconceptions about past ways of doing and looking at things. Taxes will probably be higher, but the quality of life (not to be confused with the standard of living) should be better. As a matter of curiosity (honestly, I can't be bothered with arguments), if it could demonstrated that scotland is putting in much less than it is taking out, would that not be a case for chucking scotland out of the UK? Why keep it if it is a deadweight? Out of sympathy? Out of duty or a sense of history?

I think the points you made for independence were valid, the only criticism you got that they were pie in the sky, which is not a rational argument only caremongering. But Dean deosn't get to vote anyway and doesn't have to live with the direct consequences, just the indirect ones.

Possibly Fraxinus ornus (Manna Ash). Your pictures are fuzzy, look it up and see if it's a match.

Don't do it yourself, that's my advice. Yesterday I took down a Birch tree about 20m high. The following things were involved, without which the job might have been possible but would have been more dangerous or difficult. 2 13mm ropes 2 prussik loops Spikes Chainsaw trousers Chainsaw boots Helmet with visor and ear muffs Work positioning (not rock climbing) harness Silky saw and scabbard Top handled saw 18" ground saw Bag of tools for bar cleaning and chain tensioning 2 fit and strong sensible and knowledgeable guys on the ground 2 pulleys 2 1/2 tonne pulleys 13mm lowering rope Snapgate, trilock and screwgate pulleys in steel and aluminium An insurance policy 1000+ days post-qualification experience Flying capstan and 1 tonne strop Wire cored swedish strop Sorry, but I am not going to recommend any brands to you because I don't think you should try it yourself and I don't want to encourage you. Rock climbing and tree work are quite differrent. The former is thrill-seeking, backed up by dynamic fall-arrest equipment. The latter is risk minimisation by non-dynamic work positioning equipment. And when you bring a chanisaw up a tree,the dangers multiply. Then when you start shock-loading a tree during rigging, it's gettign way way beyond the amateur. How about you get a local company to do it on the proviso that they let you help with the ground work? Then you can watch and experience it. They may even let you climb the tree on their kit once they have their top rope in and before they start dismantling?

We are probably just arguing semantics but surely if someone leaves a union it is not the same union anymore, and even if it is still an union it might want to revisit its branding. Starting with Queendom, to move with the times. Again, I am just being playful, but with some sort of subconscious point.