daltontrees

Lots of resin blisters on the smooth bark, starting to look a defo for Abies and I wouldn't argue with grandis.

Could it be Western Hemlock Tsuga heterophylla?

Looking vey much like Acer platanoides, Norway Maple. Complete with nightmare compression forks.

I am just posting here as a cross-reference to recent debate on the same question. http://arbtalk.co.uk/forum/general-chat/69621-re-verifying-climbing-experience-5.html#post1060208

Thanks Treequip. Most helpful.

Right, I'm trying to watch the telly here but this is irking me. Your insurer is covering you and trusting you to manage things responsibly and professionally. You send a subby up and you are no longer in control. Therefore your insurer is not in control of you. That's why an insurance policy says what it says. The insurer doesn't cover you unless you get back-to-back insurance cover off the subby. That's what a court will see, with hardly a snort of derision for any argument to the contrary. Ignore me if you wish, I'm cautious. Insured, but cautious. I gave up worrying about my insurance responsibilites a long time ago when I trusted my judgement, the advice of my brokers and my experience and decided to be insured as a subby and to make sure my subbys are insured. My caution cost me about £200 extra a year. Now I can sleeep better knowing I have passed on my advice and experience. Make your own minds up. Anyone care to indemnify the OP meantime?

I was vaguely with you right up to the last sentence, then you introduced an arbirtary definition. I have worked on some mighty complicated contracts in my time, multi-million £ contracts, everything from nuclear missile depots to indoor climbing centres, motorways, office blocks, demolition jobs, housing estates ... and in my experience and in the view of the QSs and REs and lawyers running the jobs it is not as simple as placing the jobs entirely in the hands of a subby for him to be bona fide. He doesn't need to be responsible for the operation in lieu of the contractor, he just needs to be in control of part of it. In control. Using his power tools, his LOLERed kit, his methods (whether written down or not), his directions to other operatives under authority delegated to him by the contractor and so forth. I have no-one to persuade her and no axe to grind. All I am saying is that it is increasingly apparent to me despite everyone's helpful input that the OP would be well advised to err on the safe side to treat his freelance climbers as BFS and ask for their back-to-back insurance. All you old-hands in the industry can make your own mind up, but it is really clear to me that most freelance climbers doing a day for a tree contractor in Britain tomorrow will be de facto BFS, and that a lot of contractors are taking a huge chance through ignorance or otherwise if they aren't insisting on back-to-back sucontractor PL insurance. At least ask your broker at your next renewal. Get it wrong and one day it could give rise to a very ugly situation.

OK, here's what I have established. The Business Insurance Expert says this - "There are two distinct types of sub-contractor and it is important that your business is able to distinguish between these different types of sub-contractor. The nature of the contract and your working relationship with the sub-contractor (whether they be a bona fide sub-contractor or a labour only sub-contractor) will have ramifications for the responsibilities you will be assuming and consequently the type of Liability Insurance you require to cover your potential liability. "The following should help you to determine between the different types of sub-contractor and whether Employers Liability Insurance is required. "Labour Only Sub-Contractors - Labour only sub-contractors generally work under the direction of the employer and they do not provide their own materials or tools or than small hand tools. They would be considered as employees for the purposes of an |Employers Liability Insurance policy. "Bona Fide Sub-Contractors - Bona fide sub-contractors generally work under their own direction and provide their own materials and tools. They should also take out their own Public Liability Insurance. Provided they are not working under your direction, have their own legal liabilities which they insure themselves, there is no need to include these in the count of employees." My insurance policy Arborisk includes EL and PL for labour only subcontractors (LOS) but not for bona fide subcontractors (BFS). So ask this question. If a subby turns up with his own climbing and lowring kit and saws, gets into the tree and directs the brash-rats as to what to do as he prepares to send stuff down, is he a LOS or a BFS? To my mind there's no doubt at all that he is there as a BFS. He is therefore not covered by Arborisk and if he screws up and hurts someone or flattens a car, you're liable because you brought him there but he's not covered by your insurance. The Business Insurance Expert goes on to say "It is therefore imperative that whenever you enter in to a contract with a bona fide sub-contractor, you must check that they have Public Liability cover in force for the type of activities they will be undertaking for you and that it will be in force for the duration of the period for which they will be undertaking the work. You must also check that the indemnity limit provided under their policy is at least as much as the limit provided under your own policy. If you do not do this, your own policy would be invalidated and you would therefore have to meet your own legal liability and associated legal costs out of your own coffers." He then adds, very usefully and I expect authoritatively - There are a number of factors to take into account when determining the status of a sub-contractor. A worker would be regarded as a Labour Only Sub-Contractor (and would need to be covered for Employers Liability Insurance) they meet the following criteria (1) They are paid by the hour, week or month (2) They are entitled to receive overtime pay or a bonus payment (3) They only supply their own small hand tools (4) They always have to do the work themselves (5) The main contractor can tell them at any time what to do, where to carry out the work or when and how to do it (6) They work a set amount of hours (7) The main contractor can move them from task to task A worker would be regarded as a bona fide sub-contractor if they meet the following criteria (1) They undertake a job for a fixed price regardless of how long the job may take (2)They have a contract for the provision of services as opposed to a contract of employment (3) Within an overall deaddline, they are able to decide what work to do, how and when to do the work and where to provide the services (4) They regularly work for a number of different people other than the main contractor (5) They have to correct unsatisfactory work in their own time and at their own expense (6) They hold their own Public Liability insurance in their own name. (Public Liability insurance is not a statutory compulsory form of insurance so it is possible that a sub-contractor may not have this form of insurance) (7) They pay the cost of all materials or supplies required for the work without being reimbursed (8) They are free to hire someone else to do the work or engage helpers at their own expense (9) They risk their own money (10) They provide or hire in the main items of equipment they need to do their job, not just the small tools that many employees provide for themselves. Which does a typical subby sound most like? Tell me please that I'm wrong and why?

Having just read sopme of the stuff int neh insurance fsubforum, I am more confused than ever.I am going to look at my policy, and I will post my findings. So much in these threads just talks about insurance but people confuse PL and EL. EL is of course in law compulsory. PL is commercially essential for contractors. After that it just gets murky. I must now add to the advice given to the OP that he MUST check that the subby's kit is LOLERED. There seems to be no way round this.

You might be right but that's not the way I understand it to be. My policy, for example, says that I am insured for people in my employment but that subcontractors have to have at least teh same level of cover themselves. If someone is harmed and sues the OP for £1/2M, the insurer will pay out but if it was due to work by a subby can then recover the amount form the contractor and leave him to recover it in turn from the subby who, if he has no insurance, will be bankrupted. Maybe it just depends on what your policy says, but I am pretty sure insurance isn't there as a substitute for competence or for the insurance of hired-in labour.

That WAS his question. Within a few weeks he should have tried and discarded like you. I think the first thing he should do is make sure that if they screw up during the trial period they are qualified and insured so that he is covered. Anywqy, if you take on a subby for a day at £125 and he turns out only to be worth £75, you have only lost £50 worth of cimbing, and if you get him in on a fixed price for the job he has to come back the next day and finish off at his own cost and it's cost you not a lot.

You can tell if they don't have it quickly enough, but I have used subbys who have done a good job olf looking the part until about mid morning when it all starts to grind to a halt. The OP is looking for "a good pool of quality climbers to get the job done in the safest & professional manner as possible". How is a 10 minute van-exiting test going to do that for him?

To "reduce growth relative to other branches", would need to see the whole tree and its situation, species and condition. BAsically take as little as necessary to achieve objectives. Red and blue seem likely to exceed (locally) the 30% rule-of-thumb. RobArb's approach seemsd more appropriate. You can always go back and take off more, but it's pretty difficult to put branches back on if you've overdone it.

10 minutes? You're kidding, aren't you? Anyone can look quick for 10 minutes but can be a total liability because they're compromising on safety. And how will 10 minutes let you see how good they are at establishing all-day-workable anchor points, suitable pulley positions, good redirects for branch walks, never mind cutting bigger stuff, directing safe snatching and lowering and generally planning out an efficient and effective dismantle? I don't dash up a tree, because by the tie I get to the top I have assessed the usefulness and strength of every branch and fork and have planned the whole job out plus taken out all the annoying small stuff and got my ropes on the right side to avoid snagging on lowering operations. Honestly don't know how you can suss someone out until they have done a full tree.

It might be expedient to stay part of the £ for a while, and I expect it would suit England .. sorry ...the remainder of the UK to have it stay for a while too. Governments get by on borrowing, and it would not suit the new slimline UK or the new Scotland plc to have a downgraded credit rating. It doesn't really matter what the Barnet formula says, scottish oil is a tangible asset that I supect underpins UKs creditworthiness. Anyway it smacks of getting divorced and wanting to stay in the marital home until a new one is bought using the proceeds of disposal from the sale of the home. Conjugal rights don't come into it, the nationalistic bit of me wants to make a witty quip about wishing England to be sexually self-sufficient after Scotland's divorce. But I won't, just remember though that after 300 years of marriage Scotland has got rights to a share of the assets. The more an anglocentric UK says that the £ belongs to england, the more the neutrals like me are to feel old resentments stirring.

Quite the opposite, there is no rule to say that you need to be part of the UK to have the pound sterling. The disunited kingdom could choose to share it with Scotland if it suited both parties. I'm not saying whther it would or not, I'm just saying it would bne allowed to. Some coutries that are in Europe aren't in the european currency union, some are. It's the same idea.

Hopefully you're not voting no based on Salmond? You should be thinking about 20 years' time when he is long gone.

It will still be a UK pound because the UK will still be the UK minus scotland. Calling the UK pound or british pound the english pound is like calling the euro the deutsch.

Ask to see their certificates. They have to have at least CS38 or modern equivalent, plus 39 to use a chainsaw for freefall and hand held dismantling, plus 41 for rigging dismantling. Someone will come along soon and tell you that ther is no register of climbers but that one is proposed by the Arb Assoc tech committees or something. It's a long way off though. There's climbers and there's good climbers. They should have all the tickets plus good references.

I will probably vote yes, but (and here's one to ponder for a minute) I would probably vote no if there was an English Assembly. Every other country in the UK has one. Why not England? Why do the english accept non english MPs voting on english only issues? If I was english I would find it morally repugnant. What would be fascinating would be to see how many english would vote for scottish independence.

IN colder weather I like to uwear gloves anyway because I find if I am doing lots and lots of cross-cutting a pair of thin wool gloves under a pair of leather work gloves keeps your hands toasty warm and sees off the threat of white finger. It's either that or heated handles. The inner gloves stop the outer ones getting all slimy and stinky.

It's your fault for recommending the Book of Leaves (p.421). I wouldn't have got it otherwise.

Thanks I have just such a spot. Possibly even making covering it over in deep winter a possibility.

Heh, if you cut your only rope, you will automatically become lighter because you will expel some weight out of your bottom. But in the context of the overall mess, fairly trivial. No offence to anyone, that was just a little bit dark. No jokes about black holes please!l

Motion is dynamics! Anyway, I was just rattling stuff off from memory, and as ever I'm delighted that anyone is the slightest bit interested. Well spotted! I don't think Arbtalk is ready for departures from Newtonian physics yet. A smart-ass Einsteinian reply might be able to demonstrate that the climber descending or ascending at a fixed velocity would become heavier or lighter by virtue of that velocity. But the quantum would be so minute that you could lose or gain more weight breathing. Oh what the heck, I'll never get another chance to use E=mc2 on Arbtalk. If you equate the energy of the moving climber E to mc2 where m is climber's mass and c is the speed of light and equate that in turn to the climber's kinetic energy (the energy stored in his momentum) which is 1/2 mv2, the increase in the climber's weight if he is moving at 1 m/s is 1/2 (v2/c2) = 1/1.5 x 10 to the 16 Which, if the climber weighs 100kg is 0.00000000000000667 kg. Which is not very much. Happily this would be the same whether SRT or DdRT and there is no danger of SRT causing a nuclear holocaust.