richy_B

As Coletti said, limited lift in terms of height and weight. I looked at a used 'kanga kid' as I thought it might be useless for little jobs but the issue was it didnt have the height to tip into a transit tipper. I feel they are behind the rest of the class. Cheaper obviously but a boxer, Vermeer or ditchwitch are far superior standon machines and the Avant and Multione ride in are another option.

I can't specifically comment on parts but it baffles me how some companies still exist with these kind of carry ons. I ordered a new Ifor trailer and was quoted 22 weeks!

I plant 1000 or so rootballs a year (mainly 12-14 but quite a few 18-20s). I always get the tree in position and strapped them cut the wire top and trim back the Hessian. I don't remove it as a lot of the soil falls away and you lose all those fine roots. We replace 20-30 a year after 3 years and the Hessian has always rotted away and there are only a few bits of wire left. For me it's always leave the bag on. If you are going to cut the bag off you might as well buy bare rooted trees.

Apprentice sounds well suited. From your description it could be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Reduce your physical workload, work with you 3 days a week or so which allows for college. Not sure you could send them in your place but could work.

True but that customers comes along every leap year! If you have a market for it or can use it yourself then great. If not it's a hard sell.

Nice. Have you welded a hitch to the front of the blade? I thought about putting an American type receiver on the top of the blade so I can slot in a hitch when needed.

I will give them a clean later!?!

I was in a natural clay pond yesterday and I agreed about the rubber tracks and steep, wet conditions. I had the blade all the way down and was still sliding all over the place. I'd have been stuck without my trusty waffle boards. If you've not got some do - one of the best £60 I ever spent.

If you are going to be with him 5 days a week then you are not self employed. Ask yourself - if he is this unscrupulous when you are PAYE how will be be when you have no protection. You are walking into a minefield. Arguably you should inform you mortgage company of any major changes in employment status. check you t&c's.

No disrespect intended but there is 'the grass is always greener' can be a dangerous thing. As PAYE you might feel under paid and perhaps you are but with 6 years employment you have reasonable job security, stat sick pay, paternity cover, demonstratable wage for mortgages, loans or credit should you need them. You go self employed for a bit more money and you have no job security, he (or anyone else) could drop you with no notice at all. You have no sick, no paternity, no redundancy, no holiday pay. Often overlooked is the impact of self employed on your ability to get a mortgage. £95 A day puts you at £24,700 per year PAYE with all the benefits listed. £120 self employed is £31,200 if you worked 5 days a week 52 weeks of the year. Take off 20 days for normal level of holiday and it's £28,800. Take off some fees for tax returns. Take off the cost of supplying your own equipment and LOLER. Then consider you may not fill everyday you want to work. If I were your employer and you asked for this arrangement I'd gladly take you up on it as it takes away loads of admin, hassle and risk for virtually no money difference. I would suggest you need to looking at £150 self employed or you'd be better trying to get to £105 PAYE.

Sounds sensible. Would a small logging trailer help at all? I have a small ATV logging trailer from tcf. I think it was around £700 quid. You could load tow it with the digger easy enough.

It is smaller than the competition but I've got on well with it. A larger grab could see me on my side I fear! When grabbing piles of brash a bigger grapple would be advantageous though. I mainly used it for grabbing rings when I was processing arb waste. I could sort through a big pile of rings into rough sizes or I'd chainsaw it into smaller lengths whilst in the jaws. You can lift them onto a strong table for someone to then split as well. Only 40-60kg rings but an absolute treat compared to lugging them by hand. Getting them from ground to the splitter table height was a back breaker.

A bit of it does but it's pretty minor. It has 3 settings on it. It is mainly for how far away you want to grab. Ie the grab is right above the log say 2 metres away, 1 metre away or right up close.

Not the best picture of the grapple. Super useful bit of kit.

You can get a 'thumb' for the excavator pretty cheaply. Or a fixed grab is very good. I have a fixed grab from digbits on my 1.7t komatsu. You could put a round strop when skidding the logs up a bank then use the grapple to load a trailer. Saves a whole lot of back ache! I can lift 200kg bits of log not bother.

No offense but you are overthinking this and will tie yourself in knots. You don't need to be itemized unless you have thousands of customers. Work out your standard day cost ie 2 men, tipper and chipper. Don't mention to a customer but have a day rate and half day rate. My half day rate is 60% of a full day. Charge them one or the other. What were you costs last year? Divide that by 200 and you have a good base figure. All the chip and logs are yours unless agreed otherwise.

Arb trader

Mine as we're all having a looksie.

I think this is the most unfair aspect of it. All under 3500kg GVW should be exempt in my opinion. There are a lot of rules and exemptions that can confuse.

I think you are falling between two stools. My experience of a CRM system is that it will store contacts, detail orders, flag up or analyse sales, schedule follow up sales in line with previous orders or repeat orders etc. It normally feeds into an order system though, it isn't one as such itself. They tend to be geared to medium to large businesses though with several thousand customers to potentially millions of customers. Do you use any accountancy software for you business already? As Ash said something like QB could work for you. You have customer details, you can create orders, invoices and receipts. You can easily see what customers have ordered in the past. I use it for my accountancy and you can get it cloud based so you are covered for data protection. I find it is fine for a few hundred customers. It does lack the 'sales support' aspect though. Ie automated follow up communication if you have not heard from the customer in a defined period of time.

With my L200 king cab I have around 600kg payload with me (100kg) in it. Mine has a steel body but it is just dropsides not an 'arb' body. I reckon if I switch it to a new ally arb body I'd get another 100kg or so overall. Should be good for 2 cubes of chip legally although tools and a 2nd guy would eat into that. I don't chip into mine. Its used to carry implements for my MO or for landscaping jobs in parks, allotments or cemeteries. Personally speaking I think it's difficult to get a vehicle that is a good family vehicle as well as a decent working vehicle. The requirements are quite different. Your overall costs are going to be higher but a double cab pickup and a transit tipper style vehicle are a good combo for a smaller outfit. Having a backup vehicle is a godsend as well.

I agree. They are good looking machines but for £46k you could have a nearly new double cab pickup and 7.5t canter tipper then a decent used tractor.

Just looked it up on there. £46k plus VAT !?!?!? For a 3.5t tipper.

I have a king cab L200 tipper. Rear 'seats' are tiny. You couldn't get a kiddie seat in there and by time they are out of them they'll be too big for the back. Kits, coats, lunch go on our back seats. A double cab tipper is going to have the weight very far back and you'll overload the rear axle easily.

Nice selection of implements there. Someone would be set up with this.