richy_B

This. You risk the business as well as a friendship.

I used my local council tip when I was clearing out the office & yard. General mixed waste. Cost £97 for 480kg!?! No wonder there is so much fly tipping.

Its probably because its swelling is right on a joint that it is more painful than usual. My worse experience of was getting a blackthorn go 1cm straight up in between my finger and finger nail!

I work with blackthorn a lot so know the problem all too well. My experience is often a there is a bit broken off still in the wound but if you go at it with tweezers/needle you just make it sore. It will generally work its way out in a few days but if you want to speed it up soak your hand in hot water for a while then gently squeeze around the area. Put some TCP in the water too.

Personal loan of £5k. Put it into the business as a directors loan they repay yourself monthly. You can get an unsecured personal loan for just over 4%. Hard to find anything commercial for anywhere near that.

I've got a '05 L200 and completely agree about the gearing. At 2000rpm in 5th gear I am doing about 48mph (sat nav indicated). You push it to 55-60 and it really starts howling. I am mainly in London so traffic is bad and find I average 20-26mpg. Towing a mini digger for two weeks in stop start traffic I got 200 miles from a full tank (70 litres) - Ouch! Having come from a '07 Ranger and '08 Hilux before that it is noticeable how much more of an 'agricultural' feel to it. As a run around/quoter I use a 125 scooter - 90mpg, free parking, £17 tax and it is a company use only vehicle you get 100% VAT back on it.

I agree. One of the biggest thing retrospect teaches is buy the right kit to start with. Obviously there are major financial constraints in the early days but in the long run it is much more efficient. If you are tree surgeon a chipper, saws and climbing kit are your stable diet so spend the money. A brand new van isn't essential but I'd avoid going beyond 7 years/100k miles. I work with a forestry contractor and he rekcons he needs around £100k worth of kit to run his operation but has spent £200k to get it over 3 years - Buying an older tractor, spending some money on repairs and breakdowns, losing a bit when trading up. Repeat for a timber trailer, flail, winches, so on & so on.

In the scenarios I often think panic is what get us. Talking it through now there are a number of safe ways of getting the climber down but in the heat of it you react quickly and its easy for something to go wrong. Knots not tied properly, too much slack leading to shock loading and failure, even cutting the rope in the wrong place. Easy done. Glad to hear she's ok though. Could easily have been a fatal one.

I like native hedges but if you want a 'screen' within a few seasons cypress are the way to go in my opinion. A site I worked on has a freshly planted row of 3m thuja's at about 1.5m spaced along a single row. Inside a year they had formed a pretty uniformed screen and the provide the privacy/noise reduction the neighbours wanted. Obviously there is ongoing maintenance but could be the way to go.

Hello, Got quite a bit of planting coming up in November and could do with an extra pair of hand. Would suit a college student/trainee/entry level. Experience of planting standards would be a bonus but a good attitude and happy to put in a bit of graft is the only essentials. Self employed/handled own tax/NI preferable. Pair of safety boots and some waterproofs is all you need. Might not be everyday but likely to be 15 days+ during November/early December. I can be a bit flexible about the days if you can. PM me for more details if interested. Richard.

Its a step in the right direction in my opinion.

I was out and about in West London that day and there were branches down all over, particularly h.chesnuts dropping big limbs. I did think in the morning that some poor sod was going to get walloped. Terrible to hear of a fatality.

Have you considered putting the £4,500 down as deposit and finance the rest on a new/nearly new one? You could get a TW150 for £12-13k so you'd be financing £8k ish which over 5 years in not a lot per month. My experience is buying cheap rarely works out in the end and I reckon you'll struggle to find something not coming towards the end of its economic life for your budget.

I think you are right about that. If you say you can't get out for a few weeks I imagine 9/10 people will keep ringing around until they find someone else. People view the service industry in similar way to products, more than a week and they think you are some sort of out of touch/dinosaur of a operator. I can't complain, last week I needed an electrician. First guy couldn't get out a week so kept searching till I found someone for the next day. Convenience & speed often trump quality regrettably. As a small operator you are stuck - Have lots of staff and run the risk of having people sitting about twiddling their thumbs or lose out on work.

Hello all, this winter I am going to be doing quite a lot of woodland work. I have been doing it on a small scale for a few winters and have hired in various bits of kit but it is time to invest in my own. I may end up buying new but I thought it is worth enquiring to see if anyone has/or knows anyone who might be selling roughly what I am looking for. What I am looking at: All terrain style tractor, 40hp+ range. Front loader is a plus point, Bi-directional would be a massive plus point, cab preferably, decent condition. I work on quite compact sites and generally not flat so a full size machine is too large. I am going to use it to run a winch for skidding, flail for brambles/thick grasses, small post ram & auger and box grader. Really like the AGT850, Antonio Carraro supertigre 5800 & larger BCS's. Also really like the old Holder A50/60, but I don't see them come up much. Anyone know of anything for sale or coming up? London based but willing to travel for the right kit. Thanks, Rich B.

Simple answer is what is your price? Every business/operator is different. Add up your direct/indirect costs, divide it down to get a day rate then add on your margin. As a contractor and as a landowner I'd be wary of a price per acre as not one single acre will ever be the same. Price per ton to an agree roadside location is the common way of doing it, price might be different for the different compartments due to haul distance.

Good tips, thanks. I fear this maybe a long battle yet...

Still not worked this out. Checked the socket - Good. Checked the continuity of all the wires in the charger - Good, nothing 'seems' out of place. Checked all the fuses - Good. Checked the forklift batteries which are reading 38.9V. As a 40V system obviously they are low but this makes sense as I was trying to put it on charge due to the forklift becoming sluggish. Would the charger not work if the battery voltage is too low?

I am sure they are good but could you not just get a couple of large traffic cones, knock the 'feet' off then put them together. The opening might not be that bit but you could always slice the cones and open the up a bit then rivet. The skidding cones just seem like quite a lot for what they are.

I built my own basic drying kiln for firewood after initially looking into the whole RHI thing. I found the big cost was you need a biomass boiler from an approved list to be eligible. The cheapest I could get a system was £10K plus VAT. Hardly throw-away money. It depends on your location but I reckon spending £4-5k on some well positioned agri poly tunnels would be a more economical way of drying wood. Open ends, open sides, high enough for a forklift etc. Ideal.

I am pretty sure the charger isn't the original as its a 'Legg'. It states it is for charging 18 batteries at an initial 80amps so the fact I have 20 pretty much confirms it is not the exact match. It seems to have worked OK the last 10 charges though.

Much appreciated. The main problem is its all very old. Not sure exactly how old but its says 'Made in USSR' ! Leading on from that the info inside on various panels etc is written in what appears to be Russian. Yes, I did think that checking the socket was number one. The MCB breaker didn't go at the fuse box so hopefully that is ok. I haven't got anything else that runs on a 32a blue plug of that size unfortunately which would be an easy test. On the inside of the charger I cannot see anything that looks like a conventional fuse. There is what seems to be a liquid (mercury looking) fuse on the timer. Everything is crudded up inside, 25+ years of dust etc. Nothing looks took suspect though (melted/corroded). It might be easier to get a new charger. Will have to work out what I need though. It has 20 single cell batteries running in series so I guess it is a 40V system.

Hello, I've got a pretty ancient electric forklift (Invicta) and charger (Legg). I've had it a year and in honesty only use it for an hour or so a week to shift a few pallets about. I usually charge it once a month when it becomes sluggish. Today I've plug it in as per usual and nothing. Electrics is not my strong point but I am wondering if anyone has any ideas. I've topped up the batteries with deionised water. They all seem to be at the right level. I've unplugged the charger from the mains, unplug forklift, reset the timer, etc. Tried it all again a few times and nothing. I've tried normal charge and equalising charge. The circuit breaker hasn't gone or anything. When the battery is attached to the forklift its shows 40V so I assume the batteries are all linked ok. I assume the socket is ok but I do not have anything else with a 32A blue plug to test it. I popped the back cover from the charger to look for the 'smoking gun' but there isn't anything loose/melted/suspicious. Any ideas?

Every dry cleaners offers a repair/alteration service. New zips, patches, elastic etc. Usually only a few quid.

Nice work. Straight forward fix to a common problem.