djbobbins

Got mine for Christmas, finally got some timber for splitting and had a go today. Verdict = 😊

I might be interested in some poplar (or pretty much anything else apart from elder) - where in particular & were you thinking money would change hands or maybe just a few beers?

Sounds like a potential money pit... as suggested, proper structural survey could be the best money you ever spend.

Steel tray (or a shovel) under each wheel and drag it out of the way? Ideally leaving it somewhere that means all the doors are difficult to get access to!

It's the country for me... quite close to Russia, tall treetops etc? (Sorry, couldn't resist!). Enjoy...

Safe as houses, providing you've got split second reflexes and can run 30m in about two seconds flat... I think the Dibnah approach would be better though... Or as my father told me when he worked on slum clearances in the 60s - put a big chain round the base of it, hitch up to the back of a 'dozer and pull it down. They used to do it with terraced houses; in through the front door, out the back door and vice-versa in the property next door. Chain up to the bulldozer and cue - a big pile of bricks!

We made the mistake of buying a car private a few years back, when under pressure to do so (one car fubar, had a hire car for the day to go car shopping, viewed this one at about 7pm as it was going dark...) Dodgy as f... Turned out it was Cat C and had been clocked for about 40k miles. Cost us two grand, about another two grand in repair bills over the next 14 months (although to be fair, much of this was due to my Mrs planting it into a kerb at about 30mph and stuffing the drive shaft, wishbone, track rods etc). We then decided enough was enough and went to p/x it and got offered £400, ended up selling via eBay with full disclosure of the history - got a bit more than the p/x price but not much. Saw it about two years later so someone got use out of it :-( Lesson learned - get a check done!

Meanwhile, over in the land of rules you can buy one in a DIY shed or they will deliver: http://www.obi.de/decom/product/Dolmar_Benzin-Kettensaege_PS-222_TH%2F25_cm/8950180?sc=862

I never got called to blocks of flats on that type of job but remember cracking a smile when, whilst we were standing around a recently cleared manhole, a posh lady at a house in Cheshire seemed very shocked when someone in her house flushed the loo and a big "Richard the Third" floated past. Apparently they don't have bodily functions in Cheshire!

On the Bill Clinton theme... slightly dated now but: Bill Clinton flies back to Washington DC from his home state of Arkansas in Air Force One. As they bring the steps to the 'plane, Bill comes walking out with two piglets. The security guard says "Nice pigs, Mr President!" to which Bill replies "Son, these are not pigs. These are genuine, pedigree, grade A Ankansas Razorback Swine. I got one for Hillary and one for Chelsea." The guard waits for a moment then responds in a definitive tone "Good swap, Mr President, good swap."

I don't know if Ms Piper is good or not, but if someone could arrange for a test drive, I might be willing to volunteer - just for scientific curiosity, you understand! ;-)

What was the reason for doing that? Damp / ventilation issues?

I've done a few menial jobs (pot washing in a pub, helped on a gang clearing blocked drains) but the worst job I've had was made that way by the boss, not the work itself. Many things are tolerable when everyone is in it together; in my case I had a boss who gave no support or steer but wanted everything done yesterday. I lasted nine months. When I left uni, I went to a temping agency in Manchester and got offered a place starting the next day on the Salford City Council council tax helpline. I was desperate but not that desperate...

I'm fearing the day they make each person get onto the scales at the check in desk; I bet Ryanair must have thought of doing it already...

So as a thought, to reduce your risk of under-costing it - why not go back and tell them you'll calculate the materials required, let them place the order and you do the labour element on a fixed price? If they are building houses they should also have the plant and contacts to get the ground level ready for the topsoil and turfing too - one less thing for you to get caught out on?

Also sounds like a credit risk to me - under pressure to get the job done, does you getting paid depend on the house being sold? Likelihood of the developer - and all the money you've spent on materials - going 717s up if the sale is delayed?

We live in Germany for a bit and the bigs shops over there aren't allowed to open apart from on five or so Sundays per year. (By big I mean anything bigger than a newsagents, although petrol stations and bakers were open). It felt strange at first but once you got used to doing the grocery shopping on a Saturday, it meant Sundays were much more special - for days out as a family etc. This was helped by the fact that you're not allowed to mow lawns on a Sunday (so I was told) meaning that it really is leisure time. Oddly enough, many of the Germans around where we lived spent their Sunday nipping over the border to Maastricht, Roermond or Venlo (the three nearest big towns over the Dutch border) all of which did a roaring Sunday trade...

Surely the 99p must be including VAT or anyone would be mad to go anywhere near it!?!

We have got BP fuel cards through work. Typically 2-3 p cheaper than my local Tesco.

Good post. I've been trained in a previous life in incident investigation and also done some of the IOSH courses. One of the tools we use in my current company is bow tie risk assessment. I've bluntly, but with good effect, explained it in a different way to colleagues as the "sh1t hitting the fan": Think of a fan in the middle of a piece of ducting, sucking air in at one one end and blowing it out at the other. The fan is the event that has the potential to do harm. On the inlet side of the fan, it should then be possible to stop the event ever happening, for example avoiding working at height if possible. I like to think of these as baffles in the ducting. Providing there are enough baffles and they don't have common failure points (like human error) it should be possible to remove the risk of the event taking place. On the outlet side of the fan are the the things that prevent that event, if it ever happens, from doing harm. This is another set of baffles (in my simple brain!) which stop the sh1t from the fan blowing into my face. This can be fall arrest equipment, PPE etc. Sadly many people think PPE is safety but it's the last line of defence. If this can be of use to anyone in terms of doing risk assessments or coaching people on workplace safety, please feel free to do so. No-one goes to work with the intention of not going home safe.

A small amount of petrol is useful for the first oomph, but burns too quickly to get anything green dried out. Trying to solve this by using more petrol = asking for trouble. Heavier grades of oil, with slower combustion, are the way to go if someone wants to use liquid fuel. Or veg oil, for that matter - less of a concern about it getting into the soil.

And this: Bluntly, using more than about an egg cup of petrol to start a fire is a recipe for a Darwin Award!

This:

No tyres! A handful of straw and if you are desperate, a tiny amount of petrol for the initial ignition. But trying to use petrol to get green material burning is dangerous and futile - it burns too quickly to dry the wood out. I'm not averse to a bit of used engine oil for getting a fire going but try and keep it out of the ground...

ELG, I've been to the U.S. and watched the TV. My TV licence here in the UK is about the same cost as a paper cup of coffee from Costa / Starbucks. This also pays for the BBC radio production costs. I'd gladly pay that to be able to listen to BBC radio 4, radio 5 and radio 2 rather than anything with adverts in it. So the TV is free!