njc110381

Small saws go Husky (apart from that top handled piece of s*** that they make). Big saws go Stihl. That's always been my rule anyway.

If I was in that position and was in fear of my welfare I'd have run him over with the landy without a second thought. See how big he was then!

I wasn't really sure what you guys charge but I thought it sounded a bit much! It probably would be a 20m drag from the base of the trees to the nearest place you could park, but I think three of the four could be felled towards the chipper because there's not much in the way. I'll take some pictures next time I'm at the job and post them. If any of you are local and want to price it then I'll run it past my customer and pass on numbers. He's got a quote from a telecom climber who says he'd top them by 1/3 for £1k, and leave the rubbish. I'm kind of steering him away from that though because I don't like it when amateurs take on something this big (and he's not too sure either!).

Ah yes, but I said I'd do it for £100. Will you do it for £99.99?

I'll take some pictures of them when I'm there next. I forgot to add that price was to drop them and stack it. He's had three quotes, all similar cost and none could chip it! They are big trees. I get the feeling he may have asked the small time traders to look and a transit tipper and 6" tow behind would be there a week dealing with that lot! It needs a serious setup, maybe Mog or lorry and large trailer.

A customer of mine is after having four 70' conifers removed. He wants the brush chipped/taken away (they're quite dense) and the bottoms of the trunks are about 2' round. He's had a quote from a tree surgeon of £5k, which to be honest seems a little steep to me? What do you guys think?

So your bro or one of his team gave you the saw back after trying to cover up their mistake? I'd be having serious words about that! Someone has to pay for it and it shouldn't be you!

Perhaps I should have paid more attention at school! I like the U1000, very tidy. The only thing I don't like about them is that the wings stick up on the sides of the bonnet, looks a little odd I think. If I get a 1000 it will be fitted with a 1200 bonnet, which goes straight on so I'm told.

When I was doing the maintenance on a fleet of Huskys I found that the heavy grease was best for the needle bearings. Just pump it down the little hole in the centre of the crank until you see it squeezing out of the back of the sprocket. Like someone said above, have them apart maybe once a month just to check them over too. It doesn't take long to drop them out and clean them off in petrol (in case any dirt has got in the old grease), have a look at them and re-grease. I used red fluid grease in the bar noses but I'm sure heavy grease will be fine. It's far less important there anyway, bars are replacable unlike the crank on the saw (well that is too, but it's not as simple!). Usually they'll wear out before the sprocket fails anyway.

That's true. Am I right in thinking the spares for the old Mogs are more reasonably priced though? And there's less complicated stuff to break in the first place!

That sounds great! I'd have a chunk of timber that big off of you just to shove it in the garden somewhere as a long seat/nature log. Someone will want it!

Each to their own I suppose. I'd rather keep it the right way up myself, I really like oaks!

You're not wrong!

Modern chip boilers are much better. They can self light, have a screw feed for the chip and even ash extraction. They can run just like a gas boiler apart from needing the ash hopper emptying and the chip hopper filling. Depending on the system and hopper sizes they can go on indefinately without attention! The small hopper fed jobs need attention every day, but the big silo run systems can go for months!

I could run some ducting off of my Trukloder into a hopper. My garden goes all the way around the house and I've designed it so I can drive all the way around too so it wouldn't be hard to push/tow it to the shed once a week to bash up some wood. I'm hoping by the time I get it sorted I'll be able to reverse my Mog and chip box up a little ramp and tip through an opening in the shed roof. That really would be ideal!

Sorry to hear you bent up your chip box buddy. Those two watchers need a kick up the arse by the sound of things! As for the TP760, if it's that shite do you want to swap it for my entec trukloder? MTD chippers are classy if all you want to do is chip old bamboo canes and rose prunings. In a domestic setting they're great to turn woody material into compostable sized bits. I used to like the little bag that went with it. You could fit about two buckets of chip in there before it needed emptying! It's interesting to hear how many of you use Mogs. It seems they either have a fan club or a wouldn't touch one with a pole club. If you take them as what they are, a £100k new tool that's complicated and will be expensive to fix then you wont go far wrong. If you expect them to run for the same money as your Ford Ranger then perhaps you expect too much for too little outlay? I'm hoping mine wont cost me too much when I get it, but who knows? I'll soon find out I guess! That's why I'm going for a cheap old one, because you can get cheap old spares!

Steve, my old boss runs a large wood burner with a gas backup. I can ask him how it works of you like? He said it wasn't easy to set up but now it runs a treat. If his burner temp drops too low the gas boiler kicks in. It does hot water and radiators. On the moisture content thing the boilers I looked at could run (not at full efficiency mind) at up to 45% moisture. I think that problem could be got around by chipping year old cord wood in the summer and dry storing it in a shed. The calculations on chip vs gas usage were very good. Thanks to whoever posted that info. By the look of our gas bill 10m2 of hardwood chip or 16m2 of softwood should do us a winter?

I'm not in tree work I know but recently when people say they've got a cheaper quote I just say "well it's up to you, do you want it done cheap or right because it's not often you'll get both?". Seems to work a treat! I don't charge a fortune either. Just a fair wage. Anyone who undercuts me must either be really desperate or corner cutting!

I need a dog like that! My mate spotted some mice in my porch the other day so I got some traps, mars bars (nine for me and one for the traps) and set it up. Well the trap's been cleaned off twice now and no mouse! I'm pretty good at trapping usually but this ones very light on his feet! It'll be the 12 bore out of the letter box soon. That'll learn 'em!

That's a lot of power cuts! Is your house in quite a remote area? I've got a genny setup ready for my shed. I can turn off the main switch on the trip, fire up the genny and back feed the house if I need to. It's not ideal but it keeps the kettle working if we get stuck!

A tree company local to me did something very similar a few years back. It's what started off my love of unimogs! They did exactly the same, slightly smaller conny and chipper perhaps? I was sitting in my Fiesta eating a sandwich and watching them back the Mog onto the tree. I remember being quite impressed by the no-stress on the chipper taking a bit then revving up again, over and over until the whole thing disappeared. They weren't there ten minutes! At the time I had an MTD Lawnflite 2" chipper shredder which would just about go in the boot of my 1.1 Fiesta so you can imagine how impressed I was. It would have taken me a week to sort that lot out!

I recon ours works out at about £500 per year. That's with the heating suplimenting the wood burner when it gets really cold. I burn about 1.5m2 of wood per month (about a level Hi Cap Landy) in the winter (allowing for the fact that the mrs has an office job so is usually cold! I find it pretty warm when I get in from work!). We have a 5 bed bungalow and that keeps the living room quite warm and the rest of the house cool but comfortable. There are a few reasons I've been thinking of a chip boiler. It would be a good way to get rid of work waste (so would save money twice in a way). It's better for the environment too. The 50kw boiler I looked at uses 8m2 of chip instead of 1000L of oil. I haven't found a gas comparison yet. Most importantly I think they're cool and I could afford to get the whole house really hot (saves the mrs moaning that it's cold) for no extra cost! Can I find a price though?? No chance! I bet they cost a fortune!

I was having a rant about the gas bill the other day and wondered, how common are wood chip boilers? A couple of big houses I work at have them and although they take a bit of work to feed, would be free with a good supply of clean chip! Does anyone here use one? Are they worth having?

Will do. Thanks

I've got a shed full of Thuja at the moment. I do wish some days that I'd chipped it, but then it's better than no wood at all! The odd shaped limbs comment is very true. The less trimming up you can get away with the better I guess. Compared to my gravity feed anything with a roller is good though! Gravity feeds are great for connifer, hazel, ash etc is great but it takes an eage to get even a half grown hawthorn bush through it. Drives me mad some days, it'd be better off eating it I recon!