Paul Jenks

8 years! Either you're very light on your feet or your idea of heavy use is not the same as most others. Work notwithstanding, 8 years and only just losing waterproofing is pretty amazing. Many of the work boots I've had over the years serve equally well as walking boots having covered Nevis and the Lake District. The Miendl ones we all use currently are pretty comfortable. (The red ones). They're not as tall as I'd like but serve the purpose.

Blimey, they're only conifers. Do what you like to them. Leave a bit of green somewhere and they'll probably come back.

Check out this group Hope the link works, The group is called Walk Off The Earth and the song is called Royals. Also 5 peeps one guitar

Another point to note is that new kit is, apart from complying with latest regs, it is generally safer to use.

Local Government Ombudsman • Home An uncle of mine works for these folk. They love to get stuck into LA's. Try phoning for advice. They will recommend complaining to the LA first to see if you can get redress. Planning or no planning, I'm sure the damage and destabilisation of a TPO tree is a criminal offence. Ignorance of protection status is no defence. Also try to get information from the LA without them prefacing it with, 'without prejudice' as this will be inadmissible as evidence, I believe.

Operations start at 0700 and nominally finish at 1600. Office is from 0800 to 1800ish. My team choose to work with me. They are free to leave or stay. I endeavour to create a place of excellence, learning, growth and trust. This nourishes them and they choose their workmates, not me. They are an awesome group of people and they have my respect. I do my best for them, (sometimes I fail), they do their best for the clients, (sometimes they fail) and the clients do their best for us, (sometimes, though rarely, they fail). It's working so far and I see no reason for it not to continue.

Grandchildren

Using a cambium saver might have reduced the exposure to resin. Your main line might improve with some rope cleaner and a bit of effort. As for the prussic, throw it away and start again. Unless you really want to spend a week with soap flakes and a scrubbing brush for a £2 piece of rope. Life's too short.

Stealing saws and stuff is, without doubt, as serious business for some. The volumes that have disappeared recently and the consistent MO suggests professional gangs. They must have a market for the stuff they steal. Wherever the market is, it has to be fed. Taking a step back, cars used to be really easy to steal and sell, here or abroad. Then people got fed up with the inconvenience and the manufacturers made them more secure. Therefore, to steal a modern car you need a gadget to block or read the plipper, break into someone's house and take the keys or simply car-jack them. If we make more and more impenetrable yards, will the thieves start to look for quicker and more pro-active methodologies to get the kit?

In the planning application there should be some reference to whether trees are likely to be affected by the proposed development. If the development has progressed without taking the tree into account, the planning dept and the forestry dept have failed in their obligations. Especially as the tree is subject to a TPO. It seems a little odd that the TO is not hopping up and down if the developers are working near the tree. They usually do, (hop up and down). Unless they have made some errors and are now trying to avert attention to themselves

The last pair of hiflex that bit the dust because the outer was torn to shreds with general use, I took out the inner and my mum sewed it into a good pair of hi-viz trousers. Happy days. Why not do the same. Get a tough pair of trousers from Dickies or somewhere and get someone to sew in the chainsaw inners. As long as they go in the same as the originals there should be no problem.

Monday morning first thing usually. PUWER and LOLER. The clue is in the name of these two requirements. Anything that has Regulation at the end of it means you have to do as part of legislation. Both PUWER and LOLER are Regulations.

As many of the above answers. Also, if the hedge is quite wide, I'll strip a reasonable section of the trunk above the felling cut. Tight gob, deep side cuts just below to stop it tearing and hanging on and cut right through the hinge once it's on the move. Ditch the saw and use both hands to send it on its way. By stripping some of the lower growth off, if it doesn't quite have the 'launch' to clear the outgrown sides of the hedge the butt should not snag and will get to the ground without ripping off those precious side branches that'll make the finished hedge look so nice.

Get methylated spirit in a spray bottle and dose the saw.

I'm suggesting, Huck, that if one has a recordable history of weighbridge tickets, and perhaps, load lines, that if one loads to the lines one may well have a defensible position. It's axiomatic that if one is loaded over the lines one would be overweight and one would know it. If someone is, as you say, way over weight they deserve to get pulled. I though we were discussing being a bit overweight.

On board weighing systems are quite expensive. Especially if they are anywhere near accurate. As has been mentioned previously, get a weigh bridge ticket. Do it regularly and keep the receipts you have with the load weight. That way, if you are stopped, you have a credible defence to show that you have regularly weighed the vehicle to check different types of waste and how full you are. If you are a little over on the occasion you get pulled at least you have some defence. Even put markers on the inside of the greedy boards.

Depends on the relationship you have or wish to have with your TO, whether you tell them or not. Highways are Statutory Undertakers and, if you've been instructed by them to carry out the works, you can carry on. Obviously works should comply with BS3998:2010 as far as is reasonably practicable. Statutory Undertakers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We started VAT free. It took us 7 -8 months to reach the threshold. There is a way of getting a further 2 months vat free. It's to do with the timing of registering. The flat rate scheme only applies to companies/businesses under £150k, (ish. Don't recall the exact figure.) As we planned on and passed this in our second year it was never going to be worth doing. Seems remarkable to me that a 2-3man team can turn over so little annually as to stay under the threshold. Must be taking too much cash. We thought about the idea of quoting a gross price for private clients but it's a ball ache given the number of invoices we raise so didn't bother. If you're VAT registered, your invoices have to have your VAT number on them and show the VAT component. Go in and see HMRC. Our local office was very helpful when I went in.

A very good suggestion Paul

Try not to take it personally. It's a complete ball ache, but it's only stuff. Hopefully, no-one got hurt and it was insured. Disappointingly, it's part of the arboriculture landscape now and should be planned for in much the same way as key person illness, server crash, major incident on site. Business continuity is important. Check which jobs you can do without a chipper and with minimal saws. Ask your insurers what you can go and get immediately to get you going. Don't go mad on alarms and cctv until your insurers ask for it. You may install a system that doesn't match what they want and you have to replace it. Good luck

Some people are soft{read: gentle} on their boots and some are really, really hard. I used to use dubbin, then I got a life. Even the Meindl boots only last about 18 months. We get about a year on average out of these boots. a good pair of boots should start to fall apart at the seams just as they start to lose waterproofness. Throw them away and start again. Life is too short.

We don't invite partners, they're usually the cause of problems. Generally let the guys and girls select a restaurant in Oxford, then stagger into town and end up in a grungy club. We've been to the greyhound stadium a few times as, though the food was indeterminate, it was a good night out. It's closed now so this year we're going to a gastro pub, probably still end up in town. We pay for the meal and any drinks in the restaurant, except champagne. It'll probably be over a grand this year as we have about 20 of us going and the guys really try to drink as much as is humanly possible and beyond. The money from tips and meagre lottery wins comes out this time of year to so they've usually got enough for entry fees, more drink, kebabs and taxi.

https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/logging/manual/felling/cuts/unacceptablepractices.html#swing_dutchman Not recommended in America. Looks like fun to try in the woods though.

You'd be a very lucky camper to have a timberwolf in good nick past 1500 hrs. Even with good maintenance they fall to bits. Most machines fall to bits. Eventually, the cost of servicing, tightening, checking and replacing is not worth the money. There is also a difficult to put your finger on figure that results in increased productivity with a new machine. (Well built and designed older machines aside.) Machinery is written off the books for tax purposes over 4 years for good reason. There are also regulatory/PUWER changes that render machinery illegal and they have to be retro-fitted with safety features.

Your MS should say how the job is going to be carried out, what assets are required and who has the potential to be affected by works. You should then have a SSRA that shows, both at the time of survey and on the day/days of operations, what risks have been observed. There should be back up documents showing the hazard analysis for each of these risks and how, through training, work procedures, barriers, PPE etc each of the hazards are abated or thier potential to cause harm are significantly reduced. All of the boxes ticked on the SSRA should have a set of back-up documents and a list of these should appear on your MS. A contractor will usually want to see your MS and RA, (usually referred to as RAMS), and the relevant back-up documents. We have all ours on the hard drive so they are routinely sent out to contractors. They should also be dated and signed by the person responsible for H&S and should have a review date on them so they are looked at and kept up to date at least once a year.