Paul Jenks

The woods is a good place to start your career. Very little to damage and loads to learn. As said it's very hard graft to earn. Be careful with tiredness, especially towards the end of the day. It's easy to injure yourself on uneven ground or with the saw when fresh so monitor yourself constantly and stop when tired. Use a small saw. Practice accuracy with your felling so you don't wear yourself out with hang-ups. Of course tired is a relative term and means different things to different folk. Most youngsters don't know the meaning of the word tired. But then that's probably cos I'm an old fooker.

We have a list of people in most of the areas we work who will take chip or wood or both. If we don't the office is tasked with finding somewhere. Better to give it away and keep the lads working than waste time bringing stuff back home. There's little space at our place for storage so some energy has gone into finding local drop sites. The lads know where most of them are or they are programmed into the satnav. On highway sites we blow it into the verge where we can. With a good sized team producing 15-20 tonnes of chip a day that's a lot of down time if we have to cart it away. Rakings go on the burn pile.

You could use anti-vibe gloves, though they are very expensive and last about a day if you use them for anything other than holding a chainsaw. As said earlier the polesaw/hedge cutter combo's are way over the limits at about 10.2m/s/s, which means that you can use it for about 30 minutes with gloves and shouldn't be used at all without. Keeping your hands warm and using a loose grip will also help.

Also, the updated 5837 says that no more than 20% of the RPA is to be under hard standing, even no-dig cellweb. The basic premis is, as Jesse wrote, that the TPO is there to ensure the overall number of trees is maintened, so some trees can be removed, if justified and replaced and the TO agrees. With the BS if a tree is to be retained every effort should be made to ensure its longevity, hence all the protection measures. If you can show that the overall tree cover will increase and the retained trees' root zones will be improved, (aeration, de-compaction etc), as a result of development then the TO may be minded to look favourably on your project.

Get the longer rope. By the time your LOLER comes around you'll have 2 shorter ropes and you can then get another.

We endeavour to carry out planned and random AR. Usually about 6 monthly. All our guys are trained to climb and cut so we don't tend to differentiate between climbers and groundies. Everyone climbs, though some more than others. The beauty of the practice sessions is that when a real situation presents itself the stress levels don't rise too high and the rescuer is more capable of reacting correctly and to the best of his/her ability. Don't forget that it isn't always the time to get the IP down. Getting to them and administering first aid is, IMO, more important. All the guys have climbing kits so there should always be at least 2 kits on site. As they are PPE they should be familiar with their own stuff too. We all use broadly similar climbing hitches and techniques so we don't have to learn too much. If a new climber brought some super-duper kit and rope access technique we'd look at it to make sure we were familiar. Big awkward trees often get an extra line in and there are generally ladders about too. For a council to not spend time doing this sort of preparation is pretty poor.

It's a challenge to get a right answer as there are a few variables as stated above. The H&S part of me says I'd have told them to go away. The realist part says, " were they any good, did they look like they were going to cause themselves any harm, did they help me earn a bit more, or at the very least make the job easier." A communication with the council could vary from forceful indignation, copied to as many officials as you can get email addresses for, to a gentle note, to the line manager, stating that the PPE on site on this occasion was note what you'd come to expect of them. Round here the council workers wear so much PPE I'm surprised they can do much work. (Sorry, my mistake they don't do much work.)

Most of the time the climbers weight is so inconsequential to the weight of a few limbs and/or the wind loading that it doesn't matter too much. I think I would have stripped it as I went up to get some loading out of it. Also, if it is still attached to a significant part of its rootplate if it does go over with your weight it is unlikely to go quickly. Not ideal I'll grant you, but a great story for the grandkids, assuming you live.

Beat me to it. As Peter said, ' A fast climber is a fast climber.' Usually one employs some or all of the skills one has learnt over the years to help with the whole operation. A skilled operator will generally know how to keep safe and be commercially viable. Also, the 'risks' a trained and skilled climber takes are based on an awful lot of empirical data so an operation that looks hazardous to one person will probably be well within the bounds of reasonable to others. Bearing in mind that to some even climbing a tree is mad, let alone swinging about with a chainsaw.

We have to pay £8000 for the privilage of doing business in South Oxfordshire. It's just another tax. Deal with it. Some pay it, most don't. On the up side they do clear the fly tipping from around our way pretty quickly. Maybe we should have a company policy to shove all the rakings out on a side road at the end of the day and save us the hassle of dealing with them. At least it is green waste so we could salve our conscience. But then I guess the brigade that drop off dishwashers, tyres, fridges and kitchen sinks don't have a conscience. Bitter? Me? not at all.

I'd get it to level ground and get a 360 to bash it about to clear most of the stone/soil etc. And see whats left. Diamond cutting tools are no good on wood as the clog up too easily. We had a windthrow a few years back alongside the highway on a steep bank. Got a crane to turn it over and drop it back in the hole. Still there 12 years later.

Dishwasher, every time. Do it about once every 3-4 months. (Use a normal tablet, don't put any dishes in with it and tie up the chin strap out of the way of the water spinning thingy.)

Give it a good haircut and, as Huck has said, it should come back in no time. It's no good leaving willows to get too big anyway as they inevitably fall to bits. These willows come out early so it should have had enough time to get in a decent feed from its leaves.

When you order your first 100 you can buy a drill bit. It's just a wood bit with a washer welded on to give the correct depth. You drill holes around the edge just in from the bark. the number of holes is determined by the species. I.e. poplars etc have more holes closer together, say 100mm apart. There is a sheet with each box giving the information. When you tap them in not bash them in, the capsule of glyphosate bursts and is delivered straight to the live wood and the hole is sealed.

Cool, thanks. The point about client awareness of ongoing management is that we, as in AAAC, have to give our clients information and advice as to the likely future ramifications of reduction works. Ignorance, (the clients'), is no defence, though as professionals we have a duty to keep them informed, so if they decide to do nothing about a tree that has been bolted together and heavily reduced and it subsequently falls to bits, we have done our bit. I will say at this point, bolting trees together is by no means a common occurence and is only used in extremis when the client desperately wants to keep a tree. And I'm totally with you on the per tree basis.

Go online and you'll get the details of the UK distributor. We've been using them for about a year and haven't had any issues. Individually they're quite pricey at about 50p each and on a large poplar stump you may have to use 40-50. Therefore you have to be a bit more accurate with pricing to treat a stump. They are very quick and easy to use, safe with no special handling requirements. As they are expensive, don't leave the box/container in the van, take them out only when needed and take the right number, as scattering them across the vehicle is not conducive to good humour.

Not on my harness it doesn't. There is a straight line from the maillon at the front to either of the side D rings.

For balance I sometimes clip one end of the strop into one side D and the other to the front so I have a bit more stability and stay out of the 'Circle'. Some years ago I almost became part of the circumference on a big crack willow and the big sharp saw I was using combined with a lot of trigger saved me. Makes me think every time I start on stems.

Are you meaning a rod at the inclusion to hold it together or one placed further up above the fork? Our experience with rods above the fork is that the fork inclusion may blow apart as the tops of the two stems come together in strong winds. We have also bolted inclusions together with some degree of success though the client needs to be aware of the ongoing management requirements and the need for a crown reduction at the time of bolting.

Bless you both. I was being silly. Although I rarely double up when using the Swedish.(That sounds like a rather dubious night-time activity) Actually it's a rather fine Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon.

Considering most of the coniferous forest was planted post first world war to make the UK self sufficient with wood it's ok to fell them, assuming the timber is being used for something. We seriously considered using helicopters for wood removal from a garden in North Oxford. It was commercially viable and we had CAA approval for the operation, but the garden was just too small to store the wood prior to removal and the cost, £1000 per hour was only viable for a three hour extraction window. Had the company been allowed to use their Huey, with a 2 tonne lift capacity we'd have done it.

A back-up saw.

I understand that the feed rollers on timberwolfs can be dismantled and sharpened. I think you can send them away for not a great deal of money or DIY. The feed rollers stopping might be the managed feed system or low hydraulic oil. The lack of grip may be blunt feed rollers or something affecting the springs pulling the rollers together or a small bit of wood debris in the slot the roller slides up and down in, stopping the rollers from coming together completely.

Oh. You mean when you have another saw in case you blunt the first one on your steel strop?

Back-up?