Big J

I've asked for no presents this year unless I specifically ask for it. I've got too much stuff as it is, and if I want something, I generally buy it (within reason, of course. The gold plated Unimog is a way off yet). Same for the kids. If they need it and it's warranted. They've way too many toys already. I don't understand why people go so far as to put themselves in financial difficulties over Christmas. They were talking about it on Call you and yours on R4 the other day. Madness.

It's almost the case for us too. Given that we only seem to live in old, uninsulated houses (which is amusing for my wife, as a green design specialist architect), the fire is still on, but we're letting it die down to almost nothing before restoking it.

That's good to know, but considering how inefficient petrols are, that's a day's work with my forwarder. So 30x £1.20 is £36, versus 20 litres of red diesel which is £13. Almost tripling my daily costs. On my next job, where I reckon I'll be on site for 60 odd days, it'd cost me an extra £1380, plus the hassle of having to go to the petrol station every day. Also, in summer, I tend to stay on site, so 100l of diesel brought with me would last all week. Not possible with petrol.

One of the main issues for petrol engines on plant in the UK is the law regarding transportation of petrol. It's only supposed to be 2x5l cans in your vehicle and no more. I also don't like the stench of petrol in the truck, the fact they expand like balloons in warm weather, the cost and the fuel economy. I had a Kohler 38hp v twin on a sawmill from a few years back and the engine had to be replaced under warranty. It was loud and obnoxious too compared to a diesel.

Well that makes sense!

Also, bear in mind the additional waste incurred with a chainsaw mill. You have to take thicker slabwood off the top (you have to have enough to screw the ladder/guide into) and the extra kerf is a real issue if you are dealing with cladding. Topchippyles - if you've enough work for two manual bandsawmills, I'd suggest it's time to upgrade to a hydraulic mill. Once you've got hydraulic log handling, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

It's really knackered the small forwarder market. My machine has a stage 4 Kubota 44bhp turbo diesel. Lovely little engine too and a real shame that it won't be affordable any more.

PM sent

Sorry for the lack of an earlier response - busy day! We're going to store the branch loggings in vented 1 cube bags in a poly tunnel. They should dry well in that environment. Beyond that, I think a top loading stove is the way forward, but haven't seen the perfect one yet.

£7-8/HF roadside for good quality butts. Need to be good for that though.

It's very true. I apologise without reservation! ?

I realise that I have contributed to this thread, but on reflection the term "favourite Christmas song" is an oxymoron. It's like saying what's your favourite kind of invasive surgery? I bloody hate Christmas songs!

It has rear wheel weights, but I'm not sure whether the tyres are ballasted. You volunteering Jim?! It has air conditioning you know!

Economies of scale kick in a lot in our industry. A labourer with a spade might only charge you £8/hr to dig a pond, but an chap with an excavator charging £35/hr will cost you half as much. An adopted southerner I may be, but you do more than 10 years north of the wall and they make you get a tattoo of a haggis when you leave. I'll have to live with that, and the acquired penchant for deep fried food. I look forward to a pint or four. Maybe I ought to bring the little forwarder to one of the Arb shows on behalf of Logbullet

Haha! Well, I had coffee and hot (as in just baked) cinnamon whirls brought down to where I was working, and a variety of modest but tasty lunch offerings. ?

Got in trouble first day in my new job as a roofer when I was caught masturbating. It's OK though. The Boss said I can wipe the slate clean.

Again, fair point. And it does break and it isn't cheap to fix. Maybe a better way to look at it is that because I had the right kit for the job, I was able to get it done very quickly and at minimal cost. There are loads of jobs for which I don't have the right kit and I try to avoid them. Sheepy suggested that maybe they had a long drive to get there and other associated costs, but the way that I look at it is that I won't add that cost to a job because I'm not correctly geared up for it. I'll either turn the job down, or gear myself up for it so that I am competitive. Anyway, as regards this job, I think we're almost all in agreement that the original poster was probably overcharged, but was also probably expecting many more logs than was reasonable.

I was up to Birmingham and back today and it was torrential all the way back.

It's a fair point, and pricing from photos is fraught with difficulty. That being said, with one 30ft tree and two 20ft trees, the only way I can see that a grand was justifiable was if the trees were hanging out over a crocodile infested swamp and you agreed to let the customer have half an hour with your wife. I know that the example I offered cutting for my friends isn't representative, but even at full price (£800, rather than £400) it was only a few quid per stem. It's probably a case of being lucky enough to have the right kit to do the job really quickly. The stems all got branch logged and having the forwarder to pull them out and stack them was brilliant. Anyway, I only really agreed to the job in order to justify the purchase of a little coppicing saw! ?

Could easily be. The gauge on the Isle of Skye regularly records more than 500mm in a month. It's been amazingly wet lately, and even in Cullompton it's been more than 300mm

It was one day on the forwarder, one day titting around with a 30cc Echo. I rather enjoyed it, I'm between larger jobs and I'm helping out friends. I do not use the terms ill educated or uninformed pejoratively. I use them in the sense that I am personally uninformed and ill educated about brain surgery, deep sea exploration the use of tact on online forums! ?

I know the cost of running a business, and I have more machinery than most 3 man tree surgery outfits, as well as the insurance to accompany it. I did two easy (like 6 hours work, lunch supplied) days and felled and extracted 250 stems of comparable size to the ones belonging to the original poster. For a normal customer, I would have charged about double, but I'm happy to do something different for a change and help out some friends in the process. £400 for 12 hours work is hardly FA, especially when considering I went through about £10 worth of red diesel in the forwarder and 2l of petrol for the chainsaw. No other costs at all. Anyway, it's hard to improve the overall image of arboriculture if there are still people that think it's OK to profiteer off the uninformed and ill educated. If you went to Halfords and they charged you £40 to change a lightbulb on your car, if you didn't know better you might think that's normal. That you didn't know that it was a rip off at the time doesn't make it any less of a rip off.

It's a terrible way to do business. You only rip someone off once, and a ripped off customer is much more vocal than a happy customer. Given that word of mouth is the best advertising, it's not a good policy.

Given that they were straight fells, I'd have expected a three man squad not to require more than 2 hours, comprised of about 15 minutes to fell them and sned out, and an hour or so to log up and chip everything, and maybe half an hour to tidy up. 15 minutes for a cup of tea. Most groundies aren't paid more than £100 a day, so assuming two jobs like that in a day, it would still leave £600 profit for the proprietor. The level of technical skill involved in that job is very low and the owner of the trees was ripped off. We've a duty (as everyone does, in all walks of life) not to (gratuitously) overcharge people who are not expert in our field of expertise. Working for a friend this week I coppiced around 60-70 multi stemmed willows. Maybe 200-250 stems all in. Took me two days in total, with all the stems extracted to a point about 400m away. Charged them £400. If they weren't good friends it would have been £700-800. That's 250 stems, not three.

Yeah, the short while I spent using the crane, the sway was noticed and it's not that pleasant. I might speak to JAS P Wilsons about what they'd recommend regarding legs. Should be fine without in fairness.