Squaredy

I would like to know what you class as expensive!

I am afraid the planning laws we have in this country, combined with steadily increasing population mean every little bit of land in a built up area is likely to be seen as a potential plot for a house. Inevitably this will cause conflict. I remember as a child growing up in semi rural Surrey being dismayed at how many beautiful large houses with lovely large gardens were being developed into modern tasteless executive houses. Indeed the house I was born in was built in the extremely extensive grounds of a small stately home. But that was a little different as it still left a huge garden. But in my nineteen years living in the area the number of houses must have at least doubled, always at the expense of nice open green areas. And that was an area with a blanket PTO. I have recently been looking in Monmouthshire to see if I could buy a building plot to build my own house. Forget it. There is almost literally nothing. Plenty of farmland near me being turned over to housing - but nothing for the little guy like me to build one house.

Very nice. Which type of cedar are they? I’m afraid selling them is like selling anything. You need to invest time and effort and money to find out what they might be worth, then more time effort and money making sure you dry and store the slabs properly, then more time effort and money putting the word around of what you have on offer. Asking on here is a start, but there are already many people on here trying to sell such slabs. If you list them with good photos on Facebook marketplace or eBay you may get takers, but are you willing to ship them to customers?

I have the LT15 classic wide, electric model. Maximum width of cut 900mm in theory (a bit less now I have fitted the debarker). Great machine; cost around £9700 including VAT, but may be a bit more now. The petrol one is of course more expensive. From memory I believe the Woodlands Mill ones are also well spoken of on Arbtalk.

Carey.

Are there really harvesting heads which also strip bark? All the years I have been buying logs for milling I have yet to be offered stripped logs. Is this just the government being totally out of touch with the real world? Or am I out of date?

I can only go on my own experience. I have used a Woodmizer for three years and am very impressed. Didn’t break the bank, excellent UK based support, very efficient. There are threads on Arbtalk making other recommendations though.

Why not just get one of the modern narrow blade bandsaws? Probably cheaper, brand new, and more efficient.

Yeah twenty-five pence a pint. But when average wage is £1 per hour that is actually about the same as today’s price. Housing is the thing that has increased out of all proportion. Food is generally cheaper now.

What am I missing? This is the jokes thread…

I guess there will now be a new market opened up of trendy vans with extra seats in which are classed as commercial vehicles and so do not attract benefit in kind tax charges. Before they abolished the tolls on the severn bridges it was a similar thing there. Is it a van or a large car with seats? The point being the car was something like £6 to cross, the van (no matter how small) was about £12.

I do agree we need better electricity storage. Don't forget this has been achieved very well by pump storage power stations - the first one came online in 1963. But wind is not the only answer of course. As for subsidies, who pays for the cleanup when fossil fuel extraction ceases? It is the taxpayer of course. OK, the company behind it may make a contribution, but there are currently thousands of disused oil platforms which no-one really has a clue how to dispose of. And what about the millions of land based oil wells which are not properly capped? Why are the companies not made to cap them when they are no longer needed? Instead they leak vast amounts of methane and the local authority tries to deal with the problem. I live near the South Wales coalfield - it still costs many millions per year to manage the spoil heaps etc. All subsidised by our taxes.

Offshore wind is indeed the cheapest way to generate electricity these days. No subsidy is needed. Which is why it is booming. And is why I get electricity at 75% off for my electric van. What will help as well is to stop subsidising fossil fuels. In fact government subsidies are really the biggest cause of all our current problems. If the consumer had to pay the real cost of producing food we would all eat less meat and more veg.

I think what is being suggested is double cab pickups will no longer be classed as commercial vehicles but as cars. This means if your business provide you with a double cab pickup you will get hit with a hefty benefit in kind tax. Presently they are classed as commercial so attract no benefit in kind.

Yes, it looks as if the 750 times more emissions is actually a reference to the allowable limits on emissions; not on actual emissions. The other stat is that household burning of solid fuel is now the greatest contributor to particulate emissions, and about double that of transport. This i believe is where this whole new movement is coming from. Can this be true?

I would like to know if someone is doing proper research, or at least fact checking on behalf of the firewood and stove industry. As has been said there seems to be a quite powerful movement against all forms of solid fuel burning right now. Some of it no doubt is justified, but some is undoubtedly nothing more than hyperbole. Anyone got any links to websites giving some real facts? I for one do not believe that a modern wood burner burning dry wood produces as much emissions as 750 HGV diesel vehicles. That is a stat I have heard quoted a lot recently.

You have a good point there. The main ring road in my home city gets the verges and central reservation cut regularly throughout the summer and not only does it cost an arm an a leg it can only be done Sunday mornings as the road is simply too busy at any other time. As I drive past it and see the gangs of men with strimmers and more gangs of men with traffic cones I do wonder that we haven't come up with a less costly way. I sometimes wonder if they could simply reduce the cutting to just one a year. Vast cost saving and maybe benefit due to wild flowers taking hold? It certainly wouldn't be dangerous in my view. Maybe a few bits would need to be trimmed more often to keep lines of sight clear, but for the most part it has no impact on safety - unless I am missing something.

Yes indeed; hopefully someone else will want it.

I am a good buyer. But you don’t mention the location!

You only have to look up the dry weight to realise it is so light it will contain very little energy. Easy to dry though so makes good kindling. And yes Leylandii is better firewood.

Regarding business rates, make sure your contract with the tenant states he or she is responsible for any business rates payable. As GarethM said it may well be nothing to pay, but pass this problem (if it is a problem) on to the person who will actually be using the space. I would also recommend getting professional advice regarding commercial tenancies. You should probably make sure it is a license to share the area with you rather than an actual lease. Otherwise you may well find you have inadvertantly given the tenant security of tenure, and can never get rid of them.

Dunno about that but didn’t we find a stash of crated spitfires in Singapore a few years ago? I’m sure I remember seeing that in the news but can’t find it now!

For $50 each I would buy the lot!

Have you tried Eddie trading as valley timber near crosshands? Not used him for a long time so he might not still be trading.