Squaredy

Of course it is difficult for most pensioners to get extra income by working. But very few pensions are fixed - they are even sometimes index linked - which means they are one of the very few groups who will get guaranteed pay rises matching inflation. Not all I know, but certainly the state pensions will match inflation, and most public sector work pensions will as well - ie NHS, local government, education, civil service, etc, etc, etc.

I think you are so right - many people think cheap energy is a God given right!

Well as doobin said pallets with aggregate on top. Or as you said strap them and keep tightening the straps.

Well, that won’t be much weight in the top, but most of the stack will be well weighted. The other factor of course ifs log quality. A knotty or bendy log is going to produce timber that will distort more than a clean straight log. Also some species are more prone to move. Cedar of Lebanon (and other relatives) are super stable. Oak and beach will move all over the place!

I would say the best weight to go on a pack is another pack. If you can go three packs high then only the top pack is not weighted. When I say a pack I mean about a ton of freshly milled timber.

This is basically what you need - maybe not this exact strap - as I said I would strongly recommend woven strapping. Corded polyester strapping kits WWW.KITEPACKAGING.CO.UK Corded polyester strapping kits for heavy duty applications. Light, friendly alternative to steel strapping. Online ordering with FREE UK delivery available. I do suggest weights though if feasible.

Look at Cordstrap. You can keep using the strap and the buckles and can re-tighten them, but it will cost you a couple of hundred to get started. If you go with this use the woven strap not the cheaper type as this is so difficult to handle. 16mm width is fine for what you are doing. Cordstrap | Keeping the world's cargo safe WWW.CORDSTRAP.COM Cordstrap has over 50 years experience of protecting the world’s cargo. Our global network of experts ensure that cargo reaches its destination undamaged. Weights are better though as they do not need adjusting. When I get a slab badly cup I usually just slice it up the middle and sell it as two boards. Depends who your customers are I suppose!

Just had a price for HVO diesel - £2.10 per litre plus VAT - so that is £2.52 per litre. That is probably only going to appeal to people who have a powerful reason for using HVO. I would possibly switch to it if I could be really certain of the environmental credentials - but this is going to be a minefield. The fact it is produced from plants is great - but you have to be very confident it is not at the expense of natural forests - which is of course often how palm oil is produced (and it is largely made from palm oil). In the current climate it is going to be impossible to really prove that the oil producing plants are not causing deforestation indirectly if not directly. I love the idea - but not really workable for me right now.

We have a Morso dove with a back boiler for rads. We simply added a second system with separate radiators so they can work together, but we don’t do this. We use the gas combo boiler for an hour in the morning (we used to anyway) and then the log boiler for the evenings and any other time we want warmth. It does work well but it has to be carefully managed to get the rads hot but not boiling. It is much easier to just have a burner chucking out heat, but how well this will work depends on how open plan the house is.

Just by me are loads of apple trees that are laden this year, short walk from thousands of social houses. But if the occupants of said houses head in this direction it is power tools and iPhones they want, not apples!

This question does have a simple answer. If they set the price cap too low the companies supplying our energy would go bust (remember 30 or more have recently done so). If they set no cap at all the prices would be even higher. Also what never gets reported is that Ofgem also set a limit on the suppliers profits - currently 1.9% - so they are not profiteering from this. The companies who actually produce the elctricity are doing very well - hence the windfall tax.

I agree with much of what you say. But is anyone really going to die because their home is less well heated than last year? And as for food - this is a problem with people not knowing how to cook (or how to manage their budget). Simple home cooked food can be very cheap indeed. In fact look at the trend over the last hundred years or so and you will find food is a much smaller part of people's income now. Our ancestors could only dream of food being so easily and cheaply available as it is now.

Sorry, I thought nurses were always band 6 and above - my error. So the starting salary for band 5 is £27,055. And no the figures I was quoting are from the nhs website.

This is sort of what the wood recycling projects do - but they charge the company disposing of the timber for what they collect. And the best stuff is then sold as timber. Some of these projects are very successful with dozens of volunteers, and several paid staff.

Agreed. And why are the amounts of money being paid for electricity generated by solar panels and fed back into the grid not going up? Why should that still be 5 pence a unit (or so) when electricity is now at least 28 pence. Why not pay them 45% of the price cap, then maybe more people would find it is viable to have solar panels

If you look hard enough there is free wood in loads of places. I recall before I got into the wood business stopping at the side of the road and asking tree workers if I could have some of their waste - I was never refused. How about the tip site on this very website - I assume many people registered on it do indeed get free wood. I live by a golf course and a council estate - the course often have a tree or two chopped up - I have politely asked if I can have some fallen wood several times and they are always happy to oblige. In fact the area I live in is full of people who are struggling, but funnily enough I have yet to see any of them going round collecting free wood. And there are a lot of unmanaged woods here as well (mainly full of ash) which have loads of fallen trees. At my work I almost give wood away - one ton bundles of sawmill offcuts - cheap as chips for anyone who can be bothered to cut them up.

I am pretty certain that most people can get free wood. It helps to have a car and be able bodied, but all it really takes is time and effort.

I am not a total cynic (I would like to think) but there seems to be a very powerful agenda going on to get it accepted in the public consciousness that constantly increasing handouts are now normal. I think it has been developing for years - look at working tax credits. It accelerated vastly during the Covid pandemic - huge amounts of money being sprayed around. Now it is continuing with the "cost of living crisis". The calls for the government to step in and enable everyone to continue their lifestyle exactly as they always have, and not to have to pull in their belt are overwhelming. Now I am not suggesting there should be no help for anyone, but the general expectation these days seems to be that the state has to look after everyone. More than that, they are expected to protect us all from ever being less well off than we used to be. What really frightens me is that we seem to be getting a whole generation to think that they don't need to take charge of their life. I suspect that minimum wage is part of the problem as well. I started my career on a rubbish wage so I worked really hard to improve and get noticed by my employer, and then move to a more challenging role and so on. I never once looked to the minimum wage to help me - it didn't exist. Am I the only one who finds this modern ethos thoroughly distasteful and ultimately self-destructive? The final end point I suppose is the universal basic income. And I can see some merit in that; but how will we ever persuade people to study hard for the careers that need years of training if they then go on to earn the same as a shelf stacker in a supermarket? If anyone is interested in my view, I do think there should be some help for the poorest in our society with fuel costs this winter, but we can't expect to heat our homes as much as we used to if fuel triples in price! And finally in my rant, the next person who says nurses are poorly paid needs to look at what nurses actually get paid. Starting salary for a band 6 (ie fully qualified) is £32,306, up to a maximum of £108,075, plus a fantastic pension scheme, great sickness benefits etc, etc, etc. I know an agency nurse who very sensibly just does the days she fancies and gets a night time rate of over £80 per hour. And thinking about it, that was about four years ago. I have great respect for good nurses, but please don't pretend they are poorly paid - that ended a long time ago now. Most nurses earn more than the junior doctors they work with on a daily basis.

Yeah, if you took off one of the treads you would have another flaw...

To be fair, the reward was perhaps a little meagre! The next design flaw should offer at least a load of highly valuable Walnut logs as an incentive.

Oh I see - there is red and white HVO is there? That explains why it isn't too well known, - that it is always more expensive I mean.

That would work for me: I currently use white diesel in forklift telehandler and genny since the new rules cam into force earlier in the year. Sawmill is not classed as forestry so my fuel costs have risen by about 300% in the last year. I will look into HVO in more detail.

I had to google HVO fuel. Is it really a simple alternative to red diesel? If so what does it typically cost and is it widely available?

Poplar timber is indeed good timber for indoor projects. Not very hard, so maybe better for cupboard doors (or carcass) and mirror frames, and many other craft or furniture items.

I am getting it specced out by a local firm, not sure of the details yet. I think it will be AC though, and then of course converted back to DC by the car!