Squaredy

Don't. Well, no I am not really being serious, but you do need to consider quite a few things: Employer's liability insurance (if you don't already have it). PAYE has to be done in real time these days, and above the threshold you will pay something like 13% employers NI as well as what you deduct from his wages. You will have to set up a pension scheme for them and pay into it. You will have to pay them 28 days holiday per year minimum (including bank hols) and at least SSP (statutory sick pay) which cannot be reclaimed any more and possibly paternity pay. You may also feel obliged to pay them for self isolation etc. If your circumstances change and you no longer need them you will have to pay redundancy to dismiss them. If they turn out to be less good than you believe, or their attitude changes and they become less helpful you may have a difficult job trying to get them to improve or change. He may be great of course, but things don't always turn out how you expect over the long term. If it comes to it and you really want rid of them then you have to pay them off. Simply sacking someone for poor performance these days is just about impossible due to suing for wrongful dismissal being so easy now. Also don't underestimate how difficult it is to lay someone off even with a good pay off. Have you ever had to sack someone? Finally think about their safety and ticking all the boxes so you can keep them safe, or at least prove to the HSE that you did everything possible to keep them safe, including all the relevant procedures for all the kit they will use. Very different from using kit yourself - you won't sue yourself or report yourself to the HSE if YOU have an accident.

Thanks Les for the offer, and good to know you use a rotary inverter with no issues.

Well I hope it will. The supplier of the inverter have confirmed that it will run off split phase which as you say is 180degrees of separation. They have told me I need two 60A fuses and I have 80A fuses. Sadly Western Power Distribution also told me it would cost fortunes. And yes it would only be for me. I wish this were the case. Nearest three phase is about a mile away. But I appreciate your input, and yes of course I would prefer to have mains three phase, but unless there is a government sponsored scheme this is just too pricey. The government should stop subsidising pollution and start subsidising attempts to reduce pollution (like replacing diesel gennies with mains power).

Good question! I have split phase supply, which is actually further divided into three phases (but not true three phase) so there is plenty of power to run the thirty hp inverter. Inverter needs two 60 amp feeds, I have three 80 amp feeds.

Yes spot on. Inverter costs about £3000, proper three phase supply would be £30,000+.

Bought 50 litres today (not filling up large tanks any more as I don't expect to be allowed to use red next month) and it was £1.52 per litre. For RED ! I am only paying slightly more for white diesel for my road van. This was from a dodgy local garage that always rip you off, but they excelled themselves this time. I don't generally use them but it saved me a 15 mile trip to get red elsewhere. Now that red is so pricey I will be investing in a 30hp inverter much sooner than I planned and ditch the three phase genny. It is mainly to run the bandmill, and I recon will cut fuel costs by 90% at least.

Yeah four and five foot boards are very useful. Suggest 25mm, 32mm, 38mm thickness. The challenge is always finding your customers, but that is the case with all species. I generally find the UK hardwoods are easy to mill, softwoods more difficult. Having said that when I mill softwoods it is Douglas Fir or Larch usually. Also I generally use a bandmill not a chainsaw.

I think also it depends if you are selling it in good working order or as seen. If you can get it running and demo every aspect of it then I agree about £5000 maybe £5500. If the buyer has to sort out possible multiple faults that may have developed due to lack of use etc then less. I sold mine about a year ago for £4900 and that was fully working (and demomstrated to the buyer) but well used with dings and dents.

Very interesting ...... generating electricity from waste wood. Did anyone get anywhere with this? Must be a lot of people out there wondering about generating their own electricity these days...

Don't tell me, you offered a couple of hundred and he said "It is worth more as firewood."? It is worth pointing out that the soil it grew in is worth serious money if it is sieved, sterilised packed up into 25 litre bags and sold to hundreds of customers as topsoil.

I agree with all the comments made so far ie get larger, denser logs. But to answer your question about artificial logs (briquettes), then yes these can be excellent - give them a go. Modern woodburners tend to be made so you cannot turn down the draught so much, which will mean too much heat too quick with certain types of wood. You need to experiment and as has been said go for bigger logs and denser (but not wetter).

The brake lights on my Kia are activated by regenerative braking. I checked as this is something I was concerned about.

I did in the early days. Fairly simple really - plug it in and it is 7kw. So in one hour it eats 7 units of electricity. Even after 10 hours it has only used 70 units - about £10 when we bought it. About £15 now.

Yes. More in summer less in winter. We use ours on max regeneration always. It means you effectively do the majority of the braking by just easing off the accelerator, You only really use the brake pedal in emergency or if you fail to anticipate conditions ahead,

With electric cars, fuel economy is measured in miles per kilowatt-hour. My Kia gives around 4 miles per Kwh.

Once again we had a terrible experience when trying to charge our electric car in London. We went in to town for a musical last night and stayed in a hotel at Royal Oak. The first charge point we tried was in a closed garage, but still showing as available on the web. Second one needed a subscription. Then I tried the Tesla garage and they were very helpful but told me their 16 charge points were only for Teslas sorry. By this time we were out of time and had to go see our show. Next morning was better as we found a charge point at Tesco which not only worked but was free to use. Still had to download a pesky app but at least it worked. We need to get to a situation where any electric car can use any charge point, as long as the driver has means to pay. If an app is available to make it easy for those people who want an app then fine, but no petrol station in the country will refuse to sell you petrol or diesel without an app. Even the all night ones simply take card payments and have done for decades.

They may be the same batch of logs but that doesn't mean they are similar. I bet the fire that was so disappointing was with mainly oak that is not properly seasoned, and the earlier logs were other species which dry more easily. Oak logs you see take a very long time to dry, and if not properly dried will be worse than useless. You need to split a log and see what it looks like inside. If you have an accurate set of scales split a log, and split it again so you get a sliver from the middle of the log. Weigh it, put it in a hot oven for an hour or two and then weigh it again. Really wet timber will drop dramatically in weight. Fairly dry timber will not change much.

Agreed: wood is probably not really dry and chunky. If you want to prove this get some really dry wood maybe briquettes with kindling and your stove will work fine.

Well of course that is another option. I think my mill will take a debarker, I haven't looked into the cost of that.

Well, my little 6CFM compressor does it reasonably, but I think I can probably improve with a bit more power and maybe a different gun.

Mmmm thank you for the suggestion, might be a little overkill!

Lime is certainly the best carving timber in the uk. Known as basswood in the us.

For years I have wanted to get a better system for cleaning logs ready for milling. I like the idea of using an airblow gun fed from a compressor, but I have really no idea what type of gun and nozzle to get. We already have a simple PCL one which is OK, but can anyone make a better suggestion? There are loads on the market but what type is going to work best for removing mud and stones from bark? I know a water pressure washer would probably be more effective but I really don't want all that muddy water sloshing around. Thank you in advance to my fellow Arbtalker's!

Many many people have private water supply. My work site is fed from a spring and a series of collection chambers built decades ago. Council test the water yearly and each user has filters and ultraviolet treatment system. Improvements have been made over the years. When I say user there are three houses and my business and a tea room all fed off the same supply. My filters and UV system are serviced yearly and so far so good. Only problem we had was a few years ago when I inadvertently switched of the UV system and made myself Ill!

It depends what you call firewood prices. I buy decent Alder sawlogs for about £75 per ton delivered.