Squaredy

Thanks Les. I love the contrast with the dark Beech top and slate floor.

Hi yes I have a fair bit of Alder available. Mainly about 30mm thick and square edged at 100mm wide and 150mm wide. I do buy logs and mill them when I can, but it is not a big seller and often I don't get offered the logs as people assume they are only good for firewood. I have an Alder kitchen, and Alder floorboards in my bathroom.

Nice truck....wish someone had a vehicle like that near me.... Timber lorries are just too big sometimes.

Yes that is what the books say, but try using it for a fence post! The point is for rot to take place you need moisture and oxygen. If you submerge a piece of timber totally it will last a long time, almost any species. If it simply gets wet and has air around it Alder will rot quickly. Great for indoor use though.

Furniture of all sorts. And yes it rots quickly if it stays wet. Indoor use only.

WOW! Why do people think Alder is not a good timber? I sell a fair bit. If you have no use lined up for it I would be interested....as long as it is available at a wholesale price.

I should make the change back to loose tea. I love the smell of it brewing, and it is a nicer cuppa too. I was brought up on loose tea and was quite glad in the eighties to throw off that "faffy" method. Maybe the "faffy" method needs to come back.

Another significant contributor to ocean pollution is flushable wipes. The manufacturers are totally misleading us all in describing them as flushable. They should be described as "flushable so long as you are OK with the risks you are taking in blocking up drains on your property and then eventually starting to eat the wipes as they disintegrate and break down into tiny particles and find their way into the Tuna, Salmon, and other things that we like to eat." There is no such thing as a genuinely flushable wipe....they are all harmful, and eventually the legislation is going to change in some countries....twenty years too late. By the way, same problem with so-called "moist toilet tissue". Do not flush them. Any of them. And by the way, I recently discovered that tea bags contain plastic. No wonder they never seem to disappear in my compost heap. Yet another scandal.

Was that you Steve or are GCHQ on to us?

Very insightful and sensible words indeed. Sadly it isn’t the way the world works. Can I live on your planet please?

Yes thank you I had an email back from the customer saying he had been contacted eventually.

Hillsborough. Absolutely proved after 28 years of denials to be a big conspiracy and deliberate cover-up. I'm afraid conspiracy theories have a bad name these days and everything seems to have a conspiracy theory, and no doubt many of them are nonsense. Some are just waiting to be proved. Anyone who really likes a good conspiracy theory would enjoy researching Britain's worst ever terrorist atrocity - the Lockerbie bombing almost 30 years ago now. Why did the only man ever convicted of this bombing get released after just 7 years......?

Yes ash from waste incinerators is apparently very nasty indeed. Even pure wood ash is not good in the long run as it is highly alkali.

That is exactly what happens in Cardiff, but sadly it also has its problems. The air pollution caused in Cardiff has been a huge local concern, and now they are sending all the waste ash from incineration to England (2500 lorry loads per year) as it was causing so much dust and distress in the Cardiff landfill site that was taking it. Incinerating waste is not the simple neat solution it at first appears.

And I am pretty certain nookie is carbon neutral. DEFRA should encourage it. Maybe a RHI (Renewable Hump Incentive) if you have enough of it.

Yes the owners may well think £50 is derisory, but that is because they are thinking of the value of timber, milled, dried, and maybe even turned into a finished product. Which is the same as thinking that a barrel of water is worth a lot of money because it could be made into top quality whisky. But yes, of course, if you place a high value on it and want to offer more then that is up to you. But the real commercial value is very low.

Yeah Bennets sawblades are superb.

One other way to stop condensation. Firstly make sure there is good ventilation all round and top and bottom. Secondly spray paint the inside with Grafotherm (http://www.grafoproducts.co.uk/). This is a British made very heavily textured paint that stops any slight condensation from dripping. If you don't really need insulation this is a much cheaper and quicker option.

No more Elm needed just yet thanks Jonathon. Maybe in the future....most of what I had from you is now drying in my sheds, but a few lucky customers got to pick a few bits as we stacked it all...

I am mainly after seasoned milled timber. I also have plenty of sawlogs. Having said that I am always looking for sawlogs, and will need some in a couple of months maybe. Feel free to PM me what you have and prices.

Anyone sitting on a stock of good milled hardwood they want to shift for a wholesale price? I am looking to buy decent quality UK grown hardwoods, and will pay between about £10 and £15 per cubic foot, so about half retail price. I will buy Ash, Beech, Cherry, Elm, London Plane, Oak, Sycamore, Sweet Chestnut, Walnut and a few others. Quality has to be good or interesting if that makes sense. In other words good clean timber is good, but interesting, characterful, pippy wood is also good. A few splits are fine, and of course a few big knots also. I buy whole packs, not just a few boards, so I do not expect to go through your stock cherry-picking the best boards. If the pack looks decent I will buy the whole lot. Thickness is not too important and neither is width, as long as they are at least six inches wide. I mainly buy logs in and mill them and dry them but at present I could do with more dried stock so maybe this will help some of you who have good stock but don’t really have the time to sell it. You will need to be near South East Wales, or able to deliver to me. Feel free to PM me or reply for more information.

Yes I totally agree. Yew logs are worth usually about £60 or £70 per cubic metre, and that is delivered to the sawmill. So the real commercial value of the log is roughly zero. A hobbyist might like to come along and buy it or wood turners might come and hack off bits but this takes lots of time, advertising etc. So, yeah £50 is a fair price for the tree owner. If they think this is a rip-off they have always got the option of paying someone to mill it for them, to dry the timber for a couple of years, advertise it, deal with all the enquiries, and eventually I am sure they would sell it all and hopefully make more than £50 profit.

Yes but Jonathon, you are using logic and common sense. They really don't come into it in the real world it seems. Wales is also ideally placed for large scale hydro power. Electricity from rain and hills....sounds perfect to me.

You are very certain you cannot increase your log prices enough to make it worthwhile. Maybe you are mistaken. Lots of things in life have become much more expensive in the last few years - yet people still cough up. By your own admission you keep getting busier so maybe you could increase your prices usefully. Maybe you will be surprised by the response. If you lose a few customers, or even say 20%, overall it will mean you work less hours but more profitably. Might be worth a go rather than just write off your own business.

Yea they are tasty apples....Discovery. The bugs thought they were good too of course. Will have to plant a new apple tree, but a bit further from the house this time.