teepeeat

Hi Andy Not into tats myself, but can understand where you are coming from with this. Body art with some personal thought and meaning Sadly quite a number of aquaintences have rushed out and got some ink on the spur of the moment - read pished/loved up or other wise not in their normal frame of mind - and would rather forget those particular events. That or got something done because all their mates have it or it is the latest fashion, but has no personal connection. On that basis I think the coverup experts are going to be kept busy for a while yet Mind you, have seen some brilliant cover ups too, but that says more about the inker rather than the inkee.

Short as possible 1 - 2 hours a day when convenient Burn hard and fast - makes max use of energy in the wood, keeps flue clear, limits shite going into the air, no faffing with a fire all day & minimises how much wood you need. Store the energy in a thermal store. Why make life difficult and inefficient........ grabs coat and leaves:lol:

I think this all needs a bit of qualification - everything depends on the heating requirements of your house and hot water consumption which in turn is greatly dependant on insulation/airtightness and hot water usage. The biggest savings to be made will always be in reducing demand, particularly in the average UK house which is pretty bad when it comes to thermal efficiency. Anybody looking at reducing bills needs to address insulation else you are just pissing your money into the wind - literally. We were in the position of having a house needing renovation, so spent extra on insulation - as a one off cost. We now supply all heating and hot water from a high-efficiency wood stove & boiler combo tied to an 800 ltr thermal store. Heating is downstairs via under floor heating from the store and hotwater is via a coil in the top of the store The house is approx 200 m2 (with slightly lower than average ceiling heights - why heat a bigger volume than you need) The stove is 8 kw - 30% to the room & 70 % to the boiler. Through the winter we average about 2 smallish builders buckets losely filled with well seasoned logs The 30% (2.4kw) heat to the room from the stove - open plan upstairs of the house of approx 100m2 - gives too much heat needing the windows to be cracked open to give a sub 25 deg temp in the depths of the cold spells the last few winters. We tend to have to light the stove for hot water only sometimes as the temperature in the house stays comfy with little input, although downstairs underfloor heating is always flowing up. The advantage of the thermal store is that we only need to burn once during the day - hard and fast for max energy gain from the wood and minimum nasties up the flue to the atmoshere (dont underestimate the nasties, especially with more and more people burning wood) The one off insulation cost was probably paid back in the first year or two in fuel savings. We have our own wood, but even if having to buy it in I think we would save money with this set up. We do have mains gas to the property, but dont bother with it except for cooking.

I was arrested for drinking battery fluid and swallowing fire works. The police couldn't decide whether to charge me or let me off!

so you're not the only oddball out there H-A, H-A :lol::lol:

Nice one there That should help increase income to get the bigger truck quicker

nibbling all day so just having pud Apple crumble - apples fresh off the tree down the hill, but couldnt find any decent blackberries to go in it. Not quite ready, but just realised no cream, ice cream or custard to go with it

mmmm....... some planners can be complete a..........s and can come up with all sorts of unnecessary hoops for you to jump through if they dont like you. I know people who have had years of grief from the planning department only for it to end up with the planners being severely chastised by the planning committee for being a bunch of p...locks. Good outcome, but didnt remove the years of trouble and significant cost. Had some interesting times with our own planning issues as well. Got round it in the end by embarassing the planner into being more sensible - she hadn't bothered to look at what had been granted before her involvement and even if had looked at the drawings, couldn't translate it into 3D. Yes, she was blond and good looking!

As my machines go without use fairly regularly (not in tree work) I used to have all sorts of problems getting them going after a month or so on the 5/6/7/week old fuel. I am no expert on machinery, but having only made one change to what I do - ie change fuel to Aspen I now have no problems even if the machines are left longer. That said, my neighbour pulled an old Stihl 075 out of his shed a few months ago and had a quick play and got her going on the 5th pull on the same mix that had been in the tank for the 5 years it had been in the shed - go figure PS using Aspen2 that is over a year old now - no problems

yep - finding the Oregon files dont do very well on Oregon chains On a slight derail - what does everybody do with used files??

oh all right, I admit I'm just a part time pedant

Nipped in and did a bit of clearing in between heavy showers today. A few original roots remain although the base of the trunk is now hollow (3rd pic), but wondering if it would have rooted from the stem perhaps where the soil has piled up against the uphill side (last pic), or from the branch that is impaled into the ground next to the blade in the 4th pic?

some pictures of the fungi growing on the apple tree. Anybody know what it is?

Just me or did someone else notice the little elf at the waters edge bowing toward the sunrise?

cant deny it takes a lot more weight than I would have thought, regardless. Mind you, a steel box shaped stove is quite a sturdy construction and they tend to use thickish steel - wonder how many others would stand up to that abuse? The bloke in the vid is clearly tickled pink at the end in a 'that went better than I could have hoped' kind of way :lol:

damn, will be away As for recognition of Arbtalk members, Steve will sell you a fetching tee shirt or sweater in a choice of colours and designs with 'Arbtalk' or 'Treeshirtz' on it :-) not on any commission by the way !

Dean, sounds like one good clause in the solution to the whole planning/house building mess.

there in lies the problem - money

Hi Fagus That has been my approach so far to remove the competition, but have not been down for a couple of months to clear the nettle and bracken there are also a lot of boulders and dirt piled up on the uphill side against the now horizontal original stem. Would clearing this help or would it be too much of a shock to the tree as it has been like that for a long time?? (hope that makes sense - dont know a lot about how these things work)

:lol: top marks to the man who dreamt up that idea bet he was thinking how could they have a great day out with some big boys toys and get the boss to pay for it as well the pedant in me needs to point out that 50 ton of tank with one track on the ground does not equal 50 tons on a stove, more like half and that was then split between 2 stoves.................... That said, the dynamics involved in driving back and forth at the end would have added something I'll get my coat

tricky situation On the one hand, more of us should be building and living like this, but on the other hand, in our current socio-economic set up if anybody with a bit of land takes this as a green light to build without permission citing precedent, just imagine what would happen. My concern is not with the likes of Charlie, but the money men who would jump on this and try to make a financial killing. What really needs to happen is for the 'system' to encourage this approach to 'home' building and to outlaw the current big builder, rabbit warren approach. But then cash is king - always was and will be for a long time yet.

thanks for the responses. Alec, as always, a very detailed explanation. Thank you. the tree is luckily quite protected from the wind with the trees beyond (to the south) and a steep bank behind me in the first picture. It was also choked with elder, some of which were taller than the apple hence I guess why it was reaching for the sky. The bramble etc was well over the top of the dead branch sticking out to the right in the first pic with just the tops sticking out above. It is not very clear in the pictures, but in the third pic you can possibly make out a lot of black fungal growth along the original stem - will have to get a close up. Presumably the advice given will help to fend off the effects of this or does something specific need to be done in this respect - difficult without a close up to determine what it is I know. Something else I have noticed is that a lot of the branches higher up have splits in the bark along their length. I think a few more pictures required !!

Hi folks Got a poorly apple tree that I need a bit of advice on. Bit of history - heavily overgrown with bramble pulling down lower branches and entwined with a number of elders. These were all removed in the last year or two. I have not pruned it, just trimmed broken branches. Not sure how clear it is in the pictures, but the tree you see standing is actually a branch of the original which has fallen over possibly about 20 years ago -certainly been like that at least since 1998. Always had a lot of fruit (cookers) except last year, but then not much fruit about last year at all. What advice from the assembled experts as to what we can do to keep her going.

bloody hell !!!! Second Gnarley's Darwin nomination - definitely in with a chance

I'll have a pint of whatever Pat is on :lol: