AHPP

Learned a lot, bought a lot of kit outright (some from you), still made some money. It was early in my tree career. Not a hard job but not an easy one either. Once I’d done it, I knew I could confidently take on serious work. Very worthwhile to me. EDIT: Not that I would have minded an extra two grand clean profit on top of course...

I can regrettably beat that. I did a job for £1300, later discovered the other quotes were over £4000.

Don’t bother. Just fell it.

It was pink and purple over Tantobie tonight and a crescent moon out by 18:00. Weird one.

If you desperately want to keep the tree for the next ten years or so, pay a couple of farm lads with a telehandler, two telegraph poles and two feet of inch threaded rod £300 to prop it up. I suggest this mainly to upset the sort of people who work for power companies. If you don’t want to keep the tree, pay a climber £200 to cut it down on a Saturday and get Facebook firewood hunters to tidy it up on the Sunday. Usual caveat about photos but from what I see I’d fell it.

Day 1: Main climber A (climbing), second climber B (running ropes and dragging) and groundsman C (dragging and chipping). Maybe an incidental £100 labourer to drag if it’s bigger than the pictures suggest (it always is...). Day 2: Second climber B and groundsman C. B predominantly ran the ropes yesterday so is rested enough to do the stem if it’s still up. It’s big but looks easy. Ideally no need for a truck and chipper today. Maybe add the cheap labourer to move wood if the wood is bigger than the pictures suggest (it always is...). Credit where rare credit is due, I don’t think Vesp was far out on chipper hire and freelance worker costs and plenty of people will come with a Transit tipper for not much more money. I personally budget £250 for any man but many will work for less. You should be able to get a competent crew together for £1000 a day (including paying yourself as a worker) and then add more overhead amortisation and clean profit on top. £2400 would cover you for all the blokes and gear for two days, when you’d really probably only need two of the blokes and the truck and chipper for one day. If you’re wrong, you’re safe. If you’re right, two blokes, saws and a sack barrow will make £1200 on the second day. Good luck with it. I’d also be interested to hear how you priced it? These pricing threads are helpful. EDITED TO ADD: Definitely have the labourer on day 1 so stuff still gets dragged and stacked on the driveway when someone is off tipping chip. Otherwise you’ll have a sea of brash and grind to a halt.

The turns of phrase in this thread are excellent.

Make use of fortuitously shaped arisings to liven up your garden and hang gear on to dry.

It's just an effect of abiding by life rule number one. People keep doing nice things for me because I do nice things for them and others. Good example yesterday. I often help friends moving house because I usually have the biggest vehicle, the most tools and I'm just all-round handy. I usually inherit all the kitchen stuff they can't be bothered to move to the new place so I now have enough spices for the rest of my life and I've never needed to buy crockery. Yesterday was no exception (including a fine selection of hot sauces), apart from I also got a box of miscellaneous booze and a Volvo V70. Karma isn't real apart from the fact it is and it works.

Job security.

Used a 230 with it on a few times. Very plasticky, hard to get the sweet spot of tension, sticks and jams. It works but only like the soviet union worked, in spite of it rather than because of it.

Merely spoken as I've found.

Ed Balls

Every time someone's given me a saw and said it doesn't work, I've put motomix in it and it's worked. Probably ten times. Doesn't seem like luck. The stats are with me. Most small engine problems are fuel related. I have. I own two saws that I bought second hand. Their previous owners ran them on petrol. I bought them, put motomix in them and they've worked fine since. I used one of them yesterday.

I wish these didn't have the tool-less chain tensioning. That's what's putting me off buying one.

Put MotoMix or Aspen in it. £20 and if it still doesn't work, you'll at least have some good fuel for its replacement.

I’ve done the same. As with most things in life, honesty is the best policy. Not as good as pricing right in the first place of course.

I hold all cross-dressers responsible for their actions.

Or one of those throw saws (chainsaw chain on a length of cord). Or detcord.

I’d be mortified if someone bought me an Adidas t-shirt.

That’s excellent.

If the trees aren’t there, building won’t affect them.

The next one has to be Nicolae Meowșescu.

Aye. I grew up in Suffolk and now I'm in Durham. Been to London but not had any reason to go to the really shit bits. I hasten to add I don't need to have to develop an ideological position though, just like I don't need to go to Madagascar to learn about lemurs. As desperate as the London you describe sounds, it doesn't get away from the fact that knives don't stab people themselves. I know the arguments for and against self defence weapons. I'd rather not get into it if you don't mind. I've derailed this thread enough already (with some help). London's dangerous. No idea why. That's what this thread is about though; people stabbing and shooting each other in London. All I did was point out that 'knife crime' is stabbing people and not merely having one in your pocket and now there's this shitstorm in poor Egg's thread. I follow you on instagram btw. Good on you for taking your kids kickboxing. They're probably more dangerous than me and my penknife (if they chose to be).

Yeah.