openspaceman

I used to get through lots of 7mm skidding chains. For a while I found a firm in Birmingham that would sell me "brothers" that one leg had failed LOLER test, they would sell the remaining legs cheap and I bought new Kuplex logging hooks.

There's a code of practice, essentially the restraining sytem has to be capable of resisting the mass from moving forward with a force equal to its weight, sideways or rearward with half that force. https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/411093/safetyloadsonvehicles.pdf

I'd say it is because the firebox temperatures of a modern stove with insulated sides and back are much higher than a traditional cast iron box. The baffle has the firebox temperature underneath and the not much lower flue temperature on top. Vermiculite is probably good to above 1200C, steel about 700C and I'm not sure about cast iron but probably not much more than steel. What I wonder is why there is not more heat exchange surface above the baffle.

IIRC the EA split the requirement into three parts, storage, treatment then disposal. You require exemptions for all of them and the validity of the exemption depends on the site planning permission. Several years ago I had no trouble doing the paperwork exercise of storage of arb arisings for fuel and compost, treating it by log processing, chipping and shredding and disposing of it by burning in a heating plant, sale of chips and spreading composted material on site but planning became a big issue which was not resolved when I was retired three years ago. If it's the plant waste from a one man band in the corner of a field I cannot see many commenting unless you have upset someone in the neighbourhood As a post script it looks like it is covered by T23 waste exemption: aerobic composting and associated prior treatment - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK The T23 exemption allows you to compost small volumes of vegetation, cardboard and food waste to spread on soil to...

The bud seems to be missing from the frond in your had. The long two needles, slight yellowing would make me consider a maritime pine

Yes mine on the Jotul was cast iron but the year old Morso is vermiculite. They force the flue gases forward also and cause better mixing with the air wash coming down over the glass. One day I'll have a proper look at the airways in the Morso, in the meanwhile it works so well I just use it.

Railtrack ceased to be responsible for the rail network in 2004, Network Rail was set up as a wholly government owned company to manage the rail assets, it is not a public company nor a private company and does its own thing, it is answerable to the Office or Road and Rail. The person who would be the one to contact at network rail would be the off track manager for the area.

Any reason not to make it from vermiculite sheeting?

What's your point? People are free to charge what they like and customers are free to choose whether to buy as long as the product is properly described

Shouldn't it retail with 5% Vat or has something changed?

I remember mica as being thin, flaky and fragile. Our original baxi before I ripped it out 40 years ago had borosilicate glass (pyrex) in 1" strips, to allow for expansion I think. The current Morso has a curved ceramic glass of some sort, ridiculously expensive and I am sure one day I will shut the door on a log that is too big for the firebox.

Did that evolve from the trekkasaw, I used one of them but it didn't have stellite tipped bands that I recall.

The trouble with that idea is that air will pass through the mesh and spoil the air control, it would become half way between a n enclosed stove and one burning with its door open (or an open fire), so the efficiency would go down.

Kev it would probably be better for the OP's client if it did have a TPO as then NR would be the only ones who could touch it. It's on SPC5 the St Pancras to Sheffield line, I've no way of checking any more if that line is in line for electrification, if it is then NR will have to side it up. It's difficult to tell from photos but it seems to be over the slow up line. If there were no immediate danger the old firm would be looking to see if there were to be any possessions in the coming year. Having said that and as the rails are on an embankment I would say the overhanging branches could be rigged during normal running on a Sunday. Once over your own property and more than 3m from the line shouldn't be much concern to NR given a sensible working method and risk assessment.

In railway speak it's called Any Line Open working. The rules changed as I was retired but up till then there were 3 different types of situation, the one that affected us was that our machines, tracked 1928s, had to be kept far enough from the rail that if they overturned they would not obstruct the trains. Diggers, cranes and such had to be fitted with movement limiting devices so that they could never impinge on a working line.

It would make an interesting experiment. I have never see an almond tree but did get involved in some orchard pruning and yes, most bits were long and thin without much branching. So on that basis if you laid the wood out evenly then you may have a low volume to space ratio, it's about 70% in stacked roundwood. We know there's about 30% solid wood in chip. Once you get up to 100mm branches that could be cut into cordwood lengths you are certainly going to decrease the solid to air ratio. Which reminds me of a tale: there were five lime trees being re pollarded just up the road from me, about 250kg arising from each tree. I asked for the roundwood to be stacked for me to collect after. The foreman said no because their 8" chipper could take the limbs whole, which would be quicker. The firm were out of area and at about midday he asked me if I knew of a local tip where he could dispose of the chip, he was away for a couple of hours and the team went home late with the second load of chip. If he had left me the firewood...

Before wood chippers were so ubiquitous in UK one of the adverts for a woodchipper claimed they reduced the volume of branches by 15:1, So if true a 15m3 heap of branches would end up as 1m3 of chip.

Yes, I used to fell and stack cord around March and often sell the oak at stump just prior to extraction, there is often a spot of good weather in May. oak tended to be from clay sites but there would be other work year round on sandier soils. It was explained to me by an old chap that in the south the farm horses would be used for extraction and they were only available between the hay harvest and the corn harvest. It wasn't at all unusual for my forwarding tractor to sit idle in the winter months but anyone buying a £100k plus forwarder needs to keep it working day in day out.

Yes but traditionally we have not grown high quality softwoods, largely because the premium wasn't offered for clean stems, John McHardy at Longleat did instigate high pruning but I don't know whether it is paying back. It's a chicken and egg situation, similar to when corsican pine was introduced. At first sawmills milling pine only wanted scots pine and wouldn't accept the corsican pine as it came on stream from later thinnings. Once the supply of corsican increased as Theford's plantings came of age in the 80s mills converted to it and it became more difficult to find mills taking scots pine. With red band needle blight I wonder what will be done. There's a good reason for that; it often comes from places with harsher climates than ours and the growth rates are lower, as lower branches get shaded out they are snapped off by clumps of snow falling from the crown. I had a boss that liked to do spreadsheets like that, he lost millions on one project despite us telling him his figures were overly optimistic. Just think how the shape of a conifer is as it grows, basically a stem tapering evenly as it rises to the active crown and then tapering faster, like a bullet. You can only prune the steady taper without compromising growth but you want clean timber up to that point, so if you start pruning when the tree is say10cms at 5 metres it will be 15cms at the bottom, hence the clear timber will only be outside that 15cms core. Then you have to repeat the exercise at 10 metres and so the knotty core is never more than 15cms diameter uns so weiter. Given that many mills only take 45cm logs now the clear timber is only the bit from 45 down to 15. In sylviculture the concept of net discounted revenue is important to a grower, especially one that is not likely to be around when the tree is felled, basically it tries to calculate what the money today is worth to the grower compared with what he expects it might be worth at end of rotation if he invests it in the crop now. Most of the time after planting and establishment this means spending money after you have closed the gate on a plantation is resisted. When I realised how badly the sylvicultural needs were being compromised by establishment in Tuley tubes I took to trying to persuade owners to undertake formative pruning and did some on some oak trees I established, my intention was to have a 6metre clear butt but I seldom got up to more than about 4 metres. It was why I invested in a telescopic silky early on.

Well I wasn't going to butt in as I never was much of a climber, always used DDRT, never progressed further than a petzl shunt instead of a prussic knot and have been out of it for 20 years, though I did a bit 8 years ago. However it struck me what the HSE was after was a self tending belay/fall arrest system rather than arsing about with two duplicate climbing ropes. Now over on UKTreecare Bill Anderson, who seems to have a common sense approach to most things, said much the same a week ago, and suggested using a eddy current braking device which is apparently in use for climbing walls. As long as the two anchor points aren't too far apart horizontally the safety line could be redirected to be coincident with the climbing line thereafter. HSE seem concerned about a line being cut, so perhaps the attachment to the chest harness part needs be cut resistant, or perhaps the fall arrest line be a wire. Spring recoil isn't going to work over a 30metre plus range so it will need to be an active system. Some thought will need to be given to mounting and retrieving the belay, same as SRT if it is mounted at the base of the tree it will double the load on the top anchor point. BTW I'm no fan of the AA or any other club that tries to establish restrictive practices to favour members but see no point in attacking them over this sledgehammer attempt to crack a small nut.

Yes I have repaired fuel tanks cost effectively because the machine was valuable, not the same with a combi can.

Sulphuric acid H2SO4 made by dissolving SO3 in water after a complex synthesis of oxidising sulphur dioxide over catalyst (contact process) Sulphurous acid H2SO3 made by burning sulphur compounds to sulphur dioxide and adding to water. but yes it should only be a problem if it condenses as the liquid. I think I have posted pictures here of a stainless (316) flue pipe perforated with a multitude of pin pricks where a condensed weak acid from burning treated wood had run back down the flue.

Was that the dolmar engined one that wound round in a helix with a vertical chainsaw bar and dangled a release string behind? We had one in 1974 at EFG but I never saw it. A similar one came out about 20 years ago that replaced the chainsaw with a router type milling cutter. The problem with them is you need to choose and prune your final crop trees in several lifts so the knotty core is a fairly consistent diameter and clear outside that, you also need to keep 40% in crown (more in larch if there's any left) and no wounds over 25mm. With modern harvester drivers all your pruned trees would come out at the next thinning. I rode past the only remaining B&M poplar plantation that I did the first lift to 8ft on in 1974 last week. All the others were felled many years ago, the stems are clear to 8ft and knotty, useless timber thereafter.

Sulphurous acid, it should only be a problem if the flue temperature falls below the dewpoint

Didn't come through, I think:) I pressed the wrong key, it should be there as an edit now.