openspaceman

Yes I also think it only applies to land which was open space under the 1899 act. Many commons became openspace under the later 1925 Law of Property Act and they do need felling licences

I couldn't register on that forum so stopped reading it years back. The policy change was when NRA got merged with other statutory bodies in 1996 and simultaneously the budget was cut. The EA became a first steps agency and was supposed to become self funding. At this stage there became a policy only to defend housing and to abandon agriculture. EA did not get a mandate to govern the drainage boards. As I understand it the drainage boards were locally controlled and funded by agriculture and LAs and the levels were always pumped (not 24/7 but at low tide as otherwise the rivers could not cope). This was because agriculture was considered strategic after the 14-18 war and drainage and pumping allowed better cropping. Along with other government agencies EA have suffered massive cuts and this has lead to decisions to "manage retreat" from low property density areas. The peer who chairs EA put up such a poor PR performance because he was with the PM, probably is a tory himself, and could not politically lay the blaim on a government decision made before such inclement weather was foreseeable. There are EA personnel who are on call out and working hard to alleviate the situation and severely depressed and to cap it the pumps have been left on 24/7 as a publicity exercise as during high tides they are just recirculating water.

It depends how wet it is. A cord is a stack 8ft byt 4ft by 4ft, so 128 cubic feet in the stack. That's 3.6m3 if it is straight material 70% of this will be wood, the rest air space. So about 2.5m3 of solid wood and about the same tonnage fresh felled. In practice oak cordwood cut from branch wood stacks about 50% and weighs about 1.5 tonnes seasoned in the woods. There are lots of caveats such as the longer and taller the stack the better the stacking ratio, a stack measured on the ground occupies more space on a lorry because of edge effects.

With the normal double rear wheel ford 350s you have a gross weight of 2450 on the rear axle and 1750 on the front so you have a fair amount of latitude for loading the back but as you will see these two weights add to over 3500 so with a lot of kit in the front the double cab can exceed the front axle rating. Our single cab tippers with steel body weigh in at 2100kg empty, the double cab is 150kg more. Add three guys with their kit, say 300kg...

I started with a Fordson Major hauling out 10ft poles on a buck rake, with the wheels off the ground and soft tyres it got about fine, getting back in unladen was often a problem. Standard machine for big logs was a Major and Cooks winch, never travelled with the log, just move on, winch in, move on. Never used brakes just let the spades trail and then dig in. Messy. It was all a bit inconvenient so went 4wd for speed and a bit more power. Evenso for getting about a ford 4000 with half tracks got places the County wouldn't, I had one rival team of 3 cutting, extracting and loading 25 tonne of hardwood pulp everyday using said 400 with a trailer mounted FMV 1600 that had b***r all reach so it had to be placed precisely alongside the artic trailer. I could never work that hard.

For something more rough and ready but a cylindrical disc with the length less than the diameter. Float it in water and measure the fraction under water, best take an average of two diametrically opposite points. This will give the SG.

And because of this I thought the chain casing of the 254 fitted even if it lacked the tongue at the back.

Not in my blue book. How about cutting an 8" round section ( IIRC FC research used this size) such that it fits on the kitchen scales. Fill a bucket so that it is just submerged when pushed down with something thin. Mark the level. Take the log out and then meausure how many cc of water you need to fill to the marked level. If it's a very cylindrical piece you might just do a simple =L*Pi()d^2/4 in a spreadsheet to work out the value.

Two forwarders in Crawley need an independent opinion on

First off sap is just water with a few hormones, sugars and electrolytes in it. When it dries these are either lost as vapour or remain in the dried wood, energy wise I suspect they are vanishingly low in their contribution to heat. After the cell contents have dried then there is still some water weakly bonded to the wood fibre. I do not know how water is re absorbed into the wood but logically it wets the surface layers first. You have the nub of it though, water robs heat from the fire in order to vaporise. This lowers the combustion temperature and low combustion temperatures lead to poor combustion and products of incomplete combustion being given off. A slow smouldering burn with no flame is basically just the wood char burning and driving off water vapour and the gaseous pyrolysis products. These are the things that normally burn with a flame but if there is too much water vapour they simply do not burn and exhaust as a white-yellow smoke which may condense out in the flue.

Are you working for a firm or freelance?

Jonsereds 621 1973 vintage??

That may be so, and I'd like to see some empirical evidence of this as I have not tried drying re wetted logs, but as far as the fire is concerned Steven is correct in that the same amount of energy is robbed from the fire to vaporise the moisture.

An old adversary's son had no end of trouble with his 06 plate one, sorted that by front ending it and it has sat in his yard for a year while they decide what to do with it! Anyone have an opinion on the IsuzuDMax?

I'm angling for one as it ticks all the boxes for me. I don't have much trouble with vehicles, Blown head gasket killed my Subaru and a CV joint on the alfa 164 are the only things I can remember stopping me. Had employees break plenty though. I had two LRs from 1980-1995 and 1997- current which never let me down, still got the LPG 110 which will have to go but is still a workhorse.

Not if you retro fit to a post 2006 vehuicle, it has to be digital I guess all younger generation grow into accepting the new rules it's just us with grandfather rights that see it as difficult rather than just another business expense that has to be allowed for. I was staggered when contractors half my age were investing in £100,000 harvesters but there's no going back to the motor manual methods we used now (even though the hardwood forests will never be as good as a result)

I was only employed for 9 months forestry worker and 2 6 months stints arb climber/supervisor, left the first two sacked from 3rd then 30 years self employed forestry contractor. Now been employed supervisor/manager for 5 years, got fat and unfit, and don't use a fraction of my wages whereas whilst I made money self employed I was always spending it on toys. Biggest financial relief was when mortgage was paid off, which I have my wife to thank for as I was content to rent.

That's okay for a vehicle that does not have a tacho but what's the position with not using a tacho, because it's an exempt journey, even though the vehicle has one? My normal solution is just to use the tacho disc but now I wish to hire a LEZ compliant 7.5 tonne tipper and that has a digital tacho, the card adds £35 to the cost even though the journey is <50km and exempt (if one allows the exemption 5 carrying of materials for the driver's use to include arisings back from the job, which personally I wouldn't were I a VOSA inspector). To my mind it's getting difficult not to have a tacho and if VOSA change from targeting 44 tonne lorries to light goods vehicles towing diggers, trailers or chippers then we'll see precedents set for what is allowed.

I've been quoted £1200 to retrofit one and calibrate it, if purchased new with the vehicle they only add £500 to the cost. As there are few 3.5 tonne gross trucks out there fitted with tachos it is worth bearing in mind, £1200 spent on a £7000 value vehicle verses going new.

Equilibrium moisture content varies with the relative humidity of the ambient air, inside my house it seems to be about 10%. There is a small hysteresis so the equilibrium is slightly different if the RH is increasing from RH decreasing

I don't know if he'll look at a truck but an old neighbour, Arthur, has a workshop in Auto Electric, Goldworth Road, Woking, he's done some work for me and seemed reasonable. He did complain at my lack of sense of humour!

Speak with Howard at Redwood and ask him how to do it. I know pressing them out through the casing is wrong.

Yes that is my interpretation but the VOSA lady from the now closed Mitcham office said she would allow it as materials ancillary to the work. I have never seen any official statement.

There was a position statement posted about smaller vehicles towing trailers. VOSA say that if the vehicle is being driven with a B licence (car or truck up to 3500kg MAM) then the actual weight of the trailer will be allowed, not it's MAM in calculating the weight. So a trailer with a gross plated weight of 2 tonnes could still be towed as long as it s actual weight does not exceed 750kg. This is different from the previous interpretation which still applies to C1 and C +E towing where it is the MAM of the combination that counts. I suspect this was a compromise to allow ordinary car drivers to use trailers for personal use.

Yes but if the vehicle is MAM of 3500kg and it pulls a trailer such that the actual weight exceeds 3.5 it needs a tacho but not necessarilly an operator's licence. It's when the vehicle and trailer exceed 7.5 tonnes that the tacho must be used at all times. So I could drive a 7.5 tonne lorry within 50km and not need to use the tacho if I only travel to work and use the chipper. I have a C1+E grandfather right to drive the truck with a trailer up to 8.25 tonne gross but as soon as I hang the chipper on the back I must use the tacho. In fact if I do have to drive any vehilce with a tacho I do use it.