openspaceman

This has been said ever since I can remember chippers being used, that chips will become a scarce commodity and that too many woodchip boilers with cause the price to rise. It has never really happened, though it still might. At present in the SE there is a glut and few firms are paying for wood to chip. Those that do seem to only want round wood that has seasoned in the stack for their woodchip customers. Many of the small arb firms' yards that I am aware of are not accessible for Stobarts 44 tonners. The prime reason for an arb firm chipping wood is to reduce the size of the heap (increase the bulk density) and simultaneously load the truck. They do not aim to produce a nice chip like an angled disc chipper does and they want it to keep loading when the knives get a bit blunt, which again reduces overall chip quality. Incidentally chipping all the branchwood reduces bulk density compared with separating cord wood out and loading it separately, the trade off is ease of loading against vehicle capacity (rather than payload). We could discuss why this unsuitability for stokers is the case, I guess most will realise that arb arisings contain leaves and needles that push up the moisture content but there are other things about them that need to be considered when used in a chip stoker.

How have you calculated this? Capital plus O&M plus cost of wood? Do you mean for travelling on the road with timber or on your own land? 50 tonne/annum work would keep an old County from rusting up.

The Kob I quoted cost £300k plus quite a lot of snagging to rectify feed problems. It had a 10k replacement sweep auger 6 months before the system was sold. BTW as my chip stoker has not enough load I just fill it with a broken pallet and some arb waste logs, that heats the 3tonnes of water up to 80C in 2-3 hours .

If you have logs and the accumulator then I don't see much advantage in going to chip unless you have a large silo, even then do you need a system that you won't attend daily. Of course even automatic chip stokers need de ashing and tube cleaning so they are not labour free in between fills. The chap who has my 10" TP on long term borrow successfully ran a little 70kW Baxi and a bigger one whose name escapes me, all on dead hedgerow elm. Now he runs a big biogas plant so has no need of woodheat. But how much for pellets? Pellets essentially move the capital expense from the chip feeder to the pellet mill but the mill expects to recoup the investment. Last year I saw a 4 year old 500kW system by Kob get knocked down for £8k, secondhand chip stokers are cheap.

I'll need to be more careful then, anyway a few I saw last week, I wonder if it's a good year or just that I'm taking more notice now. An old boundary oak, previous years a home to hornets amongs other things, note the grass growing from an old branch wound. Inonotus dryadeus on an oak buttress between a golf club car park adjacent to a fast B road, note the old fruiting body beside. This ash with what I take to be hispidus leans from a cottage garde on a windy B road where traffic often queues to go over a canal crossing. I take it the yellow on the spiders web is spores?

Which fruiting bodies on trees have guttation?

I don't do formal tree inspections but I do site mapping, often with reference to SSSIs, TPOs and conservation areas. I use a program called mapmaker, the professional version is 30day free trial and then it loses a bit of functionality and runs as a gratis version. I find it adequate and intuitive. I have used the database functions but not much. I can layer georeferenced photos on it but for illustration I usually pin them to a KML file for viewing in Google earth. If I need a bit more detail I license a OS map for the duration of the project.

I guestimated about 10% when we were working out whether there was enough energy in the waste to dry the logs. I wanted to try something like this lifter that sold on ebay 261240252757, I used to see them at farm sales for about 8o quid in the 80s

Durham man flu coming on?

I was trying to add a bit of detail to cover problems that may arise in future. I use a private firm and the cost tends to be about £70 each visit, my local authority wanted to charge £230 for the initial registration and inspection visit, that's alright if you're having a lot done but expensive for a few windows or a stove and flue.

I'd like to visit if you intend using it with a pole pruner

This is what I found, about 30 minutes freehand and it cuts better but not as good as new. I still have a telescopic one to finish but it was so blunt I have resorted to a dremel and diamond disc and will finish with the diamond feather edge. If I were still working professionally I think I'd pay the 40 quid.

FENSA it's a self certification by professionals thing covered by the building regulations. If you diy you are required to make a building regulation notification, same as fitting a new stove, problem is the charge is normally higher than what you save by not having them professionally done. It only really crops up as a problem when the property is sold. I agree with most of the comments about price, our local guy fitted 5 double casement windows in a small bungalow for me in 2010 for £1350, 10 similar in December 2010 for £3270 and 2 more in Jan 2011 for £580. All were fitted from inside without need for scaffolding or ladders but we were left to fettle the rebates with sealant on the upstairs windows.

In agree but buy the replacement while the 254 is still running well, I'm never comfortable going to work with just one saw, mainly in case I get stuck or break a sprocket mid way through something. I never got on with short bars on the small saws for snedding and do use a 254 with 15" bar, I've been impressed by the 550 and 560 but the guys do seem to over rev them to the point of 4 stroking.

Some "man flu" then, best wishes for a complete recovery.

The nut head isn't deep enough to get a good grip so I used an angle grinder to cut out 3 apertures to get a better purchase on the clutch of 254 and 262 (both of which I still use)

About the most expensive too!

It may only be a blocked pick up in the oil tank or even a rat's turd like piece of gunk in one of the plastic lines. I've only had a pump give trouble when a piece of balertwine got jammed in the clutch and stripped the nylon worm gear. Clutch can be difficult to get off if it hasn't been off for a while. I favour a piece of starter cord in the spark plug hole AFTER the piston has covered the ports and then a light tap with a modified socket clockwise.

15kW is about 20bhp. The thing is the tractor is only optimised at about 70% of rated power whereas the 3ph is is pretty good from hi idle to full power at the same speed. I expect the average power of the electric motor will be around 5kW so it will use about 40kWh per day, say £5. The tractor will use about £16 in fuel alone because it is sitting at hi idle between saw cuts.

I found anything bigger than the 4000 just pulled the County backwards. Also bear in mind anything up to the 1184 was only safe to tug 4.5 tonnes of traction. We did have an 8000H on a 974 but the electro hydraulics played up and were converted to hydraulic only. For static pulls the Farmi 8 tonne was better as it acted as its own ground anchor. Be aware also if you add front weight and it still rears up you can crush the bell housing, this is one of the reasons the highland bear had the branch deflectors in tension.

Diesel at best 40% conversion thermal energy to motion and costs ~7p/kWh, electricity ~90% conversion electricity to motion and costs ~12p/kWh but motor has a fraction of the maintenance costs. In practice when using a 10 kW diesel to generate electricity we averaged only 20% conversion. My guess would be a kWh at the shaft will cost between 17.5p and 35p for gasoil fuel and about 13.5p for 3ph electricity.

I agree to send it away to have it re tensioned and gulleted but touching up the top face only with a flat file is necessary between major sharpening.

NO because you may only think you want to ONLY do physical work all your life. Looking back on my life with few qualifications I'd advise get a college qualification and then aim for continued professional development as you work. Many entrepreneurial types will profit with no qualifications, those of us with little commercial flair are probably better off being employed and qualifications are a means by which an employer gauges your initial worth.

Yes, decent qualifications come in handy if you want to venture into management.

What are the pros and cons of having the wedge moving on the piston rod compared with the piston rod pushing the wood through the wedge?