openspaceman

I guess it was processed so strips of bark are missing? I keep a 3kg eucalyptus log by my desk and weigh and date it every now and then, sad as I am. I would refer everything back to dry mass. As long as there is not much loss of dry matter due to decay then it will hold true across most species. So take a sample log, weigh it, then stick it in an oven set to 120C for 24 hours, weigh it and this should be the oven dry weight. From this you can work out your current moisture content. Do the same in 12 month and see what changes.. You can measure the volume of a log by the Archimedes principle. Immerse it in a calibrated container, like a clear 25 litre chemical container ( triple rinsed ) which you have marked in 1 litre increments. Chip it and use the dry container to get a good estimate of the chip volume. The trouble with estimating fuel value from chip volume is that volume changes with compaction and density changes with size distribution and is affected by small things like blade to anvil length, sharpness, rate of feed etc.

The 0.7 factor will only hold for shorter (~2m) billets of fairly straight uniform timber. My guess would be about 200m3 as a low loose heap but it depends on all sorts of things like shape of chip, sharpness of blades. How come? The best bet is to take a log, weigh it, chuck it through the chipper and measure the uncompacted volume of chips in a container.

I see that some walkers now carry personal location beacons, as used by lone yachtsmen, I know little about them or their running costs but you can send an "OKAY" signal at a regular interval. A guy doing the coast to coast walk used one when he had an appendix problem a year or tow back.

You are right, it's the BE licence that permits driving of up to 3500kg vehicle and towing a trailer up to 3500kg

Could this wait until I either get made redundant or retire, please?

I would thinks so in that they must point out that what you are doing requires permission. Generally the laws to do with prescriptive rights require that you do them openly and without permission or comment. Once it is pointed out you are doing something that requires permission, like walking on someone else's land then the clock stops ticking and you can never gain the right to continue doing so. Generally if you erect something or change the use of a piece of land and continue for 4 years then you may apply for a certificate of lawful use to formalise the right. I am not a planning consultant or lawyer so this comment is worth little other than to act as a pointer to look for better opinion.

You may have me there, I thought B and B+E still had to come under a 3500 GTW, as I have C1E this is not something I have worried about. Because I hadn't checked and have two landrovers, the 110 hardtop is as you say 6550 and in fact offers me the best payload with a trailer and not needing O kicence but it would still need a tacho which would cost me more than the vehicle is worth to fit. This can carry 1000kg and pull my bateson tipper carrying 1800 kg at payload of 2800kg over 15 builkders bags of bone dry logs if you could fit them on and get them off. In fact whilst it was a reliable cheap workhorse (V8 LPG) I haven't used it other than to drive to and from MOT station each year for 4 years, I should sell it. The other is plated at 3650 and dubious if it can be used for goods at all.

I guess they don't want the expense of enforcement and have just put a marker down so you don't acquire rights to have these things then.

Have you made the application and had it validated, they seem to make a meal out of the validation as once it is registered they only have a short time to decide it. You have to make sure the application is correct and accepted, then if they don't determine it it will go through by default.

It's complex but not grey. There are three sets of regulations 1: licence issues: you can deliver using a vehicle up to 3.5 tonnes maximum allowable mass i.e. it must not exceed nor be plated for more using a B licence. You may tow a trailer up to 750kg within this 3500kg on a b licence. To tow a 3500 mam trailer you need a C1E licence because the gross train weight will exceed 3500 kg when the trailer is laden. There has recently been a perverse but helpful new ruling by VOSA that as long as the vehicle is plated and legal to tow the trailer the actual loaded weight of the trailer will be used rather than its MAM, this appears to benefit only B licence use as the same interpetation is not used over 3500kg VW 2: Driver's hours rules: Goods vehicle drivers must conform to the daily driving limits, if the vehicle exceeds 3500kgs then a tachograph must be used to record these driving hours. I can see no exception for vehicles delivering logs not to have a tachograph other than if they are delivering from a forestry or agricultural enterprise that has produced (grown??) those logs and within a 100km radius, you have to be selling exceptionally expensive logs to deliver more than 10 km. 3 Operator's licence Goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes MAM need an operator's licence which involves having an operating centre and proof of regular vehicle inspections, there is an exception if the unladen weight of the vehicle is <1,525kg, long ago it was possible to do this with a petrol engined truck but I cannot see a modern diesel engined truck grossing 3500 kg getting under 1800 now. There is a further exemption if you tow a trailer that weighs less than 1020kg unladen As I see it that means I, not enjoying agricultural nor forestry exemptions, having a B, C1E licence from before 1997 can make deliveries with: a transit plated at 3500kg a transit plus trailer up to 2800kg if its the low geared one plated for that else 2250kg but must have tachograph fitted as long as the trailer is less than 1020 unladen ( there is a sting here in that tecnically the transit would need to be plated at 3490kg for this combination as I interpret it. An unladen landrover weighing 1800 kg towing a 1700kg trailer A landrover and trailer combination up to 6000kg if I use a tachograph ( is there a 3500 gvw 7500GTW vehicle available?). The dual purpose vehicle exemption to O licence applies even with a heavy trailer but I suspect Discvery and Range Rover will exceed 2040kg and will not be dual purpose. A 7.5 tonne truck with a tachograph and O licence A 7.5 tonne truck towing a 750 kg trailer with a tachograph and O licence because my C1E is endorsed 107

What I should have mentioned is that I would not have been living the last 15 years had I been lone person working because of a freak, but avoidable, mishap.

I gave up with FC completely when they objected to my tractors not being CE marked around 95. Prior to that I did a bit of extraction for a harvesting company. I had negotiated thinnings directly with the beat forester but then they appointed a harvesting man to sell all their smaller parcels of timber, last I heard he had not covered his wages, let alone oncost, with the gross value of sales but this was 25 years ago. In the small broadleaved woods we were working as you say the payment had become just a token, when I started I paid 30% of the roadside price for hardwood thinnings. I suppose you know Jonathan Howe near Andover? He was always very helpful to me.

Because you have created a circulation loop, whilst the vast majority of the flue gases will go upward if one stove is cooler and in a cooler part of the house than the other a thermosyphon will develop, hot gas will rise to the junction be cooled and then descend into the colder place. I imagine fluctating wind could exacerbate this. I was once called out to a recent AGA installation which tested OK with smoke matches but would not start drawing in the requisite time. I had been asked to fell all the adjacent trees, on the Aga installer's suggestion. I declined the job and explained the what I thought was the reason for the problem. It was a large high ceilinged 2 storey house with a single storey annexe for the kitchen. Largely open plan, recently renovated and gas centrally heated. The chimney in the main room rose through the two storeys and exited above the high pitched ridge. The flue for the Aga used a similar brick chimney but exiting the single storey roof some 3 metres lower. The aga had been intalled without a dedicated air supply to make it room sealed and the house was no longer draughty, with new doors and double glazing. So a mixture of the hot house evacuating air up the taller chimney and a thermally massive chimney to get warm enough to draw combined to stop the aga getting enough air. I had worked in the grounds and delivered logs to the previous owners for about 20 years, I never heard from the new owners again. I still haven't checked if it is possible to install Agas room sealed. The thing about building regs for solid fueled devices is they have to take into account the variability of fuel, modern gas or oil heaters simply won't work unless fed a fuel they are designed for but people bung all manner of rubbish in stoves and open fires and it is important to vent the combustion products well up and away from air the occupants breathe.

I agree, separate flues, but it's not that they won't draw it's that one may leak into the other (probably upper) fireplace especially once the flames have died down and there is just char gently producing a mixture of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. I once calculated the diffusion of a gas molecule in still air and it is surprisingly fast as they collide with each other every 10,000th of a mm traveled.

By the Woodman where the tram used to run? Long way from Pembroke. I lived in Bishopston for a couple of years in the days before the common was fenced.

There's an open grown oak that has failed this way and the two tops have then fallen away from the butt, it's in a field adjacent to a dual carriageway where there are roadworks, A23 Handcross Hill going south, and I have been unable to stop and have a look at it the few times I have been traveling to Brighton.

The split never heals, the best that could happen would be the callus growth gradually merges to start a complete new ring after several years, this callus growth will be "better" wood than the original (denser, less vessels) but it would still contain the split wood, and any infections, inside it. I know very little of bracing, I last practiced it, job specced by boss, in about 1976, it would never pay unless a specimen tree or a high value target and in this case the wood/shelterbelt needs thinning. Over the years I have come across an occassional tree with dangling wires from a failed brace where the supported structure is still intact

Have a look at this one, the callus looks at least 3 seasons, wood peckers have been having a go so I suspect a summer bat roost. splitoak | Flickr - Photo Sharing! It's a surprising one as the tree is in a wood of self sown oaks, average 50 years old and vigorous, on a steep bank. The lever arm isn't that long, about 10 metres and the split is 5 metres up, so 15 metres overall. I cannot decide if it's the tougher densered whorled growth at the two branch unions below that has prevented the crack from propagating. Because the target occupancy is high I think it will have to go. I'm particularly interested in comparing these fork failures with similar failures at the stool of coppice growth because logically a branch union should be stronger than the union between two copice stems merging at the base, they have little opportunity to grow tension wood to resist a tear out.

I agree, maybe a case for a separate machine with hydratongs to pull them through after the grapple loads them.

Brilliant, they don't do directional felling then. Alder? This reminds me of when I did some set dressing for a logging camp film scene. It was in an SSSI so only one tree could be felled on camera, the stumps were imported corsican pine sawlogs and short lengths dressed like your beaver cut and augered into the ground as stumps, I hydratonged the logs in position at "stump". I tried to point out to the director that the trees were supposed to be axe felled and would have concave, not convex, surface and the one to be axe felled would look different, he was unconcerned and one of the gaffers explained they wouldn't notice it in the 1/9d seats. BTW the picture reminds me of a rhyme my mother used to chant when my sister misbehaved: There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forrid When she was good she was very very good when she was bad she was h......

Maybeso but they're a disaster for poor finish, harsh on machinery and inept at basic maintenance, at least the ones I deal with. Back to boots, I still keep a couple of pairs of Eltens for comfort but they lack a steel midsole. I will always prefer a boot with protective midsole over the Eltens unless working in the country whether using a chainsaw or not. I saw lots of mishaps with cut legs before protective trouser became available and would not use a chainsaw without them or a helmet with muffs and visor. I did cut my finger with a saw after 30 years when not paying attention but still find it difficult to wear gloves. I would dearly like to find a walking boot that supports arthritic ankles and don't aggravate plantar fasciitus.

+2 mill slots in the base and use Tee section angle iron bolted to concrete or a 6mm plate embedded in slot and concrete.

A bit late to the thread but I bought a ryobi 4 stroke with strimmer, pole saw and a hedge trimmer I think it was 80 quid plus 40 for the chainsaw bit. It's adequate for all the jobs, I have hardly used it as it was specifically bought to lend out instead of my own kit but it has cleared a small garden in Wellingborough that was a couple of metres high with brambles, so it has served its purpose. I used the strimmer today and that was ok for the lawn edges.

This bit is interesting to me because it defineitly says permitted weight, which means once I put a 750kg chipper behind the 7.5 tonne lorry I must use the tacho graph as my license allows me a combination weight of 8.25 tonnes, perversely I can never achieve this as the nose weight of the chipper always counts on the gross weight of the lorry as well as the gross weight of chipper. I had interpreted this the same way as crazy cutter, the exemption still applies for driving to a job with tools, there remains the big grey area as to whether hauling arb arisings from the site fall within "material or equipment for the drivers' use in the course of his work". My strict interpretation was it does not but the nice VOSA lady said she wouldn't be picky. What doesn't seem to have been said is the exemption is for keeping a record of drivers' hours but the time limits do still apply.

I rate Fuelwood products, have never owned any, but may be biased as I know Richard from 30 years back. Having just had a day assisting section felling a wych elm of coppice origin and previously worked at a tree station I don't think any one machine will do the job. The climber basically chogs off the biggest section he can handle so you have 150mm diameter stuff of 700mm long down to 400mm chogs 150 mm long. Smaller stuff going through the chipper. Also many larger chogs arrive with a "handle" from a small side branch. Even my co ground worker couldn't be persuaded to trim them and make them more uniform, the core business is to get in, finish and get out. I would normally have to worry about converting the log wood later but in this instance it was a large site so I got security to announce the availability of logs, all disappeared by 16:30. Which was a relief for me as I took the opportunity to roll over the weighbrige on the way home and grossed 7290kg with chip alone, so about 1640kg of chip after allowing for tare, chipper, kit and men. I'm guessing there would have been the same amount, or more, of logwood. Has anyone recorded the ratio of chip to logs coming into the yard?