Pedroski

Looks very similar to the AMA top handle. We bought an AMA a few weeks ago and have been very pleased with it. Couple of quirky features though, like the strange H/L adjuster screws, and the pretend screw heads moulded into the air filter cover! Don't know why they did that - just seems odd.

Depends on age and size of kids. My youngest is 10 now and uses a normal appropriately sized climbing harness. So long as it's tightened up around the waist as it should be, then he can't slide out of it even when hanging upside down.

This is what we do - work fast and efficiently with the proper equipment for the job. HOWEVER, it can get to the point where it starts to backfire. For example, we had a small clearance job last week. Priced it £180+vat, which customer very happy with. He went out to work just after we got there, and expected us to still be there when he got back. Fact is, we were done in 3 hours. Top notch job we did which he was very very happy with, but was hoping he'd catch us before finishing so he could get us to mow the back lawn! Thing is, there are loads of other firms around that would have charged him same rate, or maybe lower, but would have got half the amount of work done or been there for an extra day.

That's definitely a start. Interested to hear what happens now. I don't suppose there's a cat in hell's chance of getting any money for repainting - have to make sure it's loaded onto the value of the missing chassis cab for the insurance claim I guess. Those lovely campers have gone right down in my estimation!

That's called an allergic reaction. First exposure, not much happens but it sets the body up to fight some allergen in the dust the next. But then when exposed on subsequent times the response is of the body results in release of histamine which gives the allergic reaction. What your fella should do is have some anti-histamines with him. As for lungs - inhaled dust can cause serious problems, especially if it contains silica (as might be expected for ivy being ripped off walls) or fungal spores (again as might be expected). If that's something people are happy to risk themselves, then so be it. But illnesses like silicosis are not nice to live with, and not nice for family to deal with. They also continue to develop after exposure has stopped. It's all very well saying "Jo Bloggs worked with asbestos and he's still alive at 70", or "my nan smoked all her life and didn't die until she was 120", but the simple fact is that diseases like silicosis result in a very poor quality of life and do kill people. Just a week or so ago some of you slated me for daring to mention I climbed a tree without a rope, making the point that I was giving the impression to people, esp newbies, that this is safe practice. Yet now you're here saying it's ok to take the risk of breathing in dust from ivy, because it hasn't affected you personally. If that's a risk you want to take, fair enough. But it's wrong to say it's ok.

It's quite simple. I go up first using lanyard and climbing rope base tied or tied off at base of nearby tree, get to where I want to put the TIP. Once at TIP it's just a sling, krab and pulley to work as friction save. Base tied climbing rope goes through that and I come back down. Kid is then tied in to the end of climbing rope and I use a Petzl Reverso or Fig 8 on my harness to belay them as they climb. Putting pulley up means I can hoist them if necessary. It's exactly same as the kids and I do on the climbing wall. I use a 45m rope so I've always got plenty to work with.

My 2 younger ones, I belay them from the ground after first setting a the rope through a cambium saver. That way they can concentrate on climbing the tree and I've got the rope for protection. I can direct them from the ground and also I can let them 'abseil' back down, or lower them when they want to come down, with me in control.

We keep chickens in the fridge or freezer. 3 chickens do us half a dozen eggs every time we buy them from the butchers (3 chickens + 6 eggs for £12 is a good deal)

"Duty of care" requires that all steps that are "reasonably practicable" must be taken to protect the public. "Reasonably practicable" is a much narrower term than "physically possible", and involves balancing the risks of an occurrence against the time/cost/effort to reduce the risk. The HSE will be the ones to decide whether or not it would have been reasonably practicable to have every single tree dealt with, and whether or not inspection could have prevented the accident. Without knowing more about exactly what happened and why, it's not possible for any of us here to decide whether or not it would have been reasonably practicable for the owners to have done more.

I remember when I was a kid, if it was windy and we were in woods or near trees, we would always be aware of the fact that something might fall on us. I think it was called common sense or something.

:thumbup1:I like Mozza's suggestion Mind you, I might be tempted to stand on the tree that's already down and take the other out with my great big long pole saw, leaving the big hunk of trunk standing

Only 5 minutes, honest guv

And kids at school used to put it in bags, sniff it and see little green men....

I use Scabs. Seem to work really well.

^^^

Bradshaw Groundcare, have you looked into the legalities of using waste engine oil for treating wood? It's a criminal offence to allow waste oil to seep into the ground, and by painting it on wood that is then going into the ground that is exactly what you're doing. I know it works brilliantly for preserving wood, but from a professional point of view it's not something we would do.

Last week we were working on a nice large magnolia tree. We stopped for lunch and, while sitting in the truck, noticed a robin that kept flying over to a flint wall. The wall had a load of ivy on it and there were bees coming to and fro from a hole in the wall. We kept watching this robin - it was flying down to the wall from a tree opposite, and catching bees in mid-air, get them to the ground and stab them in the back before flying off with them. Then it would sit in the tree again , watching, and come and get another. This went on all lunch - the robin must have taken a good 30 or so bees. Has anyone else ever seen this before?

Maple Leaf, try Institute of Groundmanship (Training Courses) Tel: 01908 312511

So you know how to correctly white line pitches to competition specs? This is actually something where some proof of competency is probably desirable. Get some numpty to white line a pitch from scratch and it's all over the place - I've seen it at one of our fairly local clubs!

Kentjames, I think one of the problems of coming back down again when we get older is the extra weight and less bounce. I see my kids jump off stuff and find myself having to try hard not to stop them, but it's just the sort of heights I would jump from when I was a kid and find easy.

Tell you what I really do like, and that's hanging upside-down with legs over a branch. Dunno why, it's somehow just so relaxing!

Saw that vid a little while ago - he's good. Funnily enough, when I went out for a walk on Saturday with my wife and kids and dogs, I decided to have a little free climb to try and stretch and get my lungs working properly as I was feeling pretty crap. Anyway, I hoiked myself up on to a branch about 8 feet off the ground, then went up 3 more - suppose I got to about 20 feet. Then it kind of dawned on my that I really was feeling rough and it's a long way back down!

No. There are many many companies and individuals that do great work and have educated people and are well known. Why should they have to jump through even more hoops?

What? Some wallpaper?

Ha, wouldn't trust the line manager either. When I worked in a call centre a few years back, it a customer kicked off and demanded to speak to the manager, it was often just passed to a work colleague at a different desk!