Mr. Squirrel
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Everything posted by Mr. Squirrel
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Nice job. What’s with the ring/block setup though? It love like the rigging line is going through both?
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And I would have, but my test was cancelled following this announcement. So that’s a problem.
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It's bonkers really. And the hitching & unhitching part will be done at training centres I believe. Except that needs to be done off the road, and the people they expect to pick up the extra work here don't necessarily have the space for it. Not to mention peoples entire businesses have essentially just been wiped out. While in theory it sounds great, I think in reality it's a desperate, ill conceived move that will amount to nothing, if we're lucky.
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I smell a U-turn in the pipeline.
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That’s the crack. They’re also omitting reversing from the hgv test. Sounds like a lot of haulage companies and insurance companies understandably want nothing to do with people who’ve been fast tracked in this manner though. You can’t have a 17 year old rushed through a test like that and now driving a 45 tonne lorry. Sounds like it’s similar with trailers, though it might be legal to tow, when/if these new laws come into force, insurance companies will likely still insist on professional training. Our government couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery. While it sounds great, it’s clearly a panicked decision and I’ll be amazed if any good actually comes from this.
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😂 Hardly, we've got a massive driver shortage because of leaving the EU, so they're scrapping towing tests so that there are more tests free for HGV's. Just off the phone with a lorry driver who said haulage companies will probably be reluctant to hire drivers who've passed under these new rules too.
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I've got my trailer test booked for Tuesday the 14th too. Would've been nice if they'd given a better idea of when the new regs will come into play as I need to be able to tow within the next couple of weeks.
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To be honest I would do that anyway. They're both expensive bits of kit and it'll be a stinger if you whack it with a big bit of timber. There's some minor play in my winch bollard too. I think that's alright, but harken have a lot of info on winch bollard maintenance. It's not that complicated, and very common place in yacht racing.
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Ascenders are designed to be used on ropes. Don’t worry about it.
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How’d you get on J? I sold my transit custom earlier this year for roughly what I paid for it three years and 65k miles ago.
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Again, familiarity with site history is important. Though you keep talking about how the risks are incredibly low, there WAS an incident at scone involving SBD. Trees throughout scone palace and the events field are now regularly surveyed by a very competent person. I don’t believe this sign was put up as an arboricultural recommendation but more reflects the anxieties of the property owners. Surely the fact that they are regularly surveyed over rules a sign asking people not to sit there? I’d say there’s a higher likelihood of occupancy between someone walking underneath it (which I believe most people don’t, as there’s a banking on the other side) and sitting, perhaps having a picnic beneath it (quite likely as it’s close to the outdoor seating from the cafe. You seem very eager to criticise, which is easy when you’re spouting off on the internet as opposed to putting your name on a survey.
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You're very critical of the sign in the photograph, but are you familiar with the site history? You state in your SBD guide that 'If any of our trees have a history of SBD then we'll manage the risk to an Acceptable level'. So what's to say that this tree hasn't historically dropped a large section? I've witnessed SBD on 3 occasions, but I've never witnessed a failure due to decay first hand. Anecdotally that would suggest that if the risk of SBD is 'mind-bogglyingly low' then the risk of failure due to decay is... bamboozlingly low? I'm not sure what the technical term for this level of risk would be in the VALID system.
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Always have a pair in the truck. Great for big/busy trees where it's a little tricky to see what you've thrown over.
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The fact that you don’t think you could get hurt using a throwing hook suggests to me you haven’t actually used them much or you use them for little traverses where you could just swing. It’s laughable that I’ve often seen you cite industry code of practice or whatever, and yet you climb using random crap off eBay.
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Nope. If someone showed me that and told me they were actually using it I’d beat them over the head with it. Don’t be stupid. It might not be recognised as PPE but it’s certainly used in a such a manner that were it to fail, you could incur serious injury. To the OP, they’re dear for what they are, but very useful when you need one. The epple hook is also a good option.
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I was thinking arb trolley and bollards, but like you say they’re reg’s ideas really. Presumably he was working with/for them though. Notch geckos certainly aren’t an original idea. They released their ‘click’ version straight after distel too, just copying. Then there’s the triple attachment swivel pulley, almost identical to rock exotica. Their carabiner gates are amazingly similar to dmm’s now, and their new rigging pulley looks like it’s trying to be an impact block. The rr pro looks good, really it was an idea they bought though.
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That. Although at least Stein have the decency to come up with the occasional original idea, where Notch seem to do a great job of ripping off anyone they can.
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Treeworker sell wire fids, less than a tenner I think and they're perfect. I doubt you'll manage with a coat hanger.
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I’d have a chat with them in the first instance. I’ve never worked over astroturf before, or indeed met anyone with an astroturf lawn, and wouldn’t think that I could make expensive holes in it. They may just not have appreciated how easy it was to damage… Out of curiosity, why the plastic lawn? I’ve heard they’re becoming a thing, which seems odd…
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neighbour's oak pruning
Mr. Squirrel replied to Tellme_why's question in Homeowners Tree Advice Forum
Late to the party, but I’d suggest that given how close to the boundary this tree is, any advice that you can prune it back to said boundary is a pretty poor recommendation . You can technically do so, but within the tolerances of the tree. This looks like I’m doing so you would be causing pretty severe damage. It would also look awful and make virtually no difference to leaves and twigs falling in your property. I don’t imagine you’ll be able to replicate the pollards so forget that notion. Best bet is to learn to love it, it’s an impressive tree after all, or leave… you moved into a house with a massive tree in the neighbours garden, why do you expect them to devalue their property for you? -
Visual Tree Assessment Oak with Large split.
Mr. Squirrel replied to Mazzoo's topic in Picture Forum
I guess you need to ask yourself the question ‘does it require management’ first. If the answer is yes then monitoring it isn’t really management, but just delaying any decision making until it falls apart in some way and hopefully nobody gets hurt. The split appears to be present on both sides of the union ie. also in vital and intact wood, so I’d presume is not caused by the decay associated with the major pruning wound. It also appears to be perhaps a few years old, so the tree might be coping with this itself. Removing that stem would create an even bigger pruning wound and make the problem even worse. So definitely not that. -
Sorry, but if you didn't want to mature trees that close to your house you shouldn't have bought it. You know there's a TPO there and you obviously know what that entails. To move in and immediately want to reduce them on aesthetic grounds is pretty short sighted. It's weird isn't it, people want to live amongst greenery, so they fell the woods to build houses with big trees around them/plant lots of nice broadleaves around new builds/buy houses surrounded by trees. Then people get annoyed with the trees and want them a bit smaller. Then a bit more. Then they're just not as nice as they used to be and maybe it's better off just removing them. Might as well have just built the houses in a field and given everyone Leylandii hedges like they secretly want.
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Can’t speak for the 201 but the 572 and 661 are both solid saws, highly recommend them. You kinda need something smaller for snedding though, 550 or similar. 572 is a unit, I love mine and would pick it up over the 500i every time. I run mine on a 20” bar for fast cutting but you could put a 24” on there easily I’d say and save on the 661 for the time being. I’d go with top handle, 550 & 572 for the time being. When a big job comes along that you NEED a big saw you can stick a little extra in to go towards the 661 then.
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You’ll not be seeing me turn up with all my rigging gear and saws for 200 inc. VAT. You’re talking about thousands in kit and 15 years of experience for what, £80 more than the college kids with his cross cutting tickets and no work ethic? Nae chance.
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This. If you need a clear out do it now. Give it a lick of paint. If it’s still anything like last year it’s a wild time to sell. We were looking at houses last year and almost everything was going for 30+% over. One house we looked at was on for 130 and sold for 230. It was a shit hole. Good luck.
