Mr. Squirrel

Exactly. The only people who will have any clue someone is being non-compliant are the HSE or other tree care firms. I personally would never grass up another company, as it just doesn't seem conducive to positive, safe working environments. I saw that the HSE discarded the case where a peaceful protestor on an HS2 site had her ropes severed by police/security resulting in a fall, as her injuries weren't serious enough. Is that a precedent, where if there's no serious injury there's no cause for fine/conviction? I doubt it...

I flicked through sections of this, and it seems quite disconnected from the industry. A few things come to mind from the questions section at the end. Someone asked about the level of training in colleges and Chalky basically just defended Lantras quality of training and ignored the question entirely. I've seen a similar rhetoric from a few Lantra and NPTC assessors, this party line that their training IS up to scratch. So how are colleges getting away with training students to such a low standard (as was my experience, it was a joke), when they have to pass NPTC or Lantra assessments? Surely this brings us back to these assessing bodies not having thorough assessment criteria, thereby discouraging thorough training. I think the biggest issue with accident statistics in UK arb is that the average technical ability of UK 'arborists' is really pretty piss poor. And yet most of them have tickets. Training standards and qualifications are, in my opinion, dated to the point of irrelevance now. This isn the major issue which needs addressed. Another part I liked was when the HSE representative saying that they have forms to enable us to report companies who they see climbing on a single climbing rope. I've see plenty of local companies doing far worse things than this, and yet to my knowledge none of them ever encounter any intervention from HSE. She was basically asking us to turn on ourselves and start grassing each other up. This in an industry with such poor training that in order to really LEARN we HAVE to connect with each other. I was prepared to be engaged with the discussion, however it came across more as an academic and theoretical exercise rather than the Arb Association truly searching for solutions. Drawing on a wider pool of operators more closely involved with the industry would, I imagine, make for more interesting, relevant and ultimately beneficial discussion.

There was me thinking what a strange thing to steal as well... Just not cynical enough it seems!

You say that like leaving the foul weather gear at home is ever an option...

Nah I think it’s the cobra. It has a cunning vent hidden behind the mesh pocket. I had a big black diamond before this and that was good too. Everything’s together, makes life simple.

I have the big arbortec bag. It’s decent, I can fit a 70m rope, harness with all the gubbins, base tie stuff, wrench stuff and a throwing line in it plus extras. I have fitted all that + a 60m line in too, when needed. I’m the complete opposite to treerover, I’d rather have my kit on my back. So everything in the bag and then I’ve got spare hands for a saw, rigging bag or what have you. If your ropes wet your harness is wet too, so you’re taking stuff out to dry it no matter what.

I believe 37 people died in Germany last year purely from felling dead/dying beech trees. Due to the hot dry summers they've had over the past few years rapid die back is becoming quite a severe issue. They've now banned the use of wedges for felling beech in this condition, and it's mandatory to have a winch. It looks utterly ridiculous, but it's a solution to a problem. A far greater problem than the two ropes palava in the UK.

This guy made his own winches. Seems to get on fairly well with them...

Why wait until then though? If I went vat registered now, claimed back what I could, plus the vat on a new vehicle, that could go straight back into the business so I wasn’t needing to hire in machinery as often, meaning more efficient and more cost effective. Winner, no? I gave a good number of long term clients who though largely domestic, I don’t think would have any issue. To me it seems a no brainier. I’d just be interested to hear any solid reasons not to.

Dragging this post up and hijacking it as I'm considering going VAT registered electively. I'm a fair way beneath the threshold, but my outgoings are fairly low. Most of my turnover therefore is profit, and I'm doing pretty ok for myself. I bought my van 3 years ago and forked out the VAT on that as I thought a couple of grand was better than being more expensive for domestics. I'm going to be replacing it in the next few weeks though, and am looking at paying a fair whack more in VAT this time round. Obviously once you take the VAT off the total cost vehicles get a whole lot more affordable... Maybelatron, I'm interested in your post as not many seem to be below the threshold but still VAT registered. All good for you though? And any others who've found themselves in similar situations... I've got a good accountant and use, though don't fully understand, Sage, so I imagine with a little discipline the transition wouldn't be too painful?

I mean you're right in a sense, in that peak forces at the anchor point will likely be significantly higher than twice the load.

Mine have been pretty good so far, They feel pretty tough. I'd get in touch with them as a first port of call. Sure they'll see you right.

That's weird, my renewal went down, cover the same. Which I was quite surprised by...

Has anyone dealt with companies where I can send in items to have a logo printed on them? I want to get some jackets and long sleeves made up but don't want to be restricted to whatever the printing companies sell themselves... Cheers folks

I have a wee bottle of olive oil in the shower for this. Tried the salt thing once, I didn’t particularly like it.

Mostly just in that you can feed the rope through just the fimbl and pulley, using it more like a traditional cambium saver. I find that really helpful when working on a removal and you get to the stem. It's quicker to set up securely and even when the pulley saver is a bit too small for the stem size, you can still get by with it. Having to take the retrieval ball off and on was a bit tiresome at first. I found the trapeze would snap itself on to the other side of the line semi regularly, making retrieval impossible. Much more tiresome haha. As I said before though, both great tools. I just get along better with the pulley saver.

Having a pulley is 100% worthwhile. Tree work is already physically demanding enough, they make your life easier. As for which, I’ve owned both and prefer the pulley saver. It’s a bit more versatile, has fewer metal parts to smash off the concrete and in my experience is easier to retrieve. They’re both top quality products though.

I’m the same as Rich. Except I just go with it and have headaches regularly. I think that might be more to do with the distribution of pressure with me though, in particular the clip at the back sits right over the base of the skull/neck. Had it three years, just making sure I get my money’s worth.

Is the adjustability of it of key importance? Pulling the lock out and rethreading it looks like a bit of a faff? I would've been tempted to just do a long bury and let it function like an adjustable whoopie splice? If retention of strength is of great importance maybe a few soft shackles of different lengths would do the trick? Just some thoughts...

It’s been mentioned and covered numerous times, but the short answer is no. Industry consultation is great, in theory. In reality this is a face saving exercise, and I imagine all these responses just go straight up the chimney. I don’t know anyone who is pleased by these changes, and few that are compliant with them. All that’s really changed is a vast number of highly skilled arborists with excellent safety standards are now non-compliant. Utter shambles.

To be fair Tentsmuir carpark is rammed any day of the year at the first glimmer of sun. I swear since they enlarged the carpark it’s gotten waaaay busier too. And the person controlling the flow of traffic being haphazard is pretty much normal. Paying £2 for parking was the last straw for me ?

Ha ha, not wearing a mask is hardly revolutionary... Health professionals widely agree that a simple face mask is of benefit. Countries where this advice has been followed have generally faired relatively well. The UK has obviously not. It’s hardly surprising when there are so many who view it as their right to potentially endanger others...

Inconsistent, sure. But unjustifiable? Really? You say you have an aversion to rules you deem unreasonable. What’s so unreasonable about wearing a mask in a shop? How does this negatively affect you? You’ve already acknowledged how little of an issue it is to wear one, and that they may be of benefit. To then say you won’t wear one seems pretty childish really. I feel like perhaps there should be options. People can not bother with a mask, go to the pub etc. But when they catch it they just stay put at home and die quietly. Hopefully the memory of how they stuck it to the man will help them pull through...

Stihl were still doing the 880 in mainland Europe after they stopped selling them here. It might be an EU emissions law or whatever, but it was implemented earlier and more abruptly in the UK than anywhere else I'm aware of. You might still be able to pick one up over the water.

Yeah, which presumably means if you shoot it out it'll fall apart. Which would make shooting it out a terrible idea, unless you can just deck the thing, in which case don't bother. Clearly a MEWP is a much better idea ?