Mr. Squirrel

I’ve seen a similar failure by the sounds of it. ~25-30m tree, the remaining stump looked like a dish. I don’t have any photos now but I’ll see if someone else does.

1: I totally agree with regards to tree removal to an extent. You could pay the flashest outfit going to come in and helicopter trees out, or pay the bloke at the end of the road to hack it to bits off his ladder with a bow saw. If the end result is the tree is no longer there, then option one has just costed you £10k extra for no reason. I guess the difference is in how these things are undertaken. You can cut a lot of costs in running a business by not having insurance, carrying on using those 10 year old slings, never lolering kit, running crap old saws etc etc. Is that better value? Maybe, but when that rotten old sling breaks, a lump of wood smashes through a conservatory and the contractors best response is 'sorry' maybe not. The 'end result' argument goes out the window when you're thinking about pruning too. 2: There's potentially no lack of understanding in what a number of tree guys do, because they probably don't understand either. I'm not branding everyone but me as incompetent, there are a lot of knowledgable and skilled people out there. But there's also an awful lot of hacks who just don't care... Heck I have to drive past some of the worst pruning I've ever seen on a mature beech almost daily. you'll know as well as anyone Mick that good arboriculture is rarely black and white and doing a professional job often requires a bit of informing. Trees have too much value to just keep your head down and do exactly what the client wants all the time. Really don't think that gypsy camps would be the issue in industry regulation. They're a convenient scapegoat but I think your average small company would be just as difficult to get further compliancy from, if not more so as it's relatively easy to look pretty professional. I'd be all in favour of greater regulation if implemented in the correct manner. Making the chainsaw in a tree ticket more robust for instance, and making rigging a mandatory part of that would be beneficial in my mind. Who can honestly operate without doing any rigging? So what's the point of the stand alone ticket? Honestly I think the industry has been a bit saturated for a while. Rates in the UK have pretty much stagnated for years and are way below those in many EU countries. Perhaps a skill shortage would help push wages up a bit?

In response to the original post. It sounds to me like your struggling to meet demand for staff at, I imagine, predominantly large companies. Probably because they pay crap and offer little in the way of employment benefits and professional development beyond a utilities course or some rubbish. How many companies offer the likes of private health cover and robust sick leave? Because that clearly matters in an inherently dangerous job, but it’s not something I’ve heard of. It mentioned the ‘perceived’ benefits of self employment, presumably such as better money, more flexibility, more control over your working life… those are actual benefits. Yes you’ll lose out on the minimum pension contributions, but you’ll probably gain a better quality of life. My overall impression was 1) employers offer little incentive to employees, or we wouldn’t see the theme repeating itself. And 2) that the real issue touched on was being a recruiter in an industry with an above average proportion of weird tree people who don’t want to be recruited. I’ve never been a full time employee, I did 10 years of freelancing and then started taking on my own work. I worked for some good people but wouldn’t have wanted to go on the books for any of them.

There are two plates bolted to the back of the stove, may be covered by a heat shield. I can’t remember how long you’ve had this installed, so it might be irrelevant. I suspect ours suffered from being run so hard so regularly.

I will chip in again to say that not only did we have the same stove, also installed quite poorly probably 17 years ago, but we’ve also got a similar sized room. 10x5m, though the ceilings are only ~2.5m there are 7 windows and it’s a 190 year old building, so there are draughts. Given the poor performance of this Jotul in our room I was also a bit unconvinced about getting a smaller one installed. Two months in I’ve no such regrets. It’s better in every way as far as I can tell. Where we used to have the stove singing for hours it now just ticks away nicely and pumps out the heat.

We had the exact same stove. It was in a not dissimilar alcove and took ages to really heat the room. Probably 1-2 hours of enthusiastic burning to get some warmth from it. When we had it out for chimney work I found a manifold plate on the back in pieces. I’d check that out If you can. The top isnt screwed down so use fairly easy to get in and out. We replaced it with a DG ivar 5 and the difference is phenomenal. Though the ivar is noisy.

I’ve been very happy with Osmo products. Though I’ve not used it, something like this would be my best bet. I used some sort of Osmo oil paint on our old extension and had no complaints. I’ve used their top oil for years on furniture and been very happy with it.

With regards to max lifespan it’s down to the manufacturer. Some say 5-10, others, like English Braids don’t give a a maximum lifespan. If it’s older than the max lifespan then that’s case closed really. If it’s within its manufacturer specified lifespan then wether or not it’s fit for purpose comes down to condition. A deadeye for example could last ten years if it’s getting used very irregularly, but it could last a day if it gets damaged. A loler thorough examination will take care of that though.

If you’re using a sling, carabiner and a pulley then using a basket hitch may result in improper loading of the carabiner.

The benefit of the little echo is that none of the other echo stuff looks that useful. So you aren’t buying into a system, and you don’t need to be annoyed at having bought into the Husky/stihl kit already. It’s lighter, more compact, basically just a pruning saw, nothing more.

Helmet fits are a bit like boots though and are very personal. What works for one will be dreadful for others. Petzl helmets for instance feel dreadful to me, but obviously work for many others. The protos is heavier than other helmets, and the venting isn’t brilliant. On the flip side it’s protection is better than most of not all other helmets on the market and it’s a much sleeker unit.

I was thinking that too. It’s practically just a back cut. That was a bold call, poorly executed.

I’ve used mine on kernmaster safari quite a bit and it’s good on that. I can’t imagine the Taz being very nice to use in a two rope system though, really needs two hands. I used mine for access only.

I mean I had my 18v drill as well, but this was in the truck and definitely faster… anyway I obviously wasn’t seriously suggesting someone goes out and buys that to poison trees…

I used eco plugs for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Decent sized poplar so many holes. This made fairly short work of it 😅 Makita DDA460ZK Twin 18V Li-Ion LXT Brushless Cordless Right-Angled Drill - Bare - Screwfix WWW.SCREWFIX.COM Order Makita DDA460ZK Twin 18V Li-Ion LXT Brushless Cordless Right-Angled Drill - Bare at Screwfix.com...

Like I say I was up the tree so my actual using experience is none. Just spent a lot of time looking down at people faffing with it, however as it say that can be removed. If it was me, and knowing it’s a one time purchase (or should be), I’d hold out and get the one you want rather than the one you can stretch to atm. The grcs can lift slightly more with a 44:1 winch rather than a 40:1. Using a big right angle drill like the makita you can do a lot with it.

I was torn between the LD1 and the grcs a few years ago. Ended up going with the grcs and happy I did. It’s solid, easy to setup and spare parts are readily available. My only experience of the LD1 was up a tree doing a removal for another company. The clutch thing seemed like a massive arse about, if the ground crew can’t safely operate a grcs then I’d question whether I’d really want to be winching big stuff with them anyway.

Yeah I swear the Ad blue consumption has increased too. Used to get about 5k between refills, now maybe 3.5k? Checked yesterday and the mpg is sitting at 24.6mpg with a lot of towing. So not too bad actually. But it is pretty thirsty…

Apparently it’s us who don’t have a clue how ‘nature operates’, hence the decline.

i thought they’d get more. That’s pretty much the same as my 21 plate 2.8L hilux. I’ve done 40,000 in it but don’t have a lifetime average, only since I last reset it when I got new tyres in December. It definitely dropped a bit then. Still about 32mpg if it’s mostly motorway, 21-22 if I’m towing the tracked chipper. Given my last motor was a transit custom I feel like ol’ luxy has a drinking problem

Revisiting this thread to say I had a battery fall out last week. Was just going up to fish out a big hanger and my saw bumped my arse/harness. Battery fell about 8m onto grass, bounced another 8m and landed on a patch of gravel about 30cm from a burn. Need to figure out that securing strap…

Sounds like a beautiful success story against all odds 😂 I presume I got unlucky. Mine was ok initially but went down hill hard. I took it into the dealer and he repaired the carb and found it needed 10(!!) software updates. After that it ran good for a while. Had I not been working overseas for most of its warranty period a lot of its flaws would’ve been uncovered far quicker and addressed properly I imagine.

I’m pretty sure husky do it as a spare, I remember getting a price for one from my dealer. It’s comes as a kit with twin big dogs iirc. It was still really expensive though and I didn’t bother. But worth asking.

What batch was yours? Mine was the very first run available in the uk I believe, I put it down to teething issues. I was able to keep it going for nine years so it did a good shift, but it was always very temperamental. Needed far too much maintenance to keep it running sweet.

Think you heard wrong. Had the 550 mkii about three years now and it’s bomber. Early 5 series saws were temperamental, with this they ironed out all those quirks. My 2011 560 was awful.