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I think there is a ticket for tractors, there's definitely one for everything else- telescopics, loading shovels etc. I don't think it's popular though since it's basically covered by the driving licence. Edit: yep, there's a course for everything these days...

We don't do other stuff alongside chipping but I base costings on cost of chipper plus finance, minus sale value after 5 years divided by total days used. If it's a new machine I add a couple of grand to the price to cover minor repairs then just add on insurance, blades and fuel. E.g. 25k x 1.2 - 10k + 2k / 250 (days) plus running costs. That's just made up costs for a big chipper. I tend to do hourly costs though.

Have you got your own tank? You can get a saving by buying in bulk and saving trips to the garage. Obviously you need to be using enough to balance out the cost of the tank.

Yeah there is, that's why we have the brush and airline with a tarpaulin underneath. We have to pick up roughly 5% because the fines fall to the sides of the conveyor and get dragged round. We haven't found a solution yet. I can't post the video sorry.

We bought it but it's identical to the one we have on our processor. I think it's a tajfun TT 504 which is 5m long and telescopic/self tensioning. It was £1800 from memory but they do a smaller version to, both are fairly easy to install and have speed adjustment on them. You can also remove sections of the conveyor to shorten it because of the self tensioning which is useful in tight sheds.

It should work but there's a few issues with moving chip, namely it goes everywhere. We narrowed up the base of the conveyor so they touch the belt and put a brush and airline underneath to stop it being carried round the rollers but it still needs a tarpaulin under it. The pictures are of our delivery trailer which we attached a firewood processor conveyor to.

I don't think weight was much of an excuse there,it's not that big. Just speed and possibly no trailer brakes from the way he was pushed round. Just for the record if you do get a tractor licence at 16 there's limits to what you can drive.

Originally the payment was much higher, it's to encourage the take up of renewables so everytime they hit a certain number of installations they drop the payment. If you registered a few years ago it would cover the drying cost. I still wouldn't dry it from fresh though. The farm could well be drying grain, a lot switched away from oil powered drying recently which is lucky given the weather. Smoke usually means it's just been switched on or the wood is damp, maybe they're burning waste wood not chip.

You could try David Evans at DEAL agriculture, he sells valtras and jake cranes. http://www.dealwales.co.uk/used-tractors.htm Just don't ask for new prices - it's scary

Do you mean for a new one? The rate has dropped a lot now. It depends how big the boiler you use is because it's paid on the equivalent (or was) of about 1300 hours at maximum. For a woodchip boiler I think your payment will be about half of your running costs. Unless you're running it every day of the year I can't see you would get more than 8k with a 200kW boiler but it's all guesswork without more details.

Yeah delivery's the killer for a single bag but I suppose in terms of wood it's only 0.8 cube so there's not a lot there. If he does some tree surgery etc and gets the wood free he's probably making more money than I am.

It's probably softwood, I would say it's a bit cheap for hardwood unless it's only very local delivery. It's also possible he gets the wood for free.

It's the tajfun electric one, they also do a hydraulic one but I thought the poor tractor was doing enough already. We've had some interest from people with horses, just got to work out a price. I'm thinking £25 collected including the bag, not really sure what the going rate is though. We're getting about a bag to every 20cube so it should cut down on waste and be a nice earner (although it will be a very long payoff on the extractor).

Finally got a sawdust extractor working this week after putting it off for ages. Our homemade cyclone appears to be working.

It's annoying when someone underprices you with a 'ton' bag of wet wood but I would much prefer that to more regulation. We sell by the cube as it's the most accurate measurement, customers normally stick with us or come back to us despite all the other people using different measurements and if I were them I would want the choice of buying lower quality products rather than strict rules which will just push the cost up.

That's interesting to know. I was wondering why it was when they told me we were still the only ones in the country with the plus. That's a big increase from when be bought ours, I wouldn't want to lose the auto splitter height now but that's a big difference, especially compared to the 400.

I'm not sure what they are now because of the exchange rate and ours was a part ex deal. I think the 480+ was 17k last year plus the log deck, the standard model is a bit less and the 400 is quite a lot cheaper, ours was 12k with the log deck 4 years ago but that was when they were trying to get a few more into the country. I can pm you the dealers email if you want the current prices.

I think Kilworth are the only dealer, they're in central England is the downside but they're good to deal with and we've only once had to call them out and they were straight here. The issue was with a dodgy plug on the tractor, nothing bad.

Just saw you're not too far from us (but not too close either ). You're welcome to take a look at our tajfun if you're in the Llandovery area.

Can't beat tajfuns as far as I'm concerned, the 400 is the best all round machine on the market and good value. We've got the 480+ now but our 400 did at least 2500 tons and never had an issue.

NRW/natural resources Wales replaced the forestry commission and other things like river management in Wales with one big government body a few years ago it's the same people offices etc just less efficient :-)

Might be worth taking a look at electric pto units like the tajfun ep11 that way you can keep the same processor and run other stuff. I wish I had 3 phase...

That's a weird one, had similar but it was always stuff behind. I'm trying to remember the inside of the joystick, I'm assuming it's the same as the 480 (ours was). I take it the switch you replaced is the tiny grey ones? Have you tried pushing the metal tab on it with a screwdriver to make sure it works, you should hear them click. A stupid error we had with ours was the hydraulics dropping out on the conveyor - that turned out to be the electric socket to the tractor was slightly loose, it measured fine but it was actually shaking slightly from the chainsaw vibrations and the electric would cut out during cutting. Might also be worth disconnecting the red reverse button to see if that's jammed on. 5 minutes later: I can't be bothered to delete everything I just wrote but I just watched the video and the joystick seems fine, I'm wondering if there's a slight twist or something in the machine and it's making the guard jump and switch it off. Have you tried leaning on the guard? Otherwise I think it must be a sensor, especially since it's stopping in the same place. Sorry if none of that helps, just thinking out loud. Kilworth machinery are probably your best choice to call.

Maybe you can get it to work off the conveyer pipes? That would have the advantage of being to stop both at once. Or is there a lift/second function on the log deck that you don't use?

We're strangely busy for the time of year, not far off capacity. I thought it was because we put our prices up next week but someone we supply is very busy to.