Logsnstuff

start with some decent tarps instead of a barn until you build a little customer base to afford luxury storage.

I get the same thing usually after they decide I'm too expensive and try the cheap load, next order they are back at us praising the quality, the problem is getting them to make the initial purchase, starting to lean towards doing the farmers markets so they can at least get a look.

£10 standing £10 delivery where's the felling and extraction price even doing it yourself you have to put a figure on it

I wish I was getting paid for cutting trees,I'm purely firewood production for now although I'm considering putting the forwarder back to contracting the harvester is too old and wouldnt take full time use unfortunately. at least the estate where we are gets a lot of blow so we had 40/50 ton come in this week foc mix of oak syc and ash which helps a bit but its not great for the processor wriggly treetops.

secret is be a tree surgeon get paid £200 to cut it down and dump the waste before you start. cash in hand guys killing us yet know one ever reports them. gets busy round our industrial estates on the weekends also as ppl nick all the pallets for their fires too. and its not unknown for people to just go into woodlands and cut trees down without permission, our accountant has small parcel of birch and caught several people cutting trees down for logs. retail £94.00 .073m3 12%mc and £38 barrow bags and being told were far too expensive, the competition 2.5m3 £160 38%mc and telling us they have to use coal to make it burn. Kindling buy it in £1.50 + vat a net retails £4.95 or 5 for £18.00 delivery vehicle avg 21 mpg breakdowns alot roughly £4.5k a year 5yr old van Vehicle finance £1,800 a month circular blades £120 sharpening a year Red diesel 800ltr a fortnight Hydraulic hoses, hydraulic oil, filters bag £5.50 each nets £0.18 each cord £52 per ton delivered euroforests £35 never appeared Advertising £1,500 a year Petrol and 2 stroke £160 a month saw servicing/repair £180 last month saw chain imported from baileys so import duty etc approx £350 a reel tarpaulins about £3.5k a year can't afford a shed round these parts and many more costs i dont want to think off or it will just depress me more.

absolutely our bags at this time of year go out at 12 to 14% but by december/january same stock is hitting 22 24% east coast scotland.

saw an ad in the paper couple of weeks ago tree surgeon selling cube for £50 and a stove fitter telling us we have a rep for being expensive at £125 a cube our oldest bags the oak was testing 12% everyone else's iv tested 30%+

£56k if you include the new van, so ye helluva lot of logs and why we get pissed at beer money guys still have the trailer to buy. most merchants up here have switched to some form of 4x4 now anyway I still favour sticking with a van over pickup. I did notice some of the pics on here showing 3 4 & 5 bags in the back I hope these were 5 tonners I got done for having 4x 90x90 and was 700kg overloaded case doesn't come up till next month find out how big a fine court will give me. you gotta remember from your payload to take driver and any passengers off + your fuel weight + any tools means you can carry hardly anything even with 2 bags it puts me into the 5% over which is just a telling off but already considering operator license and go 5 or 7.5t for distances we travel.

its about £12,500 all in but were having a camera and worklights and beacon + the aluminium bed in that price the crane on its own is about £6k

We took a sample of the bags can't say I like the look of them, the mosquito net looks alot better, being able to see the logs is why we moved away from the standard bulk bags, with air holes burned in the sides they did the job but didn't look very nice. The barrow bags seem ok although they are smaller than what we are used to use.

all this cost me was 2 fills of petrol and a little diesel to haul it into the yard still wont sell it for less than £125 a cube

site fairly near us with 3 - 4m ash syc beech they are asking £35 a ton roadside £42 delivered, think they were talking 6k tons total but probably 4k of that will be softwood been nearly 3 weeks still havent managed to get a load into the yard yet not sure the manager likes us

still slow from this warm weather 28 barrow 17 bulk for this week

use iron men i think they call them from local builders merchants the frames you put scaffolding boards on for walking at a little height, theres a pic somewhere of ours cost about £35 a pair and you just knock the pins out when your done to take the weight of the handles and they slip out 20 sec job.

might as well post someone elses van which was being fitted with the same model crane on an iveco

We are going similar route but mounted on new sprinter 4x4 medium wb took some pics today of it in the workshop hopefully it will go for type approval next week. it's being fitted by Outreach in Falkirk. 3.8m reach so should be able to reach the back of any trailer we buy and we made sure there was a tacho fitted. We went with a lightweight aluminium bed which is about 70kg lighter than the usual timber and we had them cut the spare wheel carrier off also which gets us close to an extra bags worth capacity.

this was talked about few months back, from what vosa told us doesnt matter what size vehicle if it has an engine and someone pays you for the goods at point of delivery then it requires a tacho you can carry log rings from a work site back to the yard without a tacho but if you split the rings into logs then you need a tacho to take them back to the yard, doesnt have to exceed 3.5t if you want to say you dont need pm me your details and ill report you and then tell us what vosa say when they pull you

my bags work out at £125 a cube and I struggle to cover costs through the summer haven't the faintest idea how those others round my area can make a living at £130 for 2.5 cube, I'm also sitting on about £110,000 in stock, had some one email yesterday wanting kiln dried birch I explained ours was a mix birch sycamore ash beech 15% mc air dried,was no good they will only burn kiln dried birch I haven't the time or rather the inclination to start separating hardwoods other than trying to keep the oak out.

VOSA told us about the exclusion but said it would only apply to equipment not logs, you can carry unsplit rings or pulp back to the yard ok but once its split down to logs the exclusion no longer applies.

I had 4 bulk bags which were seasoned but rain wet (260kg each by their weigh bridge) + saws 2 ppl and the usual jump leads etc under the seats which meant i was 700kg overloaded or 19.1% which apparently is automatic to court. with the long wheelbase van its got a low capacity I'm considering whether i can take the doors off the back to reduce weight and strip all the lining out of it maybe dump the bench seat and go down to just a driver

police reckon because it was them that pulled me not vosa on the overloading I can expect £80 fine but had it been vosa they could do up to £5,000 I'm just hoping when it gets to court they decide first offence warning letter I'll hold off on fitting a tacho till I see whether I can find the money to get op license and go 5 ton replacement next year.

follow the links that have been supplied previous messages but essentially you dont need a tacho for a caravan or if you are towing machinery for use within 50km of base but if your towing goods for sale then you need one. vosa gave us an example if you take a horse to competition but dont win a prize your fine without a tacho if you win the competition and get for example £20 prize you have received a reward and must have a tacho to take your horse away.

all mine has gone through the books intentionally there are a load of tree surgeons around here and a couple of hauliers who do firewood and only take cash, for 6 years I have intended reporting them but I havnt managed to bring myself to do it yet. I know one of them did around 700 tons last year selling 2.5 cube £130

you still need tacho if owner driver and you need to apply for a company card and a driver card from dvla

Thats pretty much what vosa said to me now I'm glad i went for the tacho in the new van £1,500 to get one fitted if I keep the current van. most of the merchants round here are using trailers so it will be interesting to see what happens next couple of months. just gotta wait on the paperwork for cards now something the salesman didnt tell us about. they did say it would be beneficial to get a quarterly service done on the trailer as well curious what you service on one of these other than kick the tyres. plan is with the hydraulic crane i can make delivery and then lift the trailer into the back and reduce the restrictions.