aspenarb

As the lads have pointed out you need to find a decent supplier, if your location was known I am pretty sure someone on here will know of one on your patch. As far as estimating goes you really do need to look hard at what you are pricing.If the ground is made up, full of roots or services, if the fence is supporting tons of crap piled up on the neighbours side , ground conditions and levels can all affect progress. Its certainly not a generic rate per panel. Think about terms and conditions on your quote that will cover the unforeseen. Our lads on our landscape work get roped into a fair bit of fencing . The one below looked innocent enough when we priced it, what we didn't know was it was supporting next doors garden/jungle which was considerably higher. Ended up with 3mtr posts ,double concrete gravel boards all dug through heavy roots. Terms and conditions stopped it becoming a costly blamefest. Bob

Urine extraction aside for a moment ( I only said a moment )it's a rather worrying situation Mick when many years of experience and competence account for nothing. I can half understand the changes but think they should apply to new trainees going forward that don't know any different and leave those comfy with SRT for the rest of their working life. Bob

I hope a groundie wearing a chog for a hat wasn't one of them Mick Bob

There's the rub Mick " newly qualified" and no experience, the piece of Andrex they leave college with after a week ticks enough boxes and H&S criteria to allow an unsuspecting employer to legally let them loose in a tree.I have been of the opinion for many years that climbing qualifications should be part of a proper time served apprenticeship scheme and not just a ticket. Bob

Easy, employ hundreds of highly paid chair polishers to generate these ever-increasing and much needed paper pushing/certification schemes, run them through organisations that have little to no idea or experience in the field and as we all know this will make climbing a much safer occupation. Start the car Bob

Kevin and Paddy its not an H&S get out or slippery side step, we merely get a signed contract from our climbers clearly stating they will not use SRT. I am not condoning or condemning SRT, perhaps climbing certification should clearly indicate which method a climber has been trained or retrained in. Bob

How many of you guys have signed company disclaimers and still use SRT? Bob

A disc normally incorporates the blowing system and has a lot flywheel inertia, downside is to chip 18" you need 36"+ diameter flywheel. Drum is more compact, in theory just over an 18" drum will do the job of a 36" disc, downside is there is less flywheel effect so a tad harsher on the drive system so they tend to spin them up faster, also needs the added complication of a separate blowing system. Bob

Its an odd one Khriss, the fifteen minute daily check time is the same for 7.5 tonners as it is for an artic unit +trailer which could have 16 wheels/tyres and twice as many lights to run through. If its your daily driver you can thoroughly check around any small truck and fill in the defects book in less than five minutes, especially if you have got a mucker with you to help check the lights. Its not a problem or something to avoid, it is something I believe is bang on for bigger trucks but in need of a time tweak for the small ones. Bob

Seems a shame to give up the extra capacity of the bigger truck by down plating. Restricted O licence if on a tight budget is very straight forward, Tacho`s take seconds to sort out,drivers daily fifteen minute walk around starts when the tacho is put in( will leave that for your imagination but it normally takes at least that to load a truck for the day), PMI`s dont have to be six weekly if you are not doing thousands of miles, they can be 6,8,10 or even12 weekly and can cost less than £100 a go. I very much doubt it would cost more that £20 a week over and above a transit to legally run a 7.5 tonner, most of the arb boys I know spend more than that on redbulls and costa coffee . Bob

All of the "green waste" facilities I know of put everything including fence panels, through the shredder, I haven't seen anywhere that separates it out. Cant see it being an issue if its diluted with hundreds of tons of clean gear, bottom line is it will all end up in an incinerator somewhere. Bob

There are separate tickets for just about every separate tool and task, the word "fully" would imply you had tickets for the lot. You need to be more specific about what aspect of tree surgery you would like to be involved with. Bob

There is a big difference between qualified and experienced, qualified these days is just an essential. Bob

May as well, looks like a gorilla broke it 👍 Bob

You can get away with a transit and chipper if most of your work is small reductions or knocking the tops off conny hedges. They are not cost effective on tree removals or clearance work, the down time/ cost of a transit on turnaround no matter how close to a job racks up. There are a lot of guys out there running very expensive chippers capable of filling a transit to the brim in ten minutes, they then feck off from the job for an hour to empty it leaving their muckers behind scratching their nuts. I cant think of anything that drains the profit off a job quicker than inadequate clear up logistics. Bob

1/2" does most case drains, I know a lot are 1/4" but I always feel that the return wants to be without any restriction and with the flail being a long way from the tank its best to go bigger. Bob

No just the case drain, if you were to put them on the heads return pipe and then reverse it all the crap accumulated in the strainer would fire back into the flail motor. The machines hydraulics make sure everything returned from the service circuit is filtered irrespective of rotation. You only need to worry about the case drain. Bob

They come apart Gray and you can either wash out or replace the element, I like them because you can see from what's in the filter when things are starting to go wrong. Bob

I will get price off our man which should be in the ballpark, either way it will need cleaning and all the gunk the moss is growing in will need to come off. For a second life on what you have you could patch it and get it tarred / chipped, or clean it up and get a few tons of sealing grit on there. Either way its not a good time of year to be messing with it. Bob

Send him down for an interview, we are a bit low on idiots at the moment👍 Bob

It’s not a basket case, I don’t think the moss is doing it any favours though and needs to go no matter what you do.Patching always looks like it sounds,if the aesthetics are that important top dressing is the only alternative. Personally I would kill off the moss and power wash the whole drive, patch and forget about it. Bob.

If you add two airbags to the rear springs you can get an app based weigher.Makes foe a cheap and easy to use weighing system App Weigh Onboard Weight Sensor For Trucks Or Trailers WWW.DIRECTNINE.UK Provides truck and/or trailer gross weight, plus axle group and estimated cargo weight to your smartphone or tablet. Works...

Its got a straight eight Rolls Royce engine which my mate is having for his vintage fire truck, last time I ran the thing it guzzled about ten gallons of fuel in an hour hence the diesel conversion. There have been a few converted, I need to track one down to see what they did, saves reinventing the wheel. I will rattle you cage when its done , I want to launch it into a river at 40mph like the loons in the vid below, care to join me?

7tons is a sensible capacity for an arb truck, if you are that paranoid about being overloaded buy one with a weighing system. Bob