Mutley404

You can't say that everyone who has a smoke or a drink is going to be a problem in the work place. Everyone is different, some people are just useless and dangerous when they're stone cold sober and some are brilliant even after smoking a joint. Any drugs in the work place is a no no but if you tested every arb employee, boss or what ever that would be half the work force gone over night. I can speak from experience as to how common drugs other than alcohol are regardless of their jobs, background, age etc...

Well this is where is see the issue with these kind of jobs. I would have taken 1 150hp tractor (well oversized but i'm not going to buy a smaller tractor just for these jobs, i need the power elsewhere) with trailer, winch (might have gotten away with the grip hoist but it'd be damn hard work) and either take the excavator with the grapple to load the timber or another tractor with loader, either way it would have been 2 machines. And 2 workers for 1 full day. The whole job could have been done with little machinery but at the end of the day I've got the kit, it needs to earn it's keep. We get a similar situations with some of the silage contractors to this. The local guy with the old machinery and little old baler,turns up at a time that suits him, takes ages to do the job, the bales are pretty crap but he's cheap. And then there's the guy with the new 200hp tractors, new baler and a crew of guys driving for him, is always on time, bales are super tight and he's done in less than half the time of the other guy but charges more. Which is best? I choose the guy with the good kit every time now because he gets the job done on time and I feel like I'm getting my monies worth and not being messed around, but that's me.

Cheers for the replies. To be honest it's no skin of my nose that I didn't get the job, it looked like a pain in ass anyway. I was just interested to hear what everyone had to say about it. I've got a couple mates who work in forestry , I'll have word with them and see what they say, they're more used to dealing with large scale operations but they could still be useful. What's new for me is having to deal with customers and competition! And so far I'm not too keen on either I spend many hours working out costs on the farm which is a mighty headache at times, the one thing that makes it slightly more simple is that fact there's no one out there who's going to do it cheaper.

I bet there are a lot of posts similar to this one, I've read a few but none can answer my question. Admittedly I'm very green with this doing work for other people stuff I quoted for a job to extract 2 fallen medium sized Beeches from an extremely awkward site; no vehicle/machinery access within 80 metres and no direct line to winch. As far is I could see there was 2 choices, cut everything to small enough lengths to drag by hand or cut into larger lengths and attempt some interesting stuff with the winch. I was to take all the timber and chippings. I quoted near enough £700+Vat, I sat down and did all my figures and that seemed about right to me, bearing in mind my machinery costs are fairly high because it's fairly big gear which isn't cheap to run. The chap was not happy with the amount quoted and said I was asking way too much...which I'm not sure about..I'm sure someone with lower running costs might come in and quote less but I can't do that with the cost of running the show charging less than that wouldn't be worth the time, Unless my costings aren't correct:confused1: I'm in a fortunate position because agriculture is my main source of income, I imagine for the guys solely on timber jobs the margins must be very tight!

That's a fair point, apart from the subsidy dig.....I'm sure if we could eat trees the state would subsidies forestry too..... How much would a decent climber and groundsman cost to hire for a days work? And would studying for the RFS certificate still be a benefit even if I didn't do the donkey work?? The trouble is learning to climb is something I want to do, any business sense seems to get put to one side when it's like that but like you say I could just climb for the fun.

Thanks for the replies guys. The comparison to driving sounds like it makes sense. But like most farmers, I learned to drive when I was a wee lad well before I had a licence:thumbup: I've got a large acreage of woodland on the farm which we harvest all wind blown timber for firewood, often cutting and winching large trees on steep slopes, so I've got a some experience in that area but I'm sure I've also got lots of bad habits I also climb recreationally for time to time so that might stand me in good stead? It's funny because there is a lot of "tree surgeons" around that are probably less qualified than I am yet they take on anything they can get! I figured if I study hard and get more tickets I can start taking on bigger jobs and offer quality service to the customer, if I'm not confident about a job I can always say no, I could always spend the day helping the skilled guys get the job done and learn a thing or two

Hi, new to the forum.I've been reading through the topics and posts & i'm Looking forward to benefiting from all of the members combined experience:001_smile: I've come to a bit of a cross roads at the moment with my work. I'm primarily a farmer, this takes up a lot of my time but I started fencing contracting a few years ago to make use of the machinery & my time. I completed my Cs30 & 31 a few years ago and so did my employee and, if asked, I take on the odd small sized tree job but of recently I've been asked to do a lot of work that is beyond my current skill level so I've had to turn it down. I've always had a passion for working with trees and have always wanted to take my qualifications further and gain some academic achievements in the subject (I'm hoping to enrol on the RFS course with HCC, if this advisable??) My question is how far is it possible to progress in the field without being taken under the wing of a larger firm/experienced team?? Will I gain the experience by studying,gaining tickets and gradually taking on bigger jobs?