krummholz

@Marmaduke and did you get one? What's the verdict?

Erm actually UKCA, which was to replace the CE mark, was dropped in August. The UK will use and recognise the CE mark indefinitely, and anything with the UKCA mark will obvs still be fine. Another pointless act of economic self-debasement. @matt padden your harness will need to have a CE or UKCA mark to get LOLERed /assets/static/govuk-opengraph-image-dade2dad5775023b0568381c4c074b86318194edb36d3d68df721eea7deeac4b.png Using the UKCA marking - GOV.UK WWW.GOV.UK Find out if you need to use the UKCA (UK Conformity Assessed) marking on products you... UK to retain EU safety mark in latest Brexit climbdown | Brexit | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Government bows to pressure from industry over costs of switching over to British marking

The Level 4 is a great thing to do, giving you a broad and in depth understanding of loads of aspects of Arboriculture, but I'd agree with previous posters and say that early on a Level 2 is a better place to start - you'll probably also find that many places require a Level 2 as a pre-requisite for the L4, in lieu of industry experience and professional tickets. The Level 4 is also a pretty big outlay in terms of time and cash too, and you might be better off investing elsewhere in your training to begin with. A lot of people start off surveying with the Professional Tree Inspection qualification, but again I think there are a few pre-requisites for doing it you might not meet yet. There are Basic Tree Inspection courses you could look into if you were really keen. My advice would be do all the reading you can and stay on the tools for a bit - you'll learn a lot applying what you read to the trees you're working on, especially if you find some decent arborists to work with. If you're really keen on surveying reach out to some local consultants/surveyors and ask if they need a hand on bigger jobs. You might be doing grunt work like banging tags in and plotting trees on a map, but with the right people you'll learn a lot working along side them. And the TMA fungi app is great for getting started on your fungi ID. I'm intrigued as to how you'd combine the ML with tree work but I can see there's lots of crossover in terms of leadership skills, planning, rescue, first aid. Where abouts are you based?

If its the original thimble from the pulley saver I think it's 7mm (ocean dyneema rather than ocean polyester). Weird that that part of the pulley saver failed a LOLER inspection as its just used for retrieval and shouldn't be particularly high wear. Did you nick it with a saw?

That's not quite true - you need 2 seperate load bearing (fall prevention) systems at all times, with a work positioning system as and when you need them. You can go down to 1 load bearing system for specific, short duration tasks such as changeovers. @hedge mong if you're worried about compliance with current legislation and best practice then have a read through the ICOP/Technical Guide 1 and/or book some refresher training. In terms of rope specs any climbing rope sold by a reputable arb shop should meet all the requirements, and yes you can definitely still climb on a blakes hitch! And yes, in reality it seems like few people are bothering to comply, which is fine until someone decks it and the insurance doesn't pay out and the HSE get involved.

How big are the bits you're lifting? And how are you lifting them? If the groundie is lifting them by hand then a pinto rig is likely to be fine. You could also look at the isc rigging wrench or harken snatchet, they have internal ratchets that allow you to lift efficiently one way and then give you a bit of friction to lower in the other. Either one of those would give you a bit of futureproofing, but you'll always find a use for a pinto rig in the future too. I'd buy the kit you need for the job at hand. You'll end up using it again. Buy a big block as and when you need it.

Fair comment, I just felt a need to defend both AR and practice. The thread was being kicked into the long grass by people who were taking things off topic.

There we go! Some facts at last. And what a journey we've been on to get here. I'm guessing you don't do NPTC assessing for tree climbing and aerial rescue any more then either. I will at some point be asking the AA about all this (kind of why I hoped that people would be sharing their experiences and solutions for compliance), and a few other oddities and contradictions in the TG1. The AA technicians don't seem super active on here though, and I don't have to wonder why.

(Assuming you meant to say "mandatory Aerial Rescue Practice") No I never. I didn't say that I do and I didn't say that I don't. Again, I asked a question about how other folk were doing it and how they were finding compliance with the requirement as laid out in TG1.

I'm not "bigging up" aerial rescue practice as mandatory, it IS mandatory according to the TG1. I've never claimed I'm doing it. Look back at my opening post, my original questions were around whether or not people were doing it, how they were structuring it, and their experiences of it. As I stated, I am glad that there's now a requirement to practice it because I've thought that it's sorely lacking in UK arb. So you've risked assessed out all aerial rescues - good luck with that, I won't be queuing up to get the chance to work with you. No - you have disagreed with me and many others already, that's fine. It's just that your obtuseness is swamping other stuff that folk might have to say. Plus as the OP I feel obligated to engage with posters and I've got other stuff to get on with. I think you're wrong, you think I'm wrong, and I'm totally fine with that. I just don't really understand why you need to convince folk that aerial rescue itself is useless. Maybe you could just start another thread where we can discuss the merits and demerits of Aerial Rescue itself?

This is a public forum where people who work with trees (and some who don't) come together to exchange opinions and experiences. It's not a tribunal, no one is submitting evidence to you and you're not entitled to see anyone's "data" (though if you show me yours I'll show you mine). By now though we've established that you're such a boss climber with loads of experience who's never had to do an aerial rescue, or even ever heard of one happening, and you only work with super competent and similarly experienced people, so you definitely never need to practice AR. Can you leave the folk who do want to discuss it to get on with it and stop drowning the thread in your piffle?

Exactly! Something to think about when everyone's recovered.

I just wondered where your keen interest in TG1 came from, your profile suggested that you're based in France.

@5thelement Do you live and/or work in the UK?

Surely we all know that depending on the Class and type of chainsaw trousers, and the size of chainsaw being used, that chainsaw ppe doesn't remove the risk of injury, only mitigates it. And maybe they weren't wearing PPE. They still needed an aerial rescue, they got one from a prepared and competent rescue climber, and it probably saved their life.

I'll leave it as long as I like thanks. This isn't a comprehensive survey of compliance with the WAHR and the ICoP/best practice in UK arb - I asked a question in the hope that folk would have useful and interesting things to say.

Would you support (better) regulation then?

Calm down dearest, the threads only been open for 5 days. Some people don't check Arbtalk for weeks at a time. You'd be daft to draw the conclusions you're making from a handful of replies here.

Aerial rescue practice isn't dangerous, or at least shouldn't be. It's risky. And those risks can be mitigated. It's not an unimportant consideration but the benefits of practicing it justify doing it. I'd be interested to see the incident report or anything you have about the fatality during training if you could find it?

That doesn't address my point. And while I disagree with you, you're right one on thing, this is tediously boring. I'll do it the way I want it. I only asked a specific question about aerial rescue practice, and wasn't expecting to be derailed into defending aerial rescue itself. But this is Arbtalk after all!

As @dangb93 said earlier, the ideal would be to have at least 2 people on site capable of doing the work, both for rescue and for a general high level of competence and efficiency in planning and executing the job at hand. The climber/groundy dichotomy is a bad one - yes there are loads of folk who are great on the ground and don't climb, but I disagree that just because you're a competent climber you should be up climbing every day. If you're an Arborist you should have a broad skill level and high level of competence across all aspects of the work. This weekend thousands of people will break speed limits and not wear seat belts, and (proportionally) mostly without incident. Doesn't mean they should be doing it or that it's OK to, or that if something goes wrong that the consequences won't be significant.

And wouldn't a stepping stone towards this be regular aerial rescue practices? Maybe at least every 6 months or less? Wouldn't that be a way in which someone who's just passed their Tree Climbing and Rescue ticket 3 or 6 or 12 months ago to have more time in the tree, and an aid to progression?

But a rescue attempt should improve the chances of survival and recovery, like any first aid received! I agree that if a rescue needs to be undertaken after a catastrophic injury then the liklihood of survival is very low, but it will never be zero. It will be zero if no rescue is attempted or even available! And a trained and ready rescuer will get the casualty down quicker than one that us under trained and under prepared. I genuinely don't get this "oh I've cut myself badly and for whatever reason I can't self rescue, guess I'll just die then" fatalism, as though there were literally no other options or nothing to work towards - there is, and it's right there in Section 16.2 of TG1. Yes you need good rope work from the groundies, but why are the 2 mutually exclusive? Surely you'd want both?

Neither of which will be a problem any more when you've bled out after an accident chogging down Mrs Magoos leylandii for Cut'n'Run for £150/day. I'm genuinely surprised by the derailment of a thread asking about practicing aerial rescue. I thought it would be uncontroversial. Has the industry always been a race to the bottom?