flatyre

a relative asked me to remove some ivy from a dashed wall so I said sure i'll be glad to help. Unfortunately the ivy was killed off about a year ago and is so brittle I can't get more than a few inches off at a time, and the little feet hairs are left behind. Spent about an hour today at it with a screwdriver to wedge the bigger bits off and a wire brush to scrub the rest, at this rte it'll take me a week. Any better techniques out there?

unfortunately only commercial vehicles and 4x4's will be banned from dumping which is what most legitimate businesses drive, and cars with small trailers will be allowed, which is what most of the chancers drive! I doubt the customers will suffer as they'll give the business to the fly tippers once the legitimate operators add the cost of skips to their quotes.

just a few of my own personal opinions, the great second amendment that many Americans hide behind was written in 1791, so a tad out of date considering how society has progressed and updated other policies to suit. Also I believe America is going down the sink, mix America's archaic gun laws, rising race tensions, and Trump, and the further away we can get from America the better. I doubt there is much can be done about the number of guns on America's streets, but maybe harsher discipline for trigger happy cops might help.

Thanks guys, will look into it a bit more!

it would be an impressive compost heap for sure but I already have access to as much free compost as I could ever need. Just found out yesterday the new council director who brought this new rule in used to work for a neighbouring council, he wormed his way up the promotion ladder in record time by dreaming up ways to cut council spending (and services). As soon as he got the top job the first thing he did was introduce monthly bin emptying to save money. As you can imagine there was a major backlash once peoples bins started overflowing after two weeks. Needless to say he was moved asap before he got lynched. So he is now director of my local council and looks like he hasn't learned anything, anyway myself and many other businesses are going to be screwed just so some brown nosed rat can get himself further up the ladder!

Does anyone use magnetic business cards? A guy advised me that in my line of work where it can be months between making contact with a possible customer and them deciding to get the work done, ordinary cards get lost, whereas a magnetic card might stay stuck to the fridge long enough to get the call?

Just curious but if you had limited space could you build a charcoal kiln that fed into a meat smoker? That way you could save on fuel and not annoy the neighbours by running both?

looks great but I've often wondered if non grooved boards are more slippery than the grooved ones over time? also I use 6x4 joists when laying decking as 4x2 can be a bit springy, are the joists sitting on gravel?

grass cuttings, brambles, hedge trimmings etc.

over here you needed a waste carriers license issued by the environment agency (NIEA) to dump at the council recycling centres, which I always thought strange as the NIEA were a separate government body to the council. An NIEA waste carrier license only covered you for transporting waste from the job to the recycling centre, but the only time anyone was asked for their waste carrier license was at the dump by the council (no license no dumping). It was brought in to counteract fly tipping, Pay £140 and you don't need to look over your shoulder which was a fair deal. Fly tipping practically disappeared overnight. Now this new rule has been brought in all cloak and dagger, even the recycling centre managers didn't know about it, and now your expected to buy a waste carrier license but you can't dump, which was the only reason to buy one. Everyone I have spoken to says its total s**te as we were told its to help the environment as there will be less land fill, funny as we were told all green waste is recycled? Not only that but we've been told to hire skips for our green waste, where do the skips go? into landfill only now they won't be graded, separated etc so it will be worse for the environment. Also given that its hard enough to land jobs when the cash in hand benefit sponging tax avoiding competition can do the jobs for half the price, add to that the cost of a skip and I might as well sell the van and get a job stacking shelves in Tesco! And all this because the council privatised the refurbishing of housing executive houses, and the private firms dumped all the crap in the recycling centres which created the landfill problem, government cockup to save money and now the private sector pays for it!

Thank God their generation fought it not ours! The outcome would have been very different.

Just found out yesterday that here in Northern Ireland the Executive have introduced a ban on all commercial dumping at all recycling centres as of 22nd of August. WTF! I've heard parts of England already have this in place? How badly has it affected you?

There will be two of us, the other guy has a lot more experience than me, I explained the job and he said get a Tirfor winch, but i'll pass on your advice and see what he thinks. much appreciated.

unfortunately i'm in Northern Ireland, that 3,000 kg block from the ratchet shop looks good!

Been asked by a customer to remove 15ft high trunk which is leaning against an old piggery. The neighbour is looking an excuse to get the customer to pay for a new roof as the old one is asbestos so it can't be damaged. I can't find any Tirfor winches in the local hire stores and can't justify buying one as it'll probably never be used again, any ideas how to get some strain on a 15ftx3ft Monteray Pine monolith?

work has been building up steadily and my itch to get a 4x4 crew cab is getting worse. I think I've sold the idea to the missus, enough seats for us and the two little ones, get a canopy and the shopping can go in the back, good visibility etc. It doesn't actually need to be practical as we'll still have the estate, budget is tight though, so i'm thinking of an older motor like a mk1 ranger/b2500 or an early L200 that I can build an arb truck/promo vehicle to fart around in, suspension jack, external roll cage, etc. Basically I just want a pickup but would like one that actually does what it says on the tin, and have seen a few early Navaros inside my budget but have heard they aren't the best crew cab on the market, in fact a couple of people I know have had real bad luck with them, anyone have experience of using a crew cab pickup as a work vehicle and occasional family wagon?

I was once told that inset stoves are much less economical as there is only one face delivering the heat, what size is the room and will the stove be plumbed into the heating system?

Can't get Aspen round here so I use BT ultimate and Echo oil, a local dealer told me its half the price of the Stihl red I was using, but just as good, he also advised to use oil with the JASO cert? Been doing that for a couple of years now, same mix for my saws, strimmers, hedge cutters, con saw, hell even the four stroke mowers get it if I run out of straight petrol, have had no mechanical failures so far.

that's what I call a water tight investment!

thanks for the advice guys, yeah I went out and cleaned the mess up myself as there was no chance of the council doing it.

Never spoke to the neighbour, they're quite elderly and I have never seen them leave the house. Two years in a row when the hedge started to look rough, I dropped a business card and note through the letterbox offering my services as a neighbour, only to see the cowboys in a few days later, must have prompted her to give them a call. Problem here in the North Down area of Northern Ireland is this, back when the old RUC were disbanded and replaced by the PSNI as part of the Good Friday Agreement, thousands of police officers found themselves out of work but with big redundancy packages. So half of them set themselves up as gardeners or more accurately grass & hedge cutters as most prefer not to get their hands dirty. I know a few and they're easy to spot, flashy big 4x4, new ifor Williams trailer and a top spec ride on, clean shaven and polished boots etc, some are good guys that do a good job to be honest, but some are gangsters, this guy looked like the latter. Unfortunately the public think they must be honest and by the book as they used to be a police officer, would be hard to convince the hedge owner or the local council to have a word.

For the past three years a neighbour has brought the same cowboys in to cut her hedge, and every year they butcher it and leave half the cuttings strewn all over the road. When I have the trailer on loaded with my own cuttings I can't get up my lane so leave it down on the main road right where these cowboys have left their cuttings. So people will probably thing I made the mess, should I report them to the local council, not because they're competition, but because they're doing a crap job and leaving other people to clean up the mess?

great looking timber, have to think what to do with it!

Looking for a cheap saw to do a bit of hobby milling and there seem to be a few 051's about. A guy has one on the local gumtree for £250 which I think is a bit steep, also I know him and he buys and sells any old guff he can get his hands on, which is usually scrap. There is one on the bay which needs a bit of work but is running well. Would 89cc be big enough to do a bit of milling and what bar would suit? thanks

thanks for the info guys, took your advice spud and just cleaned everything up with fine emery, put it back together and its running ok but advised the owner to get a service pack, use decent petrol/oil and keep an eye on his mix.