Thesnarlingbadger

I do agree with you Joe. To an extent. The issue is not that you probably won’t cut yourself and believe me I have never had a near miss next to my leg ever but from an business owners point of view if the accident did happen when you didn’t have chainsaw trousers on it would be a HSE dream. I called a job off tomorrow because I don’t think it’s fair to make the lads where full kit in this heat but have rebooked in a load of trimming on Tuesday so they can wear shorts all day. I’m not having a go I’m just saying from my point of view I’d be panicking all day that there would be an accident and I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Not only that I use my knees all the time to climb trees and they would be pretty battered if I wasn’t wearing chainsaw trousers.

I use a SJ3 and have done for the last couple of years now. Wouldn’t change for anything else. I didn’t really use the ZZ but know a few guys who use them and love them. I went from a VT to a SJ3 and would not have done it if it wasn’t for me getting nightmare tennis elbow pains and thoughts I’d give it a go. My tennis elbow disappeared quite literally over night and I have only had the odd spout of it since when I do a few days of leggy reduction work. If I have a job that really requires a second line then I just put a VT on that and use it as little as possible. But knots do have a place and are still used daily by me when rigging or felling. I absolutely have a boner for a double bowline as a midline knot for pulling trees over. I’ve never had to struggle to undo that knot and am still to this day flabbergasted I haven’t considering I’ve had to put scaff bars on the winch to get so heavy back learners over.

As others have said more information is needed really but if the trees are large and we’re there before the houses the argument the LA has is you brought the house knowing the trees were there. They are not going to allow the trees to be removed without good evidence the roots are causing an issue and a bit of uplifted driveway won’t be enough. You’ll need to get a tree report done which won’t be cheep and might not have the outcome you are hoping for. If light is an issue you could always look at putting in an application to thin and reduce the crowns of the trees but they are not going to allow a fell because your living room isn’t a sun trap unfortunately.

I keep having people get back to me saying they have found creeper quotes at the moment. Thing is I’m pricing relatively low compared to when we are flat out and to be honest if someone can get a £900 job done by someone else for £500 then their not going to think twice. We are busy enough this month and I’m booking in work for August and once September come around we are flat out on the commercial work so I’m just going to enjoy the down time for now I think.

Thank you.

Usually fairly good with my Oak ident but am torn between a few with this one. I’m thinking either Portuguese cork Oak, Mirbeck’s Oak or even Lucombe Oak. Any help would be appreciated I’ve said to my customer I am going to try and find out for her. Cheers Eric

Just seen the price mate. Your better off buying a MEWP.

I think Steve covered this one Ian.

Mind you a good opportunity to get some good staff in and kick out the deadwood I’ve been doing this slowly over time but within the last couple of months I’ve been able to get rid a a few who have been pissing me off for a while. Although I am always going to have issues with some plonkers the majority of the guys I have in at the moment work hard and have the right attitude. When I was flat out a few months back I couldn’t get rid of any of the time wasters as I needed them in because the other time wasters didn’t turn up. I guess use the slow period to your advantage.

This is true but I have a couple of firms who I used to work for who have already said they will take me back for a few days if work is that bad.

£1000 per tree seems mad unless they are 30m tall. I would say if access is good and the trees have good space around then you are looking at £2500 in total but I would need to see a picture of the trees to give a rough estimate.

Had a bit of a nightmare recently. Was a little quite then really busy and last week I have had 2 weeks worth of work cancelled by separate customers mainly due to the cost of living and I hate to say it but our travelling friends. The issue I have found recently is that people are being more careful with their money and if I quote £750+Vat for a days work with 3 of us and some door knocker says they will do it for £500 all in then what chance have the company’s who go by the book got? I am not too stressed because we have commercial work which keeps us busy but I have had to let a couple of the lads go and am just doing 3 or 4 day weeks for the next month. I’m using the spare time to get on top paper work and have been working on a coffee table out of some black walnut I to down 3 years back so have go plenty to do but I do think if work doesn’t pick up soon I might have to jump back on a couple of subbie climbing days with a few old firms I used to work for. Not the end of the world but I’ve done 3 big climbs this week and I’m not sure my body can take it as much as it used to. Spoke to a few other people in the industry I have worked for and it seems it’s the same everywhere at the moment. Fingers crossed it picked up on the plus side the LA’s are getting my applications through pretty quickly at the moment so July is already starting to look good.

A full reduction on a cedar is a bit of a no go imo I would say most work we do in large cedars tends to be end weight reducing lateral branches to reduce risk of failure in storms and snowfall. My advice as said by others would be to get an arborist in to take a look and see what they can do. As the tree is TPO’d it obviously has a high amenity value in which case your local LA would be looking to retain the beauty of the tree and if you take the top out then you will wreck that beauty straight away. If your concern is only that of the branches snapping out and the BT cable then I would say and end weight reduction on the larger lateral branches and a 1m clearance away from the BT cable. The height is neither here nor there as the tree has grown the way it has and dealt with the elements for 70 years already. Trees are bloody strong and hold their own weight 4x over generally unless there are other issues at play. Have you got a photo of the tree by any chance?

I would check the head gasket as the engines are prone to overheating and can split the gasket. I’m sure there are plenty of other issues that someone will come along and mention but I know I’ve heard this was a major issue with the older models.

Shame here mate. All done now typical it all goes down over the 4 day weekend. I’m sure the LA’s will have a mountain of emails tomorrow.

Thanks for letting me know. I’ll try this evening when I get in. 🤞

Thanks mate. I had a couple of minor issues before but not this one. It’s all working fine but when you try to finalise the application it just says can’t do it and contact the help desk. I was just wondering if anyone else had tried sending applications over the weekend and had the same issue.

I’d say it’s likely to be a hydraulic issue. Maybe a solenoid sticking?

Hi people, Just wanted to check if anyone else has had issues submitting applications via the planning portal recently? Ever since they updated the website I’ve had problem after problem and I’ve got 5 applications to put through that I tried doing on Thursday evening first of all and I have put all the applications together and tried sending each one but when it gets to the final submission it just says unable to process and is issue continues contact help desk. It’s a pain in the backside for me as I have a million things going on at the moment and I thought if I can fire off the applications over the bank holiday then that’s one thing off my plate come Monday. The apps are over 3 separate councils, South glos, Bristol and North Somerset but non of them can be sent. I’ve tried on my laptop and phone but no luck. I guess I’ll have to wait till Monday and see if they sort the issue by then but I just wondered if anyone else has had an issue.

Well I have put together my quote, now just have to sort out TM and put together RAMS for every site. The quote came in at just over double and if the LA are not going to agree with the road closures or TM I am hoping for then I’ll wipe my hands with it I have MEPS and chains involved and the stress of it all is not worth it if they are not going to accept my way of doing this safely. As mentioned before we are busy enough with work so I can always accept not winning a bid. But I guess it’s always good to try out and see what comes back. Thanks for all your help. I have always priced for tenders and been close to the mark but this one threw me but every other company I have spoke to said it was way off the mark. Quote will be in on Wednesday at just below £200k let’s just see how that goes. Thanks again for your input and the make advice I got is don’t race to the bottom. [emoji106]

The natural brace being removed would concern me massively. I wouldn’t like to remove the tree either. A 20% crown reduction and a brace might be enough to hold of the problem for a while but it will be a problem at some point in the future and with it being close to buildings I’d be worried.

Ssshh he’ll hear you.

Just been to a garage in Bath today and it was £1.92 a litre on normal diesel and £2.08 a litre on supreme. I went for the cheeped one as I could not face paying over £2 a litre my pickup will just have to suffer.

This is very true, I’ve looked at several of the sites now and really think that they is no way in hell that anyone is going to come in even close the the planned price. The logistics of the work and the hassle involved in the job mean that the only way to actually carry out the work safely is with MEWPs and road closures. If the LA aren’t prepared to close the roads while the work is going on then I’m not taking the job as the risk is way too high and I’m just going to be stressing about the amount of traffic coming through and the time it will eat into the work. I’m starting to pick up with work again and back to my normal amount of enquirers a day now so not too worried if I get it or not. Plus there are some other contracts on the horizon that I would rather go in for. As I mentioned I’ll put in for the tender and see what comes back at least I’ll have a bit of feed back. I’ll be interested to see who gets the work and what price they went in at but doubt I will.

Thanks mate, like I said I’m not to bothered if I don’t get it, part of it is 2/3 days with a crane and not a lot of space for cock ups. So I could do with out the added stress at the moment. With tenders I generally get an invite to go and look at them from the company supplying the tender or from being passed on by other companies/LA’s. I think there are places you can go and sign up but I’m not 100%. In this case we have done work for a sub part of the company previously which is why I got an email or I’m guessing why I got the email. Yeah there has been loads of it recently. We are probably taking 1 or 2 out a week for domestic customers and have blocks of ash fells for the commercial clients at the moment. It’s a bloody shame.