Steven P

Zero hours contracts get bad press, but assuming that some weeks there is work, some none then giving him a contracted number of hours -could- be problems in the future even if they total hours works evens out. Suppose he is short of money one week, no work, you get the phone call "but the contract says you'll pay me for 10 hours work regardless".. However for every horror story out there most firms employ people, the cities are full of office blocks with employees in them, so it must work out well. All I'd perhaps say is be prepared to say no to requests unless you are being unreasonable (so an occasional early dart to pick the kids up is OK, but if it is every day at 2:30 and "I've got to go get the kids" then you need to set boundaries). Remember with employment however much you like them with the business you have to treat them as employees for a lot of stuff, keep a distance and stick to the routines.

Most free wood can be burnt in a wood burner, if you are offering an incentive to the local tree surgeons, then that wood will definitely burn (If I give away some home baking, beers or notes for logs then I am pretty sure I will make it burn!!) Another top tip is to walk about - fresh air is good - and as you do listen for 2 stroke engines - that might be a chain saw at work and the waste needing to go somewhere (though often can be a hedge trimmer or a strimmer), and give the local tree surgeons a call, they arn't all on here, and see how that goes too

Never heard of it but google helps!! So, no but they look nice in blossom, so why not? Only comment about fast growing trees - hardwoods or softwoods - is that a greater volume doesn't necessarily mean more fuel (think willow vs. oak),

Won't help identifying the tree but from the angles of the photos, does the tree belong to the client / customer or their neighbour? Just curious.

For future, it might be better to ask if people who know him to ask him to contact you - I wouldn't pass on anothers contact details to someone I don't know - while 90% have good reasons to get back in touch, some do not and I would give the searched for the option whether to be in touch or not

When I was in school the teachers pushed us all to university (looks good for the school if large percentages go to further education), so that's where I went. If I had been a fireman for example, straight from school, or the police, I'd be retired now with a pension, but that's another thing. I was on holiday last week (UK caravan park), and on changeover day at 10:00 a bus load if immigrants (and it was a bus load) walked through the site with their cleaning trolleys - still earning the same minimum wage that a local would earn with the added hassles for the holiday park to check all their employment status and bus them in - locals wouldn't need that (by the way, the place was spotless, cleaners did well). The press was reporting last year that farms cannot get labourers (If I remember rightly, once daffodil picking with bonus on a piece rate paid better than a lawyer). Point is 'the system' will push as many kids to further education as they can, whether it is the best thing or not, and the manual jobs are looked down on by many with a degree. Once you get into the work system making a career jump is harder. Finances - when I did the sums, and a £45k student debt (for England), 5 years of 'economic inactivity' while you do exams and a degree then start at the bottom of the ladder, compared to a 5 year apprenticeship or training, no debt and earning, you kind of even out in your mid to late 30s who is better off - university graduates tend to get ahead a bit later in life... if the apprenticeship route stays as an employee - go it alone and they will be financially better off till nearer retirement. Same in all industries.

and here is another..... my stove puts out heat into the living room and also via the upstarts chimney breast - but that secondary heating upstairs only kicks in when the stove has been running for a while and the brickwork heats up. So if you are only using your stove for a couple of hours a day your brickwork isn't going to get noticeably warm. Yup, go through the stove and check off where it might need maintenance - they are full of consumables and parts to maintain - sweep the flue (once or twice a year), fire bricks (vermiculite, fire clay or a cast refractory), register plate, door seals, glass seals, (and glass), clean the air ways and so on, even as far as dislodging crows nesting in the chimney. Assuming the stove has been well installed, chimney the right height, air space around the stove (else the hearth gets hot but the heat can't get out), and a stove fan can help too. Fuel is important in the mix - go soft woods and spend time just feeding the stove and see how hot you can get it (some hard woods burn less fiercely but sit burning for hours, a good softwood will vanish but put out a short load of heat), big lumps of wood burn slower than kindling, but guess you know all this. If I was struggling (and when I do) an good clean is the first option though, solves most things

Ash isn't hard work to split, Willow it more work

To soon in the year to have leaves to help identify the tree. A pile of wood like that could be lots of thing - recently had an Alder but looking at some of smaller branches you'd think it was ash at a first glance. How heavy are the larger pieces? Willow will be lighter than ash for example, and have you got a close up of the ends - growth rings closer together or further apart (Willows tend to grow quick, ash slower).

If local to me is any guide, double fronted garage, double width drive and a nod that the bus stop is 1/4 mile away with 4 buses an hour, but no re-routed bus service even when there are 100+ new houses. Oh, and the local jobs are not in town either, but Glasgow so each of these cars will be making a 15+ mile round trip 5 days a week.

Kind of goes with what I do with my apples, take away any thing that is obviously dead or looking 'off' (diseased), take them back to where they originate from, then look at any branches that are crossing each other and touching - get rid of which ones you think you should and then keep the inside open so that it is more of a goblet - open in the inside - rather than a mass of branches, Apples ripen with sunlight, so need to let them get access to that. After that if you want a shape go for it. The cooker in the back I have let let go a bit - trimmed back the branches part way and late last year purely so I could get past with the mewer,., and the branches low down went mad., The ones I did in the spring - the high up ones and trimmed back more carefully have done as they should. Apples are fairly robust (most fruit trees are), get it wrong and it just takes time for them to recover and then to fix what you need to - examples here are My Boys tree was snapped off at ground level, last spring sprouted again, and next doors pears were butchered 6 years ago but are slowly coming back again now, Dad used to cut his cherry tree down every 10 years, grew back again OK

(reminds me, clear crayon, draw on the walls before I sell and move "LEAVE", that should make the next few coats of paint interesting.)

to me it looks like the discolouration is even all the way down - suggests that is isn't 'leaking' through the cladding but something is dripping off the top and running down the wall. If it was leaking through you might see the marks on the edge of the chimney too, and perhaps a definite start to the colouration part way up. Does the top of the chimney slope that way for drainage? Cleaning it off? Paint over the top. Prevention - depends what you find out is the cause What is your liner by the way? Is it single skinned or insuated?

Tricky - regardless if this is a tree question or not, Your customer has employed you to do a job - which you did well and professionally. Neighbour of customer wants to submit a claim on the customer - whose insurance will (probably) cover this And the neighbour wants your opinion. Gut feeling is a conflict of interests here! What would your customer say if you asked them by the way? Might be better to state facts rather than offer an opinion "The tree failed here and here, fell here, broke this" As for who pays the bill, would it matter if the customers granny paid the bill with regards to who your contract is with?

I've not heard that one for many years!! And the bloke who told me used the unedited version (he was proper respectable too, a local business owner, family man and all)

So, you are going to cut the logs to firewood length eventually, and split to the right thickness where necessary eventually. If you are not doing that now you want to add another process and couple of minutes each taking some bark off. Have fun. I can see the point if the log is going to be used for something else, made into something, but to be put on a fire? Me, I would use the time chopping them to length / double length (double length is easier to stack), the cut end (x2, once for each end) surface area is going to be larger than running a saw down it or a blade or whatever, and am sure it won't take that much longer. For drying we need a large surface area of wood (not bark). If you can split them as soon as you can too that doubles (?) the surface area. And do it as soon as you can too - do it in October and you have missed a whole drying season (willow takes 1 to 2 years to season, to dry), get it stacked now in a 'wind tunnel' location with sun you might be able to use it next (2023 - 2024) winter (example, my drive is a good wind tunnel - house either side the wind is tunnelled along the wood stack, err drive)

am surprised they struggled getting out even when partially blocked in - thought they would be experts at towing stuff

Are the guys who are working in the area local to you or are they travelling in from a distance, reason being a local firm are more likely to have long established routes for their 'waste', they might not even look for a tip site in the area - just use what they know. If the firms are outside the area then they I think are more likely to want a local tip site rather than drive a tipper full of waste, a couple of journeys or more longer distances. If you can give one of them a shout next time you pass, that can give surprising results.. chainsaws are hard to hide (till they all go battery). an early lunchtime walk does me quite well sometimes I know where I would be going however if I was working in the south west!!

Yuo, can burn all sorts in the garden, green wood straight off a tree, smouldering leaves for hours, the only come back from that is the neighbours. Put a log at 21% moisture content on an inside log burner and it is off to the gallows with you. I'm not a statistician but I bet you need to look at a lot of variables to get an answer for lung problems and their causes, and I bet that there is no single cause either. I don't think the scale of the media interest is in proportion to the problems caused by wood burners

I'd go with the the 'bund' idea, don't let yourself get in a situation where an oil spill will cause a problem If only you had access to something like sawdust to clean up the majority of a spill.... scrubbed into the remaining oil, brushed up and then clean up as above

Back to the original post, not CO related, probably, but how much fire do you usually have if it is tricky to keep going? Is it 1 or 2 logs, or a firebox full?

However should still be enough of a draw up the chimney even if it needs a sweep, to take the fumes away unless the fire has been slumbering for a long time and it's colds. Might ask then when did the CO alarm go off, right at light up, part way through your expected fires life of as the embers were dying away

Depends on the question, Carbon Monoxide, CO, is lighter than oxygen (see above), Carbon Dioxide CO2, heavier than oxygen (see above)

I find a mix works well - coal for a while then wood for a while (not usually a mix fuelled simultaneously though) - the wood ash will burn through to nothing but kind of 'aerates' the coal ash as it does letting it burn more fully or fall into the ash pan better (dual purpose grids are not so great for coal - gaps are too small meaning the coal ash hangs about above the grate too much) - in my stove anyway

how old is the alarm? They reckon they need changing every 10 years because the sensors can go, just to add another thing to think about.