Steven P

Perforate one end so it opens and makes a 'grab box' and that would be good (like a box of crisp pacets). Less mess and tidier looking (he says while looking at his wood stove that needs a clean, a hearth that defenitely needs a clean and the carpet in front of it all covered in splinters)

I've no real problem with this in principle - of the council guys are sitting about drinking tee waiting for a council job to do then why not contract them out and get their wages paid for a bit? So long as..... They charge the market rate for the work They get asked to quote via the usual means rather than using inside information that only the council have access too They operate at the same or better standards than their competition biut if they can compete failry and put some cash back in no problem. But I fear that the compete fairly might be a problem

problem with a cowboy, ask them to take a tree down in the back garden and thats what they will do - it might not be pretty, they might not have all the tickets and insurances, and so on, cheap job, move on... and a lot of people won't know the difference. Thats how the cowboy thrives - a loy of ignorance from the customer.

I'd also be tempted to bung a few in a pot of compost and see how they get on (thinking thst perhaps the cone has been through winter now and the seeds will be ready to grow)

Seeing the cake stands - I have made a couple of bird tables very similar to the 2 tier ones.. the birds are quite happy with them. I did a few discs for a wedding last year, 3" diameter silver birch for coasters (also did similar in other wood for the kids to throw about) - they were OK and didn't split Did a few larger 12"= 16" discs for table centres and cakes, and put teak oil onto them and they turned out OK too. Can't remember what wood they were though, just a random piece from my firewood pile. They didn't split but thats my point, 2 ways to stop wood splitting as far as I can tell - stop them building up internal tension as they dry (so perhaps take out the centers etc) or stop them drying or replace the water as they do dry - oiling them or varnishing (Oh.10W40 didn't give a good result)

I've been following this but ddin't get to post a coment yesterday - a great thread to read. So if I bought firewood and it didn't meet what I wanted I would go elsewhere the next time. I guess after 20 years you run out of elsewhere to go to locally When it comes to price and volume I compare it to a sack of coal (which is controlled by weights and measures, 50kg minimum) - will the wood give me the same or more heat as coal if I paid the same? If its better value and even if it didn't meet what I was told it would be then I would go back again. End of the day all I want to do is make my in house warm enough to sit about in my shorts in December I have had my stove for 4 years and no propblem splitting wood - but again will I want to still be doing the same in 20 years time?

Yes, its an LV cable, chances are they won't take the tree down for you since its not affecting the cable. For my own interest, how do you go for liability if your tree damages a utility - poewr or telephone cables? Do they take the hit or do they claim on the tree owner (thinking tree falling on them etc)

Couple of comments, I reckon if you thought it was an immediate danger then it is your duty to make it safe, whether this is to quickly remove dangerous parts, or to call the authorities / police / fire to do the same I guess thats your call. if someone else was removing a dangerous tree - and I guess you might want to hang around until they get there to watn others, then a quiet word should get you some fire wood. Otherwise the tree is someones but.... (thinking here if you were working site safety would require you to make anything dangerous safe if you could, just because we arn't working doesn't mean we should be any less aware of danger and making things safe) My road is quiet, few hoiuses, farm, and so on and I reckon if a tree came down on it I'd have a go at clearing it and probably use the wood but it all depe3nds on the situation

Can I admit to being a gobliin? Not that snobby, if I can split it then it can sit in the drive for a year and get burnt on the stove. No problem with willow except it never splits easy, pine is great, the axe goes through it no problem. I just have to load the fire up more often with softwood but thats no hardship, coal if we are going out for more than an hour helps too. For its worth, collecting the wood a corsa load at a time, then sweeping it out to put the boys seats back in, cutting and splitting the wood, stacking it, moving it into the garage for the winter, restacking it after the boys have climbed on it and spread it around the place, its not worth it purely from the time spent looking after it - would be cheaper to buy it ready split and dry if I charged myself for my time. I did see an ad on gumtree - a tree surgeon who will drop off a load at the end of the day for £50 which I thoguht was a decent price (drive was too full over winter to take him up on the offer yet). The wood would be as it comes of course. That could be a solution to a stockpile of slowly rotting wood, once its loaded up at the end of a job drop it off at a goblins house. Saves you handling it twice and storing it, and gets you some beer tokens. Saves their hatchbacks suspension.

if your spending some ££ how about a bit more and a solar powered fan to create airflow inside?.. its something I am considering for my logs when I get the spare cash for another toy. It should blow air through the logs most days

Going back a couple of days - fully agree with modern mass market designs, I think they are designed by tick box. en-suite master bathroom, tick, detached tick (even if you can touch the next door house from your own), no storage space tick, panted magnolia, tick.. yup inspirtational places to live. All you need is a rep mobile car and you would be shopping for a rope pretty quick. The norwegian wooden clad houses work - I've had few weekends in the Norwegian Artic, all wood clad houses, all have a decent wood supply, and the wood is all aged (ie you can see it hasn't been replaced for a few years) - and their climate has more extreme trmperatures than ours but I guess not as damp as Edinburgh - or Glasgow for me

If he had been drinking the day before, and was suddenly 'sick' on the monday, would you really want him in working if he was still, say over the drink drive limit? Sometimes it is better not to know the whole truth, "Sick" sounds better than "Still drunk and a danger to everyone around me if I touch any tools or drive" If it was a one off then no problem, we are all ill every now and then. However if you thik illness is a regular occurance then have a friendly chat "I've noticed you have been ill a lot in the last year, is there anything I should know about or do differently to help you while you are in work". Could be that he is too sick to be out on site with you (say an occasional bad back) but could be happy say, doing some paperwork for you for a day. You never know till you talk to them In my work (office based) if you are ill for moe than a day we get a return to work interview (partly to see if there is anything they can do to stop you beinf ill in the future and partly to check out the story), and on the first morning we have to phone in and talk to the boss. I guess he records it on the system when we are ill. As for texting that you are ill.... probably not the best. Supposein a couple of weeks you could have a chat with everyone and remind them off the sickness process they need to go through (so a phone call in the morning each day they are off, that sick days have to be recorded, and to let yuo know if there is any issues with the actual work)

That doesn't sound quite right to me! Our house, 7mx7m upstairs and downstairs, so about 100m2 or there abouts not too far off 127m2 really, though semi-detached. I have only used our 5kw stove for the last 18 months now, in fact even taken away one of the storage heaters (...put it into storage just in case), and we keep our house at a cooler consistent 19deg C with that. I use about 1 sack of coal / coke a week (Mrs Steven P forgets its a wood fire and needs feeding more often than the boys did when they were babies, with coal she has more chances to remember fuel). So far I think I have used 3 or 4m3 of mixed wood this year. Thats with the fire on most of the day. Hot water is electric immersion heater and we use about 14kwh a day electricity (water, washing, cooking and the ****** tumble drier), no gas, oil, or whatever else. Using a 28kw stove plus a load of oil for heating and hot water sounds a lot to me to be honest! (plus electric I assume for the laundry, cooking etc?) To give an answer, I reckon that my 5kw stove puts out a lot more than 5kW when needed, it is marketed as a 'nominal' 5kW. When its ticking along nicely like just now, 5kW sounds about right (2 1/2 electric fan heaters, yes, about that). One day I am gong to turn off the fire and go to electric for a week or so and just add up how many kWH it takes to heart the house. As for insultion, I remember an advert on the radio saying the free insulation can be given out even if you are a tenant and not the owner. Worth keeping an eye on that - even if the wood is free, better insulation means its warmer in the morning before the fire gets going and fewer trips to load up the stove (and so fewer trips to the log store in the rain...) As for the stove if you replace it, think about one with a boiler as well, if the fuel is free why buy oil for hot water?

I'd also be tempted to suggest a tripod mounted 12V LED task light (if you can find one or the parts to make one up). 12V so you can use a spare car battery for power Tripod mounted in case there is no handy tree you can hang it off Task light lights up a larger area than a head torch

I suppose I should ask the obvious, what are you going to use the head torch for? Do you need to light up where you are walking or need more light than that How long do you want to use it for between charges / battery changes and so on? Loads of torches out there, most are LEDs but the prices, qualities and styles vary so much, it wou;d ne mice if you can give us more what yuo are going to use it for

I'm not an expert but a quick internet search suggests that silver bircj have shallow roots. So looking at the picture where the tree is on a raised garden above the level of the house, Iwould guess that there would be few roots affecting the house itself. So I wouldn't worry too much - do with it what you want,

Pity your not nearer to me, if you are going to throw it out or burn it anyway I could make use of it keeping my house warm - saftwood wokrs as well as hardwood apart from the need to throw logs on the fire more often

Reading this, I feel quite blessed, 3 years with my wood burner and piles of logs in the drive / in the garage and no wasps yet. I did get a wood wasp one autumn aftrnoon - huge but aparently harmless. but no real wasps. Does location affect them, I am just outside Glasgow

Reading this, I can see how it would be attractive, but got to be worthwhile. A mobile kiln, how much would it cost to transport (including loading x 2 and unloading x 2) a container? £2 a mile? 50 mile journey will cost 50 x 2 x £2, about £200. Then add on wages and fuel if you were to operate the kiln for the customer, and their costs / wages to process the wood before and after, then any profits either of you want to make. In my mind this is a good idea but looks quite expensive for smaller amounts. You could hire the mobile kiln out for say, a week, equipment hire type of thing if the customer has a good stock of wood to dry I guess - they poewr it and operate it. If they bring the wood to you, if you got them to load a cage with wood you could consolidate several customers wood into one drying session, split the xost and get them to load / unload a cage to put into the kiln and that could work - could be good for domestic use who might have small supplies of wood to dry. That could work and be the cheaper option.

If I can find the photo tonight I'll post it, I came to use the 'beehive' stack by mistake for my domestic wood stacked on my drive. If you leave a 2' x 3' or 4' high gap in the outside wall.. and dont fill the inside, the boys turn this into a playhouse! I supported the roof with palet wood / logs that need chopping Then of course on the inside a couple of logs chopped to be chairs and a table. This year I started getting clever and made a 2 room log house / stack. The Boys now want an upstairs so I need to think for next year. Anyway - done this, it drys the wood pretty well. The wind and rain usually come from 1 direction so the opposite wall is kept dry, the sloping roof sheds some of the water, the summer heat creates its own draft and it being a 'toy' it is acceptable for the garden (OK it was also one of my less mad ideas which might have made it more acceptable too) Can't take a new photo today - 1/4 of it is in the garage now, and the rest is keeping my toes warm as I type.

There is nothing worse than finding a maggot in the apple you are eating... except finding half a maggot in the apple. And for what its worth - nice apple tree I would like that in my garden, the boys would love playing round that

A quick update -I got the engine running this morning. I think it was the carb, had that off and cleaned up, had the diaphragm cover off to check that moved OK, and set the high, low and idle screws to 1 1/2 turns from being fully closed. Somethin I should have done when I got it. Thanks again for the advice

Not made a schoolboy error yet and forgot to change choke - the trimmer only fires once - usually it would fire a few times before I would want to do that, thanks for the suggestion. Back to the flywheel - I'll have a look at that, thanks. I didn' get chance to look at it today. It needs a bit more dismantelling to get at that but will give it a go. Just a bit sceptiocal - I know its an older model but it can't really have had a tough life so I am dubious if parts could ahve sheered -but gues since you menti0on it it must happen fairly often.

Just a quick update... So tonight I had the exhaust assemble off and looked in the cylinder - all looks good, smooth, and as it should be (while I was in there the exhaust got a good clean too). So I guess the piston and cylinder is OK. Turning the engine over and the piston moves smoothly and no sticking poiints. All good there. Took the starter assembly off and some of the housing to see the flywheel - again all looked good, looks to turn as it should, no wobbles etc Also took the air intake housing off to clean lots of tree out from behind it So put a bit of fuel in the direct cylinder (saw than on another site), with the exhaust and air intake cover (and filters) off, a few pulls and it coughed - which I didn't expect. Tried again, skinned my finger (see my next post, first aid for daft sods playing with hdgetrimmers), few pulls and a cough. Did the same by pouring fuel direct in through the carb. again, a few pulls then a single cough So thats where I got to... I guess it is sparking under compression (at least some of the time) and there is some compression there some of the time. Coughing - it took a few pulls and didn;t do it every time So any other clues? I am thinking that the fuel line might need some attention but not sure what else to look for still thanks again for any advice

Thanks Stubby, So tonight I'll have a look at the piston / cylinder - that looks easy to check for scoring, half a dozen bolts. Can check to see if the rest looks in tact as well while I have the spanners out again Flywheel - I'll assume for now that the flywheel gap to the coil hasn't altered and should be correct? So - and this is where I have to admit my lack of knowledge - checking the spark while the plug is in the cylinder - I guess there would be a meter to do that and I guess that you cannot do it with a bog stadard multimeter - is there a DIY way of doing this? (lets assume that I have just been watching the fireworks and the shops are closed now to buy new gadgets) Similarly - and again a lack of knowledge, is there a DIY way to check compression? Thanks - got some more things to look at tonight