Steven P

however compared to some batteries, £25 is cheap enough to buy a few over time, might get to 20 minutes use worth? I reckon the saw itself will be on ebay cheap enough to get extra new batteries and a charger?

That's what I have tended to do really, used boxes from the groceries - but this plan was to do something different than that

Many ways to sharpen a chain, and everyone has a preference based on their set up. Some will have the workshop set up, electric grinders, some a vice in the workshop or one to hammer into a stump. Not seen the spare bar one yet though, that is new to me. My preference - for occasional domestic use - will be in the living room watching QI on Dave when the family are in bed, with the saw on my knee - never going to be the sharpest but it does what I need. My work bench is full of other little projects at the moment, trickier to do it in there, but one day, first I just need to finish this and that to make space. As far as I can tell though clamping the bar in a vice, if you want you can use the saws chain lock, but hold the chain with your other hand and all is good like that

I'd go with Openspaceman, if you are cooling the flue with a forced air system rather than natural ventilation you will have to consider whether this will cool the flue too much, the gasses condense and you'll get creosote in the chimney above what is normal. You might not know if you do until you put in a fan and the sweep tells you it is, get the chimney swept more often (once more each year?). As for blowing air around the flue... we all have stove top fans which is pretty much the same thing, though these start when the stove top is up to temperature. Might be you reconfigure one of these to provide the air supply, it starts when it is warm, might not cool it too much.

I can never manage to get it in the fire without some spillage!! (which is what I was wanting to do). (as an update, my experiments have paused at the moment for sawdust burning, last one was a stack of 3 bean tins for The Boys to play with, lower one has air vents at the base, drop twigs in the top, it burns OK for them but has no use otherwise - too top heavy to put a mug on, too small to heat any real area, but for the boys playing it does OK.))

Its iron or steel, they rust. This rust will be just a light surface rust and nothing to worry about. If you get some stove or grate polish that should cure it - it stinks as it dries with the stove on, and you might want to wear disposable gloves too and a disposable cloth else you polish your fingers of course. Polish it every now and then to keep it looking shiny and nice The polish is available in some local stores (mine was in local "Home store" or something like that), and available online, possibly also at Screwfix but not the nations favourite DIY warehouse apparently according to their website

swap houses? could do with a living room like that when it's finished

Just a point to note that the electric cable behind the fan? is probably rated for 70 deg C, might be getting too hot.

smoothie pen?

Think the conclusion is heading towards "no one knows... yet"

So casually following this thread, 2 mature trees the other evening 15m apart, one covered in ivy with no leaves and the other with no ivy and quite a few leaves. The one with ivy had access to more light in the wood. But which came first? The dying tree or the ivy? Made me think you see, since both trees are a similar age, both with the same growing conditions, you'd expect them both to be as healthy as each other. Since it is a long term issue, you don't get a poorly tree covered in ivy overnight, you'd need some research to work out the cause and effect, which way around is it, and that would take years to do I reckon. One thing this forum might have experience and knowledge of is what happens if you strip the ivy from a tree, does the tree recover or do you just get a more attractive dead tree (in my view). That might give a clue of cause and effect. If a cleared tree recovers then the ivy was the problem

If you like the tree then do as above however I might be tempted to take it out and plant a new one that is growing straight as opposed to replanting it.

Looking forward to this weekends progress report

Going back a step what is your budget? If you flog the 2 petrol saws that should pay for a nice shiny corded electric saw + beer money, and perhaps go some way towards a battery saw. I didn't fancy a corded saw, I'd have to leave the front door open when I get logs on the drive, or trail extension leads through the back garden from the garage - which isn't ideal when The Boys are playing, so went for battery Qualcast which I am surprisingly impressed by (it was half price, inc battery for about £80). If you have the budget and other battery power tools I would go that way with computable batteries. Keep its chain sharp. As for the Titan, that was in the running for an electric saw, decent reports 3 or 4 years ago.

Did you read what I said above, those young Americans mostly died because it was profitable for the American Bankers that they did so. Quite happy to sell fuel to the Germans, and the Allies at the same time and jumped in when they realised that if the Allies lost then the billions in loans taken by them would be forfeit. Americans lack of safety.. different attitudes. In my line of work the British attitude is to remove the people from danger before doing anything, do it remotely the US attitude is to give them a suit of protective equipment... and leave them in the dangerous area to do their tasks

A bit late with this comment, back to the old "American blood spilt for you" argument, however this American Blood was hugely profitable to the US, I forget the sources but I remember reading (last time this came up in a forum) that the US banking system profited billions from the 2 world wars (and this was in about 1950.. billions then). I can't think of a war that the US entered purely for altruistic reasons, because it was the right thing to do, every drop of US blood had a price tag and a bottom line with the proceeds going back to Uncle Sam.

OK so to make this a better job for the OP, I reckon he is getting the idea... if not there is no helping some people.... I guess if you assume what you have cut off won't go through the chipper, strip off all the really small stuff and cut the larger parts to 250, 500, 750mm length sticks - multiples of the width of my stove fire box, you should be able to punt them on the internet to someone if the price is right and there is enough to make the trip worthwhile - a 'warehouse DIY' store will sell a cheap axe and a sharpening stone that will do that job OK if needed (a car boot full could fetch about £15 to £20 if you're lucky and sell it - the cost of the axe). What is left, clear out the way for tree surgeon to have clear access. You can put it in the green waste wheelie bin over a few weeks or a couple of trips to the tip with the waste. (Note that you can't ever make a profit or a dent in the felling costs by homeowner selling firewood from their ex-trees) When you get quotes talk to the guys, and see if there is anything you can do to help and make the job quicker and then cheaper rather than just going ahead and hoping you are doing the right thing. Might be they say "Sure, if you can carry stuff to the chipper, I can do the job with 1 less employee that day", might be they say "To be honest whatever you can do will save about 10 minutes off the whole job, you're better off bringing a steady supply of tea and biscuits". They can see the whole job, from where to park, where to put a chipper and where the trees will be happiest falling and so on and can give better advice than anyone here with photos. So how to make the job better for the OP. what to do to make it more affordable?

Yup, if the OP had said "going to climb a ladder and take the lower branches off, what do you reckon, bow saw or chainsaw" this thread would be going a different direction, probably "Yup, go for it, be safe", but OP went to ask about a chainsaw to climb the tree with and chop off the top bits... which in terms of their safety is a different matter - as we can see OP has managed to do the lower branches safely and all is OK.

So my thoughts and based on my stove. We went multi-fuel, coal is a bit more cost effective for heat output I feel compared to kiln dried hard wood logs (of course, 'free' logs - off cuts beat anything pricewise), and working in the winter we were both out the house all day the coal will burn for longer... house warmer in the evening when we come home. For size, we went 5kw, but this also heats our whole house - if we shut the living room door it gets very warm. Our living room is similar size to yours. Above 5kw you'd need to check air supply into the house... and if the house can support more than that with just air leaking in you need to seal some cracks I reckon, and get an external air supply for the stove. I am not bothered by loosing heat with air losses since the air I lose up the chimney with some heat draws fresh air into the whole house After that our consideration was style and price. I guess you can narrow the search with efficiency but if you are just heating the living room.. not a massive issue I think, your stove will be on low most of the time its running. For dust, as above, not a lot you can do about that, operating to be dust 'free' rather than the stove itself. I reckon getting a separate ash pan door might help and the largest ash pan you can get so you don't need to clean it so often. If you are cleaning the grate of ashes do that when the chimney is hot and drawing air - the dust will go up and not out so much. You can get ash vacuums however I have no experience of them, cannot comment but could be less dust. I did try hoovering a lot of soot (industrial scale coal boiler) and the hoover didn't last very long.. not sure if the ash hoovers are better but probably designed better than a Henry for ash. Fuel... yeah, if you have the cash you will find someone to sell you anything, same with wood. So above might be unable to take new customers but there is no shortage of wood out there. Online you might get a wrapped pallet delivered anywhere in the country. What there might be is a shortage of locally grown, felled, processed and dried oak, but if you are OK to take a softwood then (in my experience) I can take a car boot full every night to cut and dry myself... and still have a stash I can help myself to, or get a supplier who isn't so local, similarly able to get loads and if you aren't too fussy will be OK. Always be friendly to your fuel supplier... those once or twice a year when you forget to order on a Thursday, run out on Sunday and need a delivery on Monday when they are working again..... A bit of an essay but I'd go for the style you live at the price you like, sounds like it is more for aesthetics than heating the whole house so wood burner only is OK, 4 or 5kw will be good for the single room (and allowing heat to spill into the rest of the house too), and don't worry too much about a wood supplier yet.

true, but he could be 35' up a tree trying to take it down piece by piece. Breaking a few things in the garden, damages a house perhaps but lives to learn a lesson.. and ends up with a bigger repair bill then the professional doing the job

I guess there isn't a lot people can say to change your mind so if you are determined to carry on, ignoring the professional advice (none of them are quoting for your job, none of them are going to make a profit from this advice), maybe take a bit of advice so help keep you out the hospital? Are you just taking down the one tree and leaving the rest or are they all coming down? Basing this next part that the safest place for you is on the ground and not in a tree. How big are the trees and how close are the nearest obstacles? If you were to take down the fence panel could you fell the tree through those gaps and miss everything? If you did take the panels away, get a new quote and it should be cheaper so long as the tree surgeon is OK to leave dents in the lawns.... Youtube, don't just watch videos of what to do if that is your way of learning, but also look at vidoes of it all going wrong, far more learning opportunities there if you can work out the mistakes. Last comment, how much have you spent so far? £300 for the saw, £100 for other kit? And your time, 4 or 5 hours to do what you have done so far (including shopping, getting advice and watching youtube? I know the price I put on my leisure time and your costs are approaching half the £1300 quote.....

The other thing I picked up here is that you don't offer to buy the wood from the customer! If they think they can sell it they start looking at what they would pay for wood, forgetting all profit margins made along the way. You might be upsetting the customer whatever you do now, cut the trunk into two 3m sections and leave it they will be upset since they can't shift them, do the same and take them away and you are profiteering from it, cut the stem to 'firewood' sections and you have left them something they can handle but ruined a valuable trunk, but you can't take them away to mill yourself.... tricky one Have a conversation on the morning to confirm what they want to do with the wood is about all you can do, if they want to 'sell' it to you, then you know the price you'd pay and let them know otherwise you'll leave it for them.

Am surprised no one has answered this yet. I guess your question is related to the value of the wood when it is taken down? I am no expert but if so, the crown - for firewood? Going on forum answers, pretty much break even with your costs after you transport it 'home', time and materials to process it, dry it and sell it on if you are not set up to do so, never going to make a dent in the costs to remove the tree itself (despite what a tree owner might think how valuable fire wood appears as an end product). Most commercial firewood is produced en-mass rather than the careful extraction of a single tree from a single garden to make it profitable. The crown is mostly smaller pieces so the efficiency of machinery will be lost a bit. If you don't have the machinery to do it yourself then you'd have to hire it, hand split it all or take it to someone who will charge to split it. Then store and dry it - your cash tied up in the firewood for a year (so incurs an interest charge). Yup, break even for a one off. Gumtree it and might make a small profit as unprocessed. So lets discount the crown as a valuable product. Trunk is a possibility. Milling on site if you can, you know how long that will take and I think you are lucky if it is 6m, most posts I see here ask for 3m lengths. Be tempting to charge the owner time and expenses and leave them the wood? Otherwise use local contacts to produce something from it at their workshops - for a cost which might be cheaper than your time. Firewood - see above. Parquet flooring for £2k, not sure here, £2k raw product, retail profit is 1/3, wholesaler 1/6 and manufacturer 50% (I reckon manufacture would double the cost, selling £2k for £4k at least - lets understimate)...... yeah online calculator time... retail price for £2k of wood about retail to £7k of flooring @ £50/m gives 145sq m of finished wood. Lets work the other way, piece of flooring might be (using google and adding something for sawdust and tongue and groove) 0.000387 cu M, 10,500 pieces in that tree, 130sq m - if the tree is nice and square, it isn't so lets take away 1/4? waste - corners, bark and stuff. 100sqm, a bit off his £2k estimate. Still good luck with that. Just guesses, but one thing often crops up here is that the home owner always thinks their tree is worth far far more than it actually is.

I assume you are are getting the message about this.... However if you are determined then I would consider hiring a saw for this, cheaper than buying one I think and the hire places should also be able to hire out suitable PPE.. and a taller ladder. If your ladder will go up 40% of the tree, that would be about 5m? Tree is about 12m? where would that land in relation to your neighbours if it went the wrong way? However...... Looking at the photos the quote you had would be taking into account not trashing the shed or any of the fences, or your neighbours shed which I believe is more time consuming. Though it is only a shed, get 6 of your strongest mates around you can probably empty it and lift it out the way, if the floor will survive that, might also get you a cheaper quote too for having a clear area to drop things into. Might get a cheaper quite too if they don't have to clear the site (and then you can get a saw yourself the next weekend and chop up what is left on the ground... with suitable safety kit first). So assuming you arn't going to have too much of a go, how about you get another couple of quotes and before you do anything call whoever sent you the £1300 quote and ask if there is any prep work you can do to make it cheaper and if it would be cheaper if they didn't clear the tree away afterwards. (Firewood... not going to be profitable and will need some effort from you but if you can cut the trunks into rings.. after they are on the ground... someone will take them as firewood... probably for free....leaving just the little stuff to take to the tip).

2 hours later I would have expected a few comments, my initial thoughts are they can be useful... but only as good as whoever is monitoring them. Give your teams some slack and should be OK, monitor and get them to justify their every movement and you will create an unhappy team. As for a piece of kit, good review