Steven P

Saves double handling it. If you have an open sided shed to put it in this is good - plenty of air flow, a roof over the top for the winter and rain. If all you have is a garden shed then you need to dry it outside to get the air flow and then handle it all again to move it under cover in the autumn. Just shoving wet wood in an enclosed space is asking for mould and wet wood in the winter

Get an air flow around it and it is not important, the air blows through the stack Often the bark will fall of certain species, it burns OK so can be dried to use - it is no effort to put to one side and throw on the top once the pile is complete. However OP is for domestic use, not sure they will have an open sided shed, splitter, few IBC cages and a tractor?

Can also use pieces of bark that falloff as you split - some species the whole ring of bark can come off in1 piece as 'roof tiles'.. and once dry burn OK too

In the winter some sort of cover is useful - log shed, half the garage, tarpaulin. Drying wood is more about air flow than heat though, a windy spot will dry wood quicker than not - I have 3 sides I can use on he drive, lengthways along the house, wind blows along it will fry far quicker than at the end of the house where the wind just hits (same amount of sun), other side of the drive is shaded and will need 2 seasons to dry anything

Rac Man - thought this was jokes and not Johnsons phone in current affairs. Whoops. Not current affairs, that would be a in poor taste for a recently married man.

Yup. However I will qualify that - they get moved inside at the end of the summer and before September rains start. A lot depends on the stacking too - for a few years I made a double / triple log thickness walled den for The Boys in the garden, with log roof. Even in January the inside walls were pretty close to 20%. 1m cubes will get their outer layers wet with rain but if you can angle them downwards a bit the rains runs off the stack. Also helps lifting the stacks off the ground (mine are on bricks, old habits, brick in each corner, long split branch between the, and logs stacked on top). All about air flow.# Logs dens have stopped now, they wanted a skate board ramp (which also has a den underneath - they like hiding>)

.. feck em... seriously though, my neighbour gets a ton of logs thrown over her wall in September, makes up for a lot of my idiosyncrasies (and she is best buddies with the next neighbour)

Might be good to give advice where to spend the ££ and where you can buy the less expensive stuff? Then when the OP is shopping they can make a decision based on what they are looking at?

I tihnk we're taling about 2 different news stories here. One last comment on electriciy, India nad Africa are much wealthier than the uk... so who is going to win the bidding wars when the oil starts to run dry, and here we are arguing that the UK should have no alternatives..

A few thousands of extra people in this country isn't the big issue though, got to look outside our own borders and wake up a little. In India there are about 1.4 billion people using half the electricity that we do, the same in Africa using about 1/50th of the electricity that we do. These 2.4 billion people will all want an electricity supply, to connect to the interwebs, to advance and live the lifestyle that we blast at them in the films and on the TV. 2.4 billion people. 1/3rd+ of the worlds population. and another 3rd will want more to equal our lifestyles (probably in the next 50 years to). Worldwide electricity supply is set to double. Worldwide where are we going to get the oil to do that from? cannot be done. So our choice is then turn off the cities at the weekends, rationing, or make electricity where we can. Green electricity. Uncomfortable truth maybe. When it comes to population rises, the UK has nothing.....however a comment on immigration when it comes to electricity, You might say "Stuff them let them live in their countries without electricity" but then 'the west' becomes a shining beacon attracting everyone like moths to a light bulb... because we tell them all the time how good our lifestyle is... they want some.... so no good saying that. To reduce immigration we need to reduce the push-pull factors that drive it, equalise things a bit (and not by current government methods of dragging us down, lift them up instead). If that means sharing worldwide resources then that has to happen.

My gran on her way to the Co-op for a bottle of milk is going to change nothing no matter how many times they stand in front of her car. In fact one day she might get out for a natter. In fact, maybe she should - they wouldn't be back, once they can politely get their excuses in to leave. It is a fair point, the people they are annoying are not going to change the world no matter how many times you shut down a road (cars idling away in the background). However it must be a fair sized organisation to get that many locals able to walk to their protest sites, no cars, buses, trains used..... (and of course, no computers with their gas generation used to organise things either)

Depends how much you have taken a dislike to him, but a drive by every morning throwing bird seed in front of his car will see the pigeons loving you. They will need somewhere to sit... sit I said..... Never worth upseting someone too much, offer for him to bring the car over to your yard and get the team to clean it for him one weekend morning (unless you lie near, he won't)(and if he does, a perfect time to treat your team to breakfast with the £50 you did;'t just spend

Likewise, in the city do you take bin bags for the birds that hit windows, are killed and weakened from car and power station exhausts, from cats.... point here is that whatever we do we affect our environment (t'internet reckons that domestic cats kill a factor of 100 times more birds than windmills). We have a choice and it is one we will have to make very soon - turn down our electricity use, go green with energy generation, or go back to Russia to get our gas supplies till that runs out. Can't see London being very happy if we tell them to turn off the electricity at the weekends.

China and India polluting the world - so the rest of the world should as well? That doesn't sound so good to me. I was always told the best thing to do is lead by example, aim to be the best we can and not equalling the worst that they can be. I reckon I would prefer a day in the hills surrounded by windmills than an hour walking around a nuclear power plant or dodging coal trucks heading to a power station any day. Anyway, couple a few quick stats, if you like that, for electricity Chinas electricity use per person is about the same as Europeans... but have many with no electricity supply India uses about 1/4 of Europeans US, Canada double and Norway 4 times what we use! (won't mention Iceland) Some African states annual per person electricity use is what I use in a week .. when everyone in the world have their technology aspirations met (pretty much to do what we do today) we are going to need a lot more electricity and that means green energy, far better to be on it now, learn, get the experience, knowledge, factories and then we can make a profit from that.

Back to a comment earlier about the drill bit skating about - how about a small pilot hole so the larger one gets something to anchor into or punch a dent in it - again to give somewhere to stop the bit moving about?

Thanks, I'l look for the MS260 one then - first port of call was L&S spares, a lot of other parts except the one I want of course. \i'd forgotten abouy DIY spares - but I've got things from them before too.

I need to replace the fuel pipe on a Stihl HS61 - an older machine - and I can't see the part online. Does anyone know what other machines fuel pipes would fit? As far as I can tell it is a fuel pipe with a grommet part way down, not measured it up yet to see what I need though. (this is the Stihl where they went against conventional wisdom and have the blade up-down instead of across way, as a spares or repair that works but had a leaky fuel tank... replaced and now needs the fuel pipe replaced I reckon) Thanks

Its all on the computer now - don't even have to go in to look at the adverts, it is worse, on the computer and online! (I'd agree with the barbers probably avoiding some tax, but in a more subtle way - ours is a pound or 2 under the next £5, so you pay cash "keep the change" it is only £1 or £2.. from everyone. So ours keep a tally chart of who cuts what hair - auditable I guess, but not those tips, which are probably equivalent to the tax)

Similar to what GarethM says, I guess that you want to check it is safe for use... and as such that the tree is safe to be used as a support? Guessing then that your insurers have asked for this or the local council? Can you give a bit more information - example, a sapling might not be able to take it but a 100 year old tree probably would - and I guess that you want to use the older trees just for size? I would go back to whoever has asked you to get this for more information what they would accept.

"factor in fuel" last time I looked the car was 20p a mile in fuel, something like that, makes local shops affordable if you are just popping out for a pint of milk (or similar). Charcoal - yup, if you can get it 'where the suckers gather' then you are set OK - some of us have a budget to watch, some of us don't and some of us with a good budget like to feel good about local stuff even if it costs a little bit more

NHS and what we should do with it should really be a thread on its own, everyone will have an opinion and thought, but since most of their employees arn't paid in cash kind of derails this thread quite a way - further than usual

What are the dimensions - pop them up and some one on here might be interested or know someone who is given a few more details.

Taxes - Mrs P said it well once "honoured to pay taxes since that means I am paying my way in the world" - however we can grumble that the tax man takes 5k or 50k off us. For some of the figures above they put an unrealistic expectation perhaps. The mean salary for a full time employee is about £40k and the median is about £32k. Add in part time workers and this drops by about £10k. On a political point echoing some of the above - guess which figure the government uses to argue its case for their employees (NHS being topical this week, but civil servants, police, fire and so on). (mean salary: Add all the salaries and divide by workers, median is the middle point move down from highest and up from lowest one at a time till you meet in the middle) I reckon that if you are paying near that in tax and above then you are doing OK. Granted there are a lot of business owners who read this, and they have taken financial risks, responsibility to give a wage to others, keeping their workers from killing themselves and so on - and the risks they take need greater rewards However end of the day for me is can I afford to do all the stuff I want to do and be fulfilled - mostly yes - so do I need to bust a gut to pay the tax man an extra 10k, probably not

Looking at the flip side, some people manage their money only paying with cash - they might be like that and it saves them a hassle of a trip to the bank - see some people paying for their weekly shop for example in cash all the time Make sure you cover yourself though, I don't think the excuse "I thought he was paying his tax" would be without questions. I have never employed anyone, but I would make sure you follow the same rules as if you were paying into a bank account, and an invoice sounds like a good start to the paper trail - that way if you get asked any questions you can show what you did. Now I am trying to think apart from budgeting, any other valid reason why you don't want paying through the bank system, I don't think I could go through the week just paying cash. Tax, hiding earnings from a partner / ex partner, hiding a second job from another employer, loads of reason but not many honest' ones

Likewise, I wouldn't be too hung up over a wooden handle - nice tool no doubt if that is your thing but the important part is the axe head