Tommygunn1992

11 hours ago, DJM Tree said:

£3k a week you gotta hire a picker and a chipper plus run 2 vans probably alot of driving. im not saying i wouldn't do it just gonna be £1k  min in hire surly ?

 

side note are you short on domestic work is that why your considering the change ?

Will be a two man team so just a 4X4 with bucket and a tracked chipper, all waste is left on site, truck and chipper hire will work out around £75 a day including insurances, I’m waiting on a quote to up public liability. 
 

jobs are meant to be kept fairly close but I’d imagine an Isuzu smack with mewp and towing is very thirsty, I’m just waiting on all my numbers so I can work out the take home on it.

With regards to domestic, I do ok with domestic but its a lot of hedge cutting and I quite enjoyed the smash and grab railway style work I used to do, out in the country not draggging brash down pissy alley ways 🙂.

plus with an economic crash looming I worry people won’t be looking to have trees pruned and hedges trimmed.

7 hours ago, htb said:

Don't worry you will get plenty of rough and they will keep the smooth.

Wherabouts in the country and what network?

Based in Kent, the work will be across Kent and East Sussex  cutting for UKPN and EPN. The work is just cutting back to previous in most cases, most work from a bucket with rods.
 

I believe the team is 100% subcontractors, I was told £3k a week is generally not unusual for a 2 man team.l and more if you really go for it.

Hi all,

just weighing up an offer to subcontract from a local utility arb contractor, I met the owner and went to see a few sites which seemed pretty decent for the money, I’m not naive enough to believe they will all be easy money and the contractor seemed pretty honest and said you have to take the rough with the smooth.

I can rent a mewp and tracked chipper at a decent price to get started as my truck and road towable will be no use, anybody else working on span rate and how is the earning potential?

Cheers,

Tom.

8 minutes ago, Dan Maynard said:

I've done a few as a subbie which overrun, climbed out on top of one and I swear it looked like a tennis court it was so wide and green.

I think you just have to do your best, if it takes 4 days instead of 3 then that's not ideal but ultimately not your responsibility, you can only do what you can do, safely. Your boss can't climb to the top of each one to check before quoting, and they know that so they should have some contingency in the price.

Only other tip I could add to the suggestions made is sometimes on a ladder like that where it feels sketchy I will wear a harness and chuck a lanyard round something in the hedge, means you can lean against it and have both hands free for holding saw. Sometimes though you wouldn't hit the ground if you let go and ropes just get in a tangle and better off without.

I do think it's funny sometimes how there is no NPTC for these kind of skills but it's actually what you spend a lot of time doing. Heard some chaps today saying they had been required to do a blower ticket.

Yeah this seems to be the harsh reality of doing tree work in the UK, I've done a number of them but this was the first this sort of size. I worked on the railway for a while, we didn't do blower tickets but did do strimmer, hedger, polesaw and chipper which seemed wild as we had been using them for ages anyway.

When I climbed inside the hedge I did take a lanyard but didn't use it and on the ladder it actually didn't cross my mind, I know lighting technicians and other trades are forced to attach a lanyard to the ladder but seems pointless if the ladder is sketchy, but I didn't think to hook onto the hedge off the ladder.

28 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

I wouldn’t take it on, removal or nothing.

As an employee, just get on with it, think of the money. 
 

Or as Mark Bolam put it, get so pissed off half way round, plunge a 200t at full chat into your sternum just to end the misery.

(I think of that a lot, too much in fact)

 

I got on with it but with 2 blokes on job we ended up a day over taking 4 days to top and side up.. Marks logic certainly crossed my mind too!

19 minutes ago, woody paul said:

Can you get between hedge and fence. 

About a 3 ft gap once sided up but couldn't really set the ladder up in that gap so had it in the courts.

7 minutes ago, swinny said:

There is always folk that will not be happy with the task at hand and always think there are better ways. The owner of the company will most likely have a lot more experience than said staff and will have assessed the best way to do the job, access requirements and time to do the works. 

 

Sometimes a bollock can be dropped. You cannot inspect every inch of the hedge and take it as it is what it is....

 

If you have to bang a ladder in the side to get it done just do it..... a hedge like that will be quite wide so in places the ladder going into the hedge is gna help you reach the back.  One other thing is to put a plank accross top of ladder also to stop it sinking in. I've surfed many a wobbly fat wide beech hedge on top with 2 ladders lol cutting off one, going to another and so on. This was just for trimming purposes though. 

 

Mewps for this are a pita.... and costly. cutting with a gypsy stick then fishing the bits out is shit on the arms and ages to fish stuff out and generally leave crap in there. scaffold? no thanks. 

 

The lads did a good job by the looks of it but sour milk comes to mind with this post working ontop of a ladder against hse and I'm on a day rate for employer only.... Sorry just how i see it.

 

Lads did good in the time they were there! good finish and from pics 3 days looked good. Just unfortunate for them it was whispy in places

I'm not saying I know more, I am putting this post out there to get other people's thoughts on how we did it and how they might have tackled it for future reference so I can carry similar work out in future in a more safe and productive manner.

You're entitled to your opinion but the idea is not to come across as sour milk, HSE do have certain rules on ladder use and it didn't feel like the safest way to carry it out and if anything did go wrong would I be covered if reaching laterally off a ladder 20-25ft off of the ground with both hand on a chainsaw.

I appreciate the advice you shared and will look at the plank idea for future reference.

3 minutes ago, maybelateron said:

I don't think you sound soft at all. Our trade is full of dangers and there is no room for "macho man bravery". Nothing wrong in being sensible. Did you feel you could discuss the situation with your employer if you felt the methods available to you did not feel safe? 

I agree, I'm not massively experienced in tree work. I got my tickets last year and had been working with ground tickets for a year before that, I've certainly taken on some tree jobs where I'm punching above my weight but enjoyed the challenge. This didn't seem like a challenge or a test of skill it just felt sketchy, we finished the job and it was done in 4 days with a little bit of tidy up left to do.

I did mention it and put forward the ideas such as scaff tower and taking fence down to get the mewp in but we didn't go for it.

6 minutes ago, Khriss said:

I just wouldn't, nightmare of a job an best avoided, you did best you could. K

Yeah to be fair I think that is certainly one option, I would of taken on I think but quoted more than three days and put mon-fri on and charged aggro tax on it. One of those if I get it it ls for good money if I don't then good.

3 minutes ago, swinny said:

Some jobs are just what they are. WHy were you fannying around with a silky? Thats cut and chuck with a top handle saw work. 

 

At the risk of sounding soft, it didn't feel safe.. the ladder was pushed leant into the hedge with a bloke stood on the bottom, I was stood on the top rung leaning in.

It was also a job for my employer so I was earning day rate and would have not been covered had anything gone tits up as you shouldn't be working like that off of a ladder under HSE.

This week I was put on a large hedge reduction (pictures below) and I was wondering how you might have tackled this job. 

This was not my job, I was asked to top the hedge and at first I could get inside the hedge and stand on the previous cuts to take the height down while the lads on the ground reduced what they could reach with a short and long reach hedger.

Once we got to the next section there was nowhere to stand inside the hedge and we did not have a mewp to hand, I ended up having to climb a ladder leant into the hedge and top with a silky which was not particularly safe or productive, we then ended up siding the hedge from the ladder where it couldn't be reached from the ground. We were given three days to complete this job.

I saw many better options such as narrow access tracked mewp, take the fence down to access with mewp or worst case scenario work from a scaff tower with a polesaw and long reach. On the final day we were able to top from the field behind using a mewp, but side up our side from ladder.

So what would you do and how long would you quote for this job?

6 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Just had my new Ranger (that I put the down payment on in August) put back till end of February 2022.

That’s why second hand prices are nuts, cannot get new stuff.

Crazy, my in-laws were waiting over 18 months for a new discovery and knocked it on the head, went for a lexus two months ago and "should" receive keys soon. 

2 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

And here she is, with the old Timberwolf and a Navarra that I bought over here January 2008.

I think I may have read a forum on here before where you spoke about the Navara. 14 years from a 10k spend is pretty good, although 10k was certainly a lot more money and went a bit further 20 years ago. 

It seems I have a lot of thinking to do and money to find, thanks for the advice.

7 minutes ago, doobin said:

8k for a tipper is right bang where you will find overpriced tat. Newer vehicles but high mileage, often with dubious service history. Go older, cheaper and looked after. 
 

If you’re going to finance, finance plant that won’t depreciate like a vehicle does in the first three years. 

So it seems, I can't believe how some of these hold their money. Some have near 90,000 miles and still asking for 18k.

8 minutes ago, scbk said:

First off do some insurance quotes on different vehicles - for a provisional licence, and with business use (carriage of own goods)

 

That might blow your 3k budget

Insurance not included in budget, when I say £3k that is either cash buy or deposit for something I'm just unsure whether to buy something to tide me over until I take my work full time and then sell it and by something new on finance as dropping like £20k on my first vehicle to work part time seems a bit mad to me.

Surprisingly tipper is pretty cheap insurance considering I wrote off a motorbike a few years ago it's about £1100 for the year, I can just chuck on a credit card and pay off after a few jobs go my way.

It seems to be pretty conclusive a tipper is best, I don't have anything right now and actually don't have a license so whatever I do get I will be driving on L plates with a colleague until I can finally get a test due to the COVID situation. I am assuming you can do this on a provisional with a 3.5 tonne? My wife has a little Volvo which we use for everyday life.

My main worry about a pick up is the room on the back, can I get a lawn mower, hedge cutters, strimmers and all that stuff on. When I say big tree jobs I usually get a lad with truck and chipper in to help out and take waste away which usually costs around £350-450 but as I only work on weekends for myself that may be a better option than few hundred quid a month finance.

I have nowhere to store a trailer at the moment as I don't have a driveway so vehicle will be parked on the street outside my house which I'm sure will upset the neighbours and in Kent a trailer is likely to get stolen unless stored somewhere in a lock up out of sight.

I like the idea of buying outright for around £3-4k but costs of keeping it on the road worry me a bit with maintenance and the current price of all second hand vehicles scares the shite out of me.

The firm I work for obviously have a tipper with a chip box, a flatbed truck and a Toyota Hilux and for trees we tend to use the tipper and Hilux if leaving waste.

Thanks for the advice, I think I will see what tippers I can buy outright in my price range.

Hi,

I'm looking to get my first vehicle and was looking to get some advice, I know similar topics have been covered before so apologies if you feel like your repeating what's been said previously.

I'm employed full time and I don't see that changing for a little while but I take on a fair chunk of my own stuff doing arb work, grounds maintenance and landscaping and not sure what would best suit my needs. I only have about £3k which I could either use to buy something outright to tide me over until I do eventually go out on my own or use as a deposit for a finance truck maybe around £8k.

My work can range from large tree jobs to grass cutting or block paving so I need a van that works for all. So my question is, what would you do?