coppice cutter

That's pretty cool. Shame they'll never see a plough, tiller, seeder or big f**k off grain trailer, ..............but pretty cool all the same.

Bigger ones being more efficient isn't much of a benefit when the operators still have to be paid to stop supplying the grid on a regular basis. It's not about the generation, it's about the utilisation. If you read about some of the smaller communities that have successfully gone totally off-grid there is always a degree of collective responsibility involved. Using less at peak times or when supply is low and making best use when it's plentiful. With the best will in the world that degree of collective responsibility becomes more difficult as you scale up, and totally impossible at national grid level. As it stands the national grid has just become a huge power soak for all the renewable suppliers, large and small, with the consumer now starting to pick up the tab.

Personally I don't think it should be fed in to the national grid, the grid is hard enough to balance without having to factor in the massive swings due to variability in the wind blowing. Balancing out intermittent supplies costs money, I believe that's why electricity is now disproportionately more expensive than pretty much any other form of energy, we are having to pay to keep an increasingly inefficient grid balanced. Instead of huge subsidies to multi-national conglomerates there should have been more effort made to subsidise the supply of small and medium sized turbines to businesses, or even small groups of like-minded individuals who would have been much better able to maximise the use of the resultant free electricity in the most efficient ways possible. John Seymour insisted that electricity generated by what he referred to back then as "natural energy" was always best done on as small a scale as possible as it was much easier (and therefore more efficient) to match demand to supply. What we are doing is the exact opposite. Bear in mind that I'm supporting wind generated electricity as a principle, that doesn't necessarily mean the huge spinning monsters that we see dotted around the countryside.

Wondered about that myself but didn't want to say as i've no experience or knowledge good or bad of it ever having been done. Sounds a bit iffy to me.

To be honest, I think the principle of wind turbines is terrific, they take something that is free, clean, and plentiful, (wind) and turn it in to something which has never been free, clean, or plentiful, and with a minimum of effort. I think all the problems surround how they've been put where they are, how they're managed, and how the resultant electricity is managed afterwards. In other words, the politics behind them.

Just my opinion, others may differ. Firstly, I'd probably buy a decent dry stove, either wood only or multi-fuel depending on what you intend to burn rather than bollocks about with the old one. Secondly, check out the state of the chimney itself, is it brick, stone, ceramic lined, etc? It would probably be better with a liner but it's not always necessary, try to ascertain accurately if it needs one first. Maybe some stove manufacturers say that a liner must be fitted but they certainly all don't, most recommend it which is probably the most sensible option if in doubt but check out the chimney first. Thirdly, looks like the stove sits in a chimney breast, probably best just taking the boards out and getting it plastered. Best not skimmed, just sand and cement rubbed up and painted, or tile it if you really want. Or of-course you could take the easy option, fork out the three and a half grand and hope it works out OK.

Some things are just too raw to have any place for levity!

For what it's worth, I've been cutting trees and producing firewood for close to 50yrs, even had a wee stint at it semi-commercially when I was with a road gang and done all the cutting required on several road-widening schemes. Everything Stihl I've ever bought has polluted me and been replaced asap with something else. I consider their products to be over-hyped, over-priced, over-valued, and over-rated, just like German vehicles. But other peoples experiences plainly differ. Such is life.

A lot of builders bags are single use anyway as the ass goes out of them so easily. If you can't do anything else at least make a few holes around the sides of the bags and put a sheet of plywood or such like over them if they're outside. They need a bit of airflow through them essentially.

Some of the prices I see on here of people charging for jobs leaves me open-mouthed. Considering what was involved with that one with access and all, and how they were going to leave it I thought it wasn't that bad.

Oh man, talk about rubbing your nose in it!

I deal with two main wholesalers for the motorcycle business, one a Dutch company, one a German company, but both of them have distribution centres here in the UK. They both have online ordering systems and both run a traffic light system, green, yellow/amber, red. For both systems, green means available from stock in the UK, red means unavailable, the difference is with the yellow. For the German company yellow means not in the UK, but available to order from the main warehouse in Hamburg and an expected delivery date, for the Dutch company yellow simply means available to backorder with no expected delivery date specified. I will sometimes order things that are yellow/amber from the German company if the delivery date is acceptable to me or my customer, but I never backorder stuff from the Dutch company when there is no expected date for delivery. Long story short, in my opinion, without expected (and fairly accurate!) dates for backordered items, probably just as well to stick to listing the stuff which is actually in stock. Hope this is of some help.

You're probably barking up the wrong tree with Tate, time will tell, but it's a very valid point otherwise. The vilification and subsequent 'cancelling' of Professor Cahill as one of the first covid vaccine skeptics but with genuine scientific and academic credentials immediately springs to mind.

No I think it's largely arrogance. How could they possibly learn anything from those stupid country dwellers who spend all day chewing bits of straw and shovelling shite.

Yes it may be deliberate, but so many in society willingly comply, and rather than show a desire to find out the reality beyond their urban bubble, they pour ridicule on anyone offering a view which is in any way at odds with what they are encouraged to think.

Gareth, what the actual f**k are you doing reading the guardian. It is poisonous, toxic, mind-corrupting, eco-loon crap. And bear in mind that I say this as a farmer who grows trees, makes hay, refuses to use artificial fertiliser, and is generally considered by other farmers to be an eco-loon myself.

Another positive for them from me. Ordered a few spare silky blades and stuff off them over black friday weekend as they had a genuine extra 10% off everything on their online shop. Even at that time of year everything arrived inside a couple of days and with no hassle. I've used them before and it's been the same everytime, decent prices too. Seems like a good outfit.

You should cut the lad a bit of slack, this is the modern day society in action. I'm sure many here are of the age that they grew up with the phrase of "someone being so useless that they couldn't even wire a plug". Nowadays no one is expected to wire a plug, indeed many places it would be frowned upon if you even suggested doing something in a way that required someone to wire a plug.

Not at all, simply pointing out that you're (or were) being an ass. I'll be saying nothing more.

I generally avoid the weekly sparring sessions between you and Andy but based on this thread it really does seem that you come on here regularly with no other purpose than to be a contrary-some ass and start a row. Trolling at it's finest!

I invested in my first decent battery tool this year, a leaf blower. After much deliberation and because I was starting from scratch I went with the Makita XGT (36v) system blower and so far it's been doing a grand job for me. What is noticeable however is how much quicker it drains the battery if you use it on the "boost" setting, and that seems to be the nature of battery, in high load applications the weight required for battery capacity means that either i/c or plug in electric is almost always going to be a superior option. Nonetheless, now I'm committed to this system I wouldn't rule out adding other bits and pieces in future, the hand held vacuum looks useful and a 9in angle grinder could be useful about the yard pretty often, but I'll be choosing carefully according to the application required.

I think a twin battery 72v Makita chainsaw is inevitable, they already have a twin battery 72v 14in disc cutter which typically needs 50-55cc to drive it so they could be the first with a genuine 50cc chainsaw alternative. But it'll be a pricey bit of kit and you can't help but wonder why bother in most normal circumstances.

Was chatting to our local coal man just before the holidays, large anthracite, pet coke, smokeless nuggets, all £25 per 50kg bag delivered, plenty of all three available.

It was you who set the tone, an unconventional farmer I may now be, but I'm still a farmer. Therefore, you attack farmers as a collective, you attack me. Yes indeed the farming industry "is an exploitative, capitalist industrial process extracting and exploiting resource for personal profit", but the average farmer is no more responsible for this than the Amazon delivery driver is for their dodgy tax avoidance, or the Tesco/Sainsburys/Waitrose/Morrisons shelf stacker is for their consumer manipulation, or the McDonalds/Burger King burger flipper is for the poor health of a nation poisoned by junk food. Yet they don't get the blame, indeed they more often get sympathy for having no choice but to go with the flow. The average farmer is in the same position, yes some earn more and have more toys to play with, but the situation is the same, you have dependants and nobody is going to thank you for being a homeless, bankrupt, maverick. OK, so I broke the mould but I'm thick, pig-headed, and had personal reasons for going off on my tangent, but I'm also fully aware that without huge changes at all levels of the food industry it is not scaleable. As for "Red Tractor", most farmers detest it, as it is a pen-pushers job creation scheme with no appreciable benefit to anyone other than those administering the scheme itself. I assume you've no skin in the game because if you did you'd have a greater understanding of the actual "game" than you appear to have.