John Shipp
Senior Member
It's Monday morning and I'm just about to step out into the dark wetness that is the woods this time of year, but I thought I should say something quickly. There are forestry contractors at different "steps" in the UK, and we're on our step which is work and stay as local as possible, don't go bust trying to buy equipment beyond what jobs are available for it. I would say we're held back by the lack of larger contracts locally, and our unwillingness to commute for hours in dense traffic
The next step, there are even in this area (SE England) contractors with one purpose built harvester, one 8x8 forwarder. I don't recall ever seeing one being lowbedded around in this area but occasionally we see or hear of a wood where one has been. Then in the South of England there are companies with more than 1 pair of machines, a pair may cut 20,000 m3 a year? Then up in midlands, north England, wales, Scotland, the people thin out gradually as you go north and there's more room to grow trees; some of these companies have machinery line ups of 100 machines. I guess they will be cutting 500,000m3, they must be. But I read that the competition now to keep these machines in work is driving prices way down. Also, often the drivers live out of a caravan (trailer home?) quite often completely on their own, as the harvester runs ahead of the forwarder often. So, our mob down here, I guess we like chainsaws, and seeing our young families, so we are perhaps held back a bit on how far we can develop the business, but we're not lonely!
Sometimes when we're cutting rubbish for days on end and getting nowhere on tonnage, we're tempted to up sticks and head to where there's more trees to go at. There's a guy nearing retirement working in the SE like us but a couple of hrs north, I hear he's finally bought a new harvester and a new forwarder and he drives them both himself. Apparently he averages 1000t a month doing it this way, driving both. And that's about what a handcutting mob like us can realistically hope to attain, working in the kind of woods we do.
And now, I must go and sharpen my saw, and shiver for a while til we warm up! Cheers all.
The next step, there are even in this area (SE England) contractors with one purpose built harvester, one 8x8 forwarder. I don't recall ever seeing one being lowbedded around in this area but occasionally we see or hear of a wood where one has been. Then in the South of England there are companies with more than 1 pair of machines, a pair may cut 20,000 m3 a year? Then up in midlands, north England, wales, Scotland, the people thin out gradually as you go north and there's more room to grow trees; some of these companies have machinery line ups of 100 machines. I guess they will be cutting 500,000m3, they must be. But I read that the competition now to keep these machines in work is driving prices way down. Also, often the drivers live out of a caravan (trailer home?) quite often completely on their own, as the harvester runs ahead of the forwarder often. So, our mob down here, I guess we like chainsaws, and seeing our young families, so we are perhaps held back a bit on how far we can develop the business, but we're not lonely!
Sometimes when we're cutting rubbish for days on end and getting nowhere on tonnage, we're tempted to up sticks and head to where there's more trees to go at. There's a guy nearing retirement working in the SE like us but a couple of hrs north, I hear he's finally bought a new harvester and a new forwarder and he drives them both himself. Apparently he averages 1000t a month doing it this way, driving both. And that's about what a handcutting mob like us can realistically hope to attain, working in the kind of woods we do.
And now, I must go and sharpen my saw, and shiver for a while til we warm up! Cheers all.