Hack or tree professional

treebear

treebear

Location
Western Norway
In many cases people who do line clearance are looked upon as hacks. I Norway I see this is done with a good reason mainly because these jobs are done with crews without a slighest clue of treework and the utilities do not make good prescriptions for how they want the job done. I guess this goes for the rest of the world too. Because of this many good arborists wo´nt do any utility work and this contributes to holding the reputation of this buisiness down. As a collegue said "slaughtering trees is not interesting for me". I totally disagree, I find line clearance work, specially clearing service lines in Urban aereas wery interesting and challenging. What could possibly be more demanding than making trees and wires live together in harmony? Ordinary tree work seems like piece of cake compared to this. And as a bonus you make the area look better and most people are happy if you´re doing a great job.
Could have paid better though--
What´s your opinion?
Svein
www.hogstogrydding.no /forum/images/graemlins/aaa.gif
 
Hearing from professionals with passion for their work is always exciting. There are as many, if not more, hacks working in commercial arboculture. Since their work isn't as obvious to the consumers they can stay under the radar. Too bad, they probably do more damage intentionally than utility line clearance does accidentally.

There are two different clients. For utility arbos, it's the lines. For commercial, its supposed to be the tree.

Keep up the good work!
 
People should start calling the individual companies hacks and not lump them all together as utility line clearance.
There are some very professional utility line clearance companies and workers out there that aren't hacks.
Some of the hacks are taught to hack by their supervisors and company policies dictate the same but lets seperate the hacks from the pro's.
 
[ QUOTE ]
A while ago a definition of hack came up:

A hack is a person who does the wrong thing even after they've been taught what the right thing to do is.

[/ QUOTE ]

Boy there are many of them!

But lets not forget the truly professional line guys & gals.

Our Electric company finally got a routine line clearance program going. Now they have crews travel (at least in our part of the county) the lines once a year. This is the second year it's happened.

Anyhow, the first to come thru were the Asplundh crew...they had thier work cut out for them and I have to tell you it was QUALITY work. None of the trees in our neighborhood looked bad, nor did they have tell tale stress growth. Good job indeed.

This year Davey came through. Not nearly as much to do, but still very professional, and very well done.

About the only gripe I had was that while on line clearance work they also stopped to do private work.

I gripe for 2 reasons, first they were working for the electric company while they were doing the side job. This in my mind is double dipping...cause I have to assume that the elco was paying for them to be out there.

Thus they had the appearance of working on the elco's dime and charging a homeowner for additional, non line-clearance work at the same time.

Besides its another avenue of competition I'd just as soon not have to worry about /forum/images/graemlins/bigcry.gif

Sorry, just needed to B**ch about something...its that time of the year ya know /forum/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Tree bear it's good to see profesionalism coming back to the industry. IMO the contractor's along with the utilities have made a bad situation worse in many aspects. The utilities are trying to get the best bang for their buck but some have gone too far and hir procurement specialist to try and get the bids down even cheaper and they get a bonus off of it which leads into alot of gray area. The low bids cause the contractors to cut corners and use substandard methods and reduced training which is like pandoras box. The big contractors are making money hand over fist but are making it with low wages and older equipment. Not bashing anyone or the companies they work for but this is a general observation not just from Indiana but across the US.
 
rfwoodvt, please dont just assume that they were being paid by both homeowner and utility. i run a line clearance crew and we do side work and the line work in the same day often. but i ALWAYS! make sure and keep track of the hours seperatly so that the utility co. is billed properly.
 
[ QUOTE ]
rfwoodvt, please dont just assume that they were being paid by both homeowner and utility. i run a line clearance crew and we do side work and the line work in the same day often. but i ALWAYS! make sure and keep track of the hours seperatly so that the utility co. is billed properly.

[/ QUOTE ]

You are right, I perhaps did jumpt to a hasty assumption. And of course not all tree guys are on the take. Just like not all tree guys have a 3 brew lunch and are un-edumacated in arboriculture.

But there are enough of them out there to leave a sour feeling with the general pouplation and enough of them out there to ruin it for the good ones.

I guess my point is that when the company is from out of town, has no local office and no sales staff and, the chances of them being around in a week, month or year are slim to none then a number or yellow, red and bright flashing flags start to get raised.

Perhaps they don't bill the the ElCo for the time, but I do know that they were doing the side jobs for ca$h.

I don't know about you but if my crew were doing side jobs and taking cash for them while on the clock for me (and not reporting them to book keeping) I'd have some serious reservations about keeping them on. What they do on thier time is one thing, what they do on company time is entirely another.
 
On most utility contract does the utility not set the standards that the work is performed to? I think some of the hacks are created by utilities that dont care about proper pruning and ensuring that the contractors follow the standards. Even if the utility company sets the standards I think the contractor should still practice proper pruning. On another note we are allowed to do side jobs, but we can't discuss it with the customer during our work day, but can come back latter, we can't use company equipmenttilityto do with the u and the customer has to understand that the side work has nothing with the utility.
 
That`s the way it works here in co. If your doing line clearance in the day time,you can`t even give a price or talk about what needs to be done on the clock. All you can do is tell them you will be back after 3:30 and talk to them at that time.Most the guys that do side jobs has their gear,we can`t use the companys trucks or chippers. If you get caught your not working for the co. any more and who wants to loose a sweet paying job with good benefits.
 
We are not allowed to do a side job on any line while it is being worked on by our company, at threat of job loss.
That is not to say this rule isn't broken by some. Most lines take us a week or two to complete and then we can go back to do things homeowners are interested in. Not such a bad deal and most are willing to wait when I explain the situation. [ QUOTE ]
The world is full of fools, and he who would wish not to see one must not only shut himself up alone, but must also break his looking glass. (Bacon)

[/ QUOTE ]
 
[ QUOTE ]
People should start calling the individual companies hacks and not lump them all together as utility line clearance.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its not tree co its the worker if the worker larns to use the right tool for the job it is intended for then better work will happin like spikes a stick saw is for takedowns not trimming
I am a line trimmer and an arborst my co didnt teech me to do my job the guys along the way did
 
doesn't the utility contract state that the crew shall not leave the designated site? all utility contracts ive seen say that the crew is not to leave under any terms exept vehicale brake down... might not want to get caught
 
Buzzys while doing lines is the standard operating procedure. I have abuddy who worked for davey doing lines. They would make easily 5-600 a day in cash taking down trees on the side....To tell you the truth I have thought about taking up a line clearing job before...hahaha
 
I'd settle for $50-60.
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Utility worker get paid S***. (in general) I'm a guy with an arborist license, a pesticide license, and a CDL ; oh, and I Climb. I also run 5 trucks and 9 guys. I get paid less than most of you pay your groundies. so pardon us if we get the occasional(really) Buzzy. Helps to keep my guys' Morale up.

Plus, we gotta have money for
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and
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