Tree services who HACK trees

[Paul]

Hi everyone..

I had an experience the other day that I am sure some of you have come across. A client called me up to look at a tree that she had pruned. It was an American elm that was "pruned" by a "Professional Tree Surgeon", whatever that is. Anyway, she called me up and wanted me to come by to look at the tree wich she said "looked like a bunch of telephone poles" sticking up in the air. I went by, and indeed it did look like that.. This thing was topped, stubbed, ripped and almost completley defoliated... I bet only 10% of the foliage was left on the tree. I saw the estimate that the "Tree Service" left with her. It said "Thin and shape". These people do not know the meaning of thinning or shaping... Hell, they don't even know what the BBR is! Three point cut? What's that??? I was pissed as hell... They billed her $700... She has not yet paid and I told her to not pay. I wrote a report so she could try and get these people to remove the tree and replace it with a new tree at THEIR COST. This tree was totally destroyed.

What I am getting at here is how can we as professional arborists get rid of these types of "tree services"? I live in the Bay Area and this tree service has actually been around for some time. They are even based in the same city I live in. These are the type of people who take work from the rest of us because they charge so little.. They rape the trees, and most of the time the client does not even realize it. How can we eliminate these lumberjacks? What would you do? I have thought about writing a letter to this company and telling them what I think.

If you would like, I can email anyone pics of this hack job.. I am sure you will be as pissed off as I am

Paul

ppatmag@rcn.com

 

[joe]

Hi, Paul;

It's a typical problem that may never go away. The problem can be combatted through consumer education. What did you do today besides make contact with the choir to stop topping? Who in your community did you show to the best of your knowledge the difference between what's right and wrong, you're in this position. This instance you speak of is a little late to reverse the damage, but, you're helping to stop topping.

Joe

 

[frans]

The bay area has great resources. Are you in the East BAy? no matter usually there are city ordinances protecting many species.


STEP #1:
dont take it personally. As a professional handle this professionally. Your rep. is at stake. After all both you and the offender are in the same line of work.
2.
Refer your client to a consulting arborist.
VERY IMPORTANT STEP TO TAKE
a CA can determine the loss to your client. You might be able to as well but bringing in expert witnessess is always good.
The loss may far exceed the original bid price. Your client may be due big bucks.

making folks accountable for their actions is effective.

Is the offender a Lic. contractor? Call the BBB.
check out plantamnesty.org

 

[BLUE_FIN]

i agree we need better consumer education because most people would not know quality tree care if it came up and bit them on the butt all they are concerned about is price and when you try to be a legitimate business playing by all the rules and promote proper modern tree care it is hard to compete with hackalouie tree service . and one of the only solutions i can come up with is we need to put together a system that can seperate these companys from companys that play buy all the rules .a form of licensing that would combine the knowledge of the care of trees with proper business ethics because there is no standard in this business and every tree company out there will play limbo and stab you in back . and i beleve if we all stick together in time we can rid these fly by night companys out of our trade . and dont misunderstand me there is nothing wrong with competition it is what makes this country great and what it is today but it is hard to compete with every person who just because he owns a rope and saddle and a chipper thinks he's a arborist. because when a hacker has to use his brain to educate himself or pay a license fee and prove he's a real business and show that he is insured thats when you stop seeing these people just ask everyone they gave a proposal to and asked one of those questions they never seen them again either.

 

[Stumper]

Sorry,but I disagree. Licensing schemes purport to solve our problems but they really don't-instead just interfere with freedom. The worst tree care in my area is performed by A. City arborists B. An established local company that is licsensed and extremely well equipped.

 

[Matt_Grailich]

We have a licensing system in Connecticut that combines written and oral examinations based on pesticide safety and usage and arboriculture with a tree identification test. Licensing has increased in recent years because of a so-called "Arborist Law" which fines and monitors companies doing unlicensed work, which is everything but removals and stump grinding. Proper practices are more widespread, and although poor work still exists, customer awareness of the importance of a license has also increased. The Department of Environmental Protection and a Tree Examining board administer the exam and I feel comfortable knowing that individuals need to have a certain modicum of intelligence about arboriculture in order to run a legal business.

 

[BLUE_FIN]

hey stumper i see were your coming from i know many isa certified arborist and some nj certified tree experts and frankly it is not worth the paper it is printed on i worked for companys that would only allow you to advance in the company if you were certified and most of these people could tell you about a disease or insect problem but that was about all they knew about this business and there is so much more to it than that. maybe my choice of words such as licensing was the wrong description but something has to be done about these companys i certainly do not have the answers all i am saying is we have to come up with some kind of group or organization that is made up of real practitioners of this business that we all can stand by and not some band aid thats only gonna make us feel like something is being done . my example is this electricions and plumbers have a for lack of a better word a union and i dont see many of them playing see saw with there rates some may price a job with more time on it or less time on it but most of them charge the same hourly rate per man and for most consumers it's about choosing a company that can do it when they want it done and by putting something like this together we can form a strong group of real companys that the consumers can resort to but membership to a group like this has to be more than paying a membership fee it has to be compiled of a proven backgroud as well as continueing education and a membership approved by this group which i might add would not consist of people who are in it for political pull and excluding any people who are not running a tree care business (no local politicians)but somethig has to be done or you and every small quality tree care business is going to be working for free and regardless of whether i have the answer or not if one of us does not step up to the plate some political wasp is gonna step up and screw it all up for everybody. because insurance is not getting any cheaper equipment is not getting any cheaper and my employees are not working any cheaper and i been in tree care for over 18 years and the only thing that has not gone up is our rates because all these fly by night companys are working cheap and they are making it up by doing shotty work and in the end you me and everybody else pays the price.

 

[Sep]

I'm sure that we all have had expierences with the people in our industry who do less than professional work. In my opinion the best way to combat this, is for those of us who do good work to continue it. As long as our work is quality the custumers are bound to see the differance. Often times the people hiring un-professional people for services are un-willing to pay the price for good service, and evan less willing to be educated on what a good job is. There really isn't much we can do about others doing bad work except for doing our best, and hoping that it rubs off on them.

[ October 05, 2002: Message edited by: Sep ]

 

[Daniel_Murphy]

Make your customers aware of the ANSI standards... show them the hard copy and write in your estimate that work to be performed according to ANSI...
on the licensure thing... I gotta vote against that as a formal regulation.. traditionally licensure has been primarily about the money... that is "them" getting a hand in our pockets.. I'd like to see some local associations develop and some form of accountability put to the offenders.
God Bless All,
Daniel

 

[Sawdust]

Your always going to have these toppers. I load up on pamphlets on why topping is bad and hand them out accordingly. Along with other pamphlets.
Usually they underbid for a period of time then realize they are not covering costs and end up folding. Then another one pops up.
Just handing out the info and letting the owner see there is another solution is all I can do. Hopefully they will see what I was saying is true and call ME back not them.
I do think that there needs to be more local ords. against these yahoos.
My wife calls companies that she sees around perorming poor work, calls them up and lets them know( like she is a possible client) that she will never hire them or recommend them to anyone. She will also say that she is going to notify ISA NAA and local "beings". I doubt it helps but she is good about that.
It's a shame that it will continue, but I will always be there cleaning up and correcting these pukes. Provides more work for me. Like a long term investment.

Just because the company is big or "reputable" doesnt mean squat. I know companies in my area that have done "crown reduction" and certain other "practices" that were questionable at best. People pretty prominent in certain organizations.(I*A, N*A

)
I'll be glad to lump up some of these perps. but being arrested won't bring me business.
The whole thing seems to come down to consumer awareness. They dont know any better. You do need a couple of toppers out there. Some older people won't see it any other way than topping or whatever. Plus they make you look better.

Anyway, good luck. A good ass kicking when needed might help too.
Later.

 

[BLUE_FIN]

ther is more to a license then money it insures that the playing feild is even and it provides confidence to the consumer that they are getting a qualified arborist and takes the guess work out of finding a good arborist. in some states if you dont have a tree care operators license you can't do business in that state and to maintain that license you have to have continued education so it does not stop there with just getting a license . because in this trade things are always changing from climbing techniqes to proper pruning practices to new saftey standards to new treatments on insect and disease control . and most of that is just not covered at the local coffee shop or grapevine and if your still doing most of your practices based on information from 5 to 10 years ago you are working in the dark my freinds . and for the everyday working joe getting a license consists of demonstrating your knowledge and paying a small fee and most test are very consistant in what we need to know as arborists providing good tree care practices and not to mention the confidence that it gives you that you do everything in your power to better your ability and knowledge and proves you are trying to be the best that you can be and the customers will have more confidence in your ability which is priceless . and all you anti license guys out there better learn to accept it because in a few short years it's going to be everywhere and there is nothing you or i can say or do that is going to stop it. so when that time comes what are you gonna do move to another state or go out of business. so all i can say is hit the books and make yourself better and pile up on your credentials like a isa certifacation or a state cert because it will be easier to do it now than when it becomes mandatory. and if all it takes is answering a couple hundred questions of all this information that you allready know and paying a small fee and showing that you are properly insured then that should not be much of a problem because you allready know and have that right ??? . i don't mean to point fingers or insult anybodys intelligence but this is a very serious problem and in my state it is growing out of control and in most of my travels and conversations i find that most of not all but most of the people that are against it are the very likely ones to be put out of business by such license because they thought that once they could climb atree they thouht they were a arborist. arborist

ar-bo-rist), a specialist in the care and maintenanse of trees.

 

[freemanruss]

has anyone thought of preparing a press-release and sending to the liberal media?
Martha Stewart has tree articles all of the time. She's into the whole tree thing. my girlfriend gets the magazine and its always got an article or two honoring the trees.
I ordered a bunch of "topping is bad" stickers from Sherrill to put on all of our town's stop signs.
Maybe renegade advertising is what we need to do. get the message out there any way we can. maybe get "topping is bad" stickers and put them on the chippers and trucks of the guys with the happy chainsaws and loggin' boots.
Maybe we could act locally to organize within our towns educational tree care day to somehow coincide with Arbor Day. Get to the school kids; every kid that I see come onto a job is thrilled to see folks swing in the trees. If we educate them, they will in turn educate their parents, who will in turn hire properly trained and educated arborists.
I can't understand how we can be so underexposed with all of the organizations that are formed to represent us. maybe they get too caught up with self-promotion and forget what we are all working to protect. The Trees.............

Let's form a society right here. we could raise money by getting pledges to revive the trees on the properties of underpriveledged and underfunded people parks and schools of our towns. all we need is ourselves. I'm sure we've all got tools, and a few of us probably have chippers and trucks.
I think the resources are out there, we just need to grab eachother's slack and pull ourselves up and over those who are getting paid to maim and disfigure the trees we educate ourselves to nurture.
It pains me to see a hacked up tree, knowing with a little more from all of us it could've been avoided.
No man wants to stand alone, besides, what kind of voice would he have?

 

[John_Paul_Sanborn]

It will take public education through the mass media for the tide to fully turn. For every one of us out there educating one on one, there is a McPeak saying "spikes dont hurt, the tree will heal up."

We need people on Oprah, H&G network and all these other things that the landscrapers are already on.

 

[Tom Dunlap]

Good point, John. I've probably seen around ten different companies doing tree work on the various home remodeling shows. I've only seen one that looked like a professional company. The rest were hacks.

The last one I watched gave me a chuckle. The company had an OLD Morbark chipper. One of the original disc Morbark's with the infeed chute that was shin height. The guy who was chipping said "The chippers will take logs up to 18" in diameter." I know, he was implying that there are chippers large enough to do that but he was there with his baby chipper implying that his chipper would. Yeah, right!

Tom

 

[Nickrosis]

Speaking of the Home and Garden channel, I saw a program about a home renovation where the homeowner hired an "arborist" to remove a tree. The fellow was, amazingly, tied in, but he didn't have a hard hat, gloves, eye or ear protection on.

The clincher was when he notched the top, only to have it swing down, below the leaning remainder, and come back up at him. The tagline was coming from behind the climber.

These are the "professionals" that we share the industry with, and I hope that we are able to reach out to these individuals and bring them to a higher level of service and safety. If we don't, who will? If we don't, what will happen?

Nickrosis

 

[Adam_Gutowsky]

Certification only takes the issue so far, anyone in the landscape industry can challenge and write an ISA exam and become a certified arborist. However, even an experienced and certified arborist will top a tree and call it "drop crotch pruning" or a "crown reduction". The company a used to work for would send me out often to do this and I would often refuse. Education is the best way to combat this problem I agree.

Sent from my SM-N910W8 using Tapatalk

 

[guymayor]

The only way to be sure it's done right is to establish the objective and communicate specs--size cut", where in tree, lengths off, % off.

You NEED to do this, or your work is NOT to ANSI A300 standard.

And please don't shoot the messenger!