On a good day, these guys are great...on a bad day, be prepared for a nightmare. Just make sure you're comfortable playing the lottery if you hire them!
We used Barett Tree Service twice. The first time they showed up (I think 2) days ahead of schedule without warning - someone made a mistake in communication, but we were happy to have the job done so figured it was no big deal. The tree was cut quickly and safely and the wood we requested them to leave was stacked nicely. Hell of a lot of sawdust in our pool (think 5 gallon bucket worth), but since it was only 3 feet away, not sure they could have done much about it - maybe some tarps?
The second time we expected the same good experience. The plan was to take down two trees, remove a few large branches from two others for pruning purposes, and clean up dead wood from 2 or 3 others. They showed up on the expected day this time, but that was pretty much the end of the good part. Now, it should be mentioned up front that they did make us agree/get permission to use the neighbors property to get to the tree (sounded like basic foot traffic). That, to me, doesn't mean permission to destroy my neighbors lawn in the process without discussing it with him or me. Nightmare as follows:
The entire team seemed to be fighting with each other and the boss on site had no control of them. First tree comes down without incident. Leftover logs are stacked in 6-8' sections which I agreed to (cut it myself later). Meanwhile, one of the other assigned climbers didn't want to climb, so some guy who was climbing for the first time (as far as I could tell) is up in one of the other trees trying to clear out dead wood. He's trying to get to the branches for a good hour while the other guys are yelling at him. Who knows how much unnecessary damage his spikes did to the tree in the process. A different guy ended up going up to finish. On to tree number two...since the climber still didn't want to climb or they were being lazy, they tried to back their bucket truck into the yard and got it stuck, tearing up my lawn and my neighbors lawn in the process. They literally had to use multiple pieces of machinery to pull it out and broke a few branches on another tree as well. Then once they started on the tree they dug out a bunch of my neighbors shrubs so that they could get their log grappler machine in to pull out branches that I could have pulled out by hand, so they certainly could have (especially with multiple guys on site). Of course all of this happened before I realized it, since I trusted them from the first job. This was just pure laziness. If you've ever run a skid steer/bobcat like tool over a lawn, you know how quickly you can tear up turf. I'm just glad they didnt have that machine the first time we hired them and that it didnt fit through our gate to the back yard!
So now its getting dark and they're still not done. The neighbor comes home from work and is not at all entertained by the status of his lawn. I've already had a confrontation with the boss/owner(?) about it and now my neighbor has too. The excuse given? Well my climber didn't want to climb and I'm really getting hosed on this job so trying to save time. Explain to me how that's the customer's fault? Your business, your problem. They finally agreed to come back and "throw down some seed." (pretty sure that never happened). They wouldn't agree to pay my neighbors landscaping company to do the repair to the lawn properly. They did replant all the shrubs they dug out, if that counts as a positive.
So back to the trees. They can't finish the bit of pruning in the other trees that we hired them to do since its dark (and the guy still won't climb anyway), so they had to come back the next morning. I sure as heck wasn't going to let them be at my house unattended, so I took some more time off work. They did actually finish the next morning without any more destruction. Wood from the second tree they took down (which I did ask them to leave) was left, but not stacked neatly like the first time we hired them. Think they were willing to work with me on the payment to make up for the nightmare of a job? Nope, not a cent. I'm currently looking to take down 3 more large oak trees and guess who isn't getting a call. read more