The huge windstorm that hit in late January '21 knocked down a large "heritage" oak tree that sat right beside our driveway in Fair Oaks, and when the "root ball" came out, it proceeded to tear up some of the driveway concrete. Darren seemed like a straight shooter when he came to assess the damage, and he gave us a bid for the trunk removal that our insurance adjuster had no problem accepting. On the day of removal, he brought 5 guys (I believe) with him, along with 4 trucks and a stump grinder. It took them less than 90 minutes to get in and get out. Quite efficient, and they all obviously knew what they were doing. But that was where things took a turn. As they were finishing up, I was standing on the front porch watching, with my check for them in hand. When done, Darren came up to me, didn't say much, took the check and that was that. He didn't ask if we were satisfied or if we had any questions, or really much of anything at all. When my wife had mentioned to him (during his assessment visit) the large pile of dirt that the falling tree had "dug up," he told us that his grinding up the roots would cause the dirt to simply fill up the hole, with only a little bit left over. And that small remainder would sink back to normal ground level once the rains came. Well, it's rained 2-3 times since then and the mound hasn't receded one bit. It's quite large. (I waited to write this review until we had a chance to see what effect the rain would have.) It was interesting to us to hear what a concrete contractor (who came by thereafter to bid the driveway repair job) had to say when he saw that mound and heard what Darren had said about it. He said something like, "I wonder if he would have left that pile if the tree had fallen at a public school" (i.e., government-owned and -run property). The answer, obviously, was likely not. Since we're merely private citizens (and getting up in years to boot ?), apparently leaving things as he did was "good enough" for him. We were impressed, but probably not in the way he would have liked. Kind of left us with a sour taste in our mouths. One other thing-----when the stump grinder was finished, the jagged edges of two large pieces of our driveway concrete were suddenly left sticking up on our driveway, which we didn't realize until after they'd left. We are now unable to move them, because most of each of those concrete pieces is buried well under the dirt pile. Darren didn't do anything about it (as his stump grinder was the cause), nor did he offer or even mention it, and so for more than a month now and counting, we've been left with barely enough width on our driveway (until we get the concrete fixed) to move our cars up and down that driveway, without having the concrete edges scraping the sides of our cars. It's a game of inches for us, with a stone wall the boundary on the driveway's opposite edge. We were forced to stick a 6-foot-long piece of dowel into the dirt, with a flag on top, right where the jagged edges are, to help guide our family drivers' car movements on the driveway. And it's still there. So, in that way also, Darren kind of left us in a pickle. Seems as though he really doesn't care about doing a truly complete job.
Would not recommend, strongly. We give 1.5 stars. Buyer beware. read more