Arboricultural Contractors based in East London: Applying themselves to all aspects of Tree Work, with passion.
I am a Certified Arborist and I pride myself a little in that. Unfortunately, "Certified Arborist" means little if it is only a codeword for "salesman." The lion's share of Tree Work is accomplished by someone who is not a Certified Arborist and with no Certified Arborist on sight. One might argue that the the guy with the clipboard, "the arborist," has been doing some training with the "non arborists," and therefore they have a better product. This is hard to verify and, from what I have seen, generally not the case. They probably haven't been training at all. Having a Certified Arborist available while the job is being done is very important to the end result. It doesn't really matter if a company has Certified Arborists if they are not available to the customer.
A key point is whether the salesman/arborist speaks the same language as the non-arborists. The language barrier between English and Spanish speakers is a pretty high wall in some cases. I speak Spanish yet I have a hard time communicating technical details critical to safe Tree Work. I side with the Spanish speaking worker here because they are the ones who can be hurt if training is lacking. Make sure there will be someone on your job who speaks English in addition to any Spanish speaking workers.
There is much risk involved in picking up the phone book and calling the tree service with the biggest, most colorful ad. Many companies with strong ethics and customer satisfaction hardly advertise at all. You don't need to rule out the big ads, but make sure there are other criteria that go into choosing a tree service. Traditionally the Better Business Bureau has been a good resource for the consumer, however I am aware of one member tree service that currently has had 39 complaints in the last 36 months. Wow, that's service. Our company, Arboreal, has 0 complaints in the past 6 years.
There are a lot of other companies with the same good track record. As of this writing the best resource available to any consumer looking to hire a tree service is angieslist.com. Right now I believe it is temporarily free to join and it provides a wealth of information on local service providers from roofers to tree services to computer repair. You can't really outwit Angie's list if you are lacking in ethics. She will catch you and make you pay. Arboreal takes care of clients and angieslist.com keeps track of how well. The one and only drawback to Angieslist.com is that at some point she will also make the consumer pay. The $50 annual she may soon charge could save you thousands.
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