The most important rule to follow when hiring a professional tree service is to verify the company’s credentials, training, and insurance before making any commitments.
Heavy tree limbs hanging over your house pose a threat of extensive property damage if they should fall. Lighter branches that encroach on your home also pose a threat as they can encourage mold growth on exterior walls. Damaged limbs and dead trees are both unsightly and, in storms with heavy winds, dangerous.
These Are a Few of the Reasons You Need to Work With a Professional Tree Service
Solving these problems requires significant expertise; these sorts of jobs are always best left to tree experts and professional arborists.
Verify Credentials and Licenses
Companies that unleash poorly trained and equipped employees on your trees can cause a lot of accidental damage.
This is why you want to verify all of a tree company’s professional licenses and other credentials before asking them to work on your trees.
Turning your trees over to unlicensed arborists is a wager that you don’t want to make. In most areas, it’s not even legal to operate a tree-removal service without proper licensing.
Verify Insurance
Allowing an improperly-insured company to work on your property is a risk that far outweighs any benefit the firm’s employees can provide.
The company needs to be carrying comprehensive insurance coverage for both liability and worker’s compensation.
Liability insurance protects both you and the tree service by covering the cost of any damage accidentally incurred on your property. Without it, you’ll be left without recourse in the event of an accident.
Worker’s compensation insurance is even more important for tree services. Without proper insurance coverage, you might find yourself financially responsible for any health care costs incurred by a worker who hurts himself while working on your trees.
Worker’s compensation insurance protects you from the financial cost of accidents as well as the legal responsibility for them; you could find yourself subject to lawsuits if your tree company operates without worker’s compensation coverage.
Get Referrals
Referrals are vital to the process of picking out a service business to work on your property, and tree companies are not exceptions. Aim for specific referrals from your prospective company; if at all possible you want to speak to past customers who have had work very similar to your own done by the company.
Because any accidents that occur during tree trimming and removal are likely to be both costly and dangerous, you want to do everything you can to verify the competence of your service before hiring them.
Besides checking with the past customers they refer you to, you should also look for online reviews to get a complete picture of how the company treats its customers.
Secure an Estimate
You should never let a tree company start working on your trees without securing a cost estimate – in writing – first.
If a company is at all hesitant to provide such an estimate on demand, it’s a serious warning flag that you should heed. Companies that shy away from estimates are likely looking for ways to inflate your bill and charge you more than you want to pay.
Break Down Pricing
Different tree companies break down their services differently when they’re pricing jobs. Take the time to study their estimate carefully. Ask questions to clarify what is and is not included in the work proposed.
Many tree-removal services charge an additional fee for stump grinding, for example, while others include this service as part of an “all in one” removal fee.
Learn the Equipment
This is an area where the internet is a lifesaver. Study up on the work you need done and develop a basic understanding of the sort of equipment required.
Honest tree companies that don’t have the equipment your job requires will turn you down – but untrustworthy ones will take your money and then do a shoddy or dangerous job.
Understand Your Needs
When you’re considering your options in tree service companies, learn the specific challenges your own job requires.
Does your company have to have access to stump-grinding equipment? Do you have extremely tall trees that will necessitate a crane? Equipment requirements may narrow down your choice of tree services.
The Value of Training
As mentioned above, training and experience matter when it comes to taking care of trees. Ask about the backgrounds of the employees who will be working on your property.
How much experience do they have? Does the company have an arborist on its staff?
You can find all these reasons with SCS Tree Service.
Contact the best tree service provider in Georgia.
It’s great to know more about hiring a professional tree service. I like how you said that we need to verify all of the company’s licenses and other credentials before hiring them. We need all of our trees pruned, so I’ll make sure to do that research.