The tree service that works for utilities and begins with "A" and ends with "h"... have you found them willing to give you wood? They spent four DAYS trimming four live oaks on my neighbor's yard and, I swear, it seems they should have finished it in a half day. I (and also the neighbor) have never seen such a slow process. There was one guy in the bucket and two on the ground. The guy in the bucket would take breaks often and they'd last 30 minutes or so and he'd just be looking at his phone. And, of course, the ground crew stayed on their own phones, playing games I guess, lol. I can't imagine why it took so long. I have always been pretty impressed with this company for efficiency, but not this time. But anyway, most of the cut material was very small limbs. I asked could I have the limbs/rounds thick enough for firewood. He said yep if the neighbor doesn't want it. I knew she didn't and confirmed it for him. The bucket guy told me to hurry up before the support truck arrived which they haul debris/wood in and has a self-loader. That guy showed up as I was using my chainsaw to cut the big limbs into rounds/pieces me and my helper could lift into my Gator bed. The big stuff was mixed into the little stuff and we had to drag it out. And live oak is as heavy a wood as I come across. I cut fast and we got the wood really quickly to get out of their way. Later, the support truck guy chastised me for being in the 'drop zone' and made us get out of there and commented that the bucket/ground crew guys should have warned me. This hauler truck guy was not as carefree as the cutting crew, was more uptight. This wood we got was from the first two trees, they had not gotten to the other two. When they did (days 3 and 4), they didn't 'save' any of the bigger stuff for me, they just hauled it off. Wondering what you guys find in your area, do they let you have all you want? They did tell me that they haul all of this stuff to a drop site and they are paid for the load. I can't imagine that being profitable, as the drop site is about 30 miles from me. For free, they could have dropped it at the town tree dump site, which is less than a mile from me. I would not think their drop site company pays them much at all. What's up in your area? The biggest disappointment I have had is about two years ago, another tree company, not this one, hauled off a HUGE hedge (osage orange) tree from someone's yard (it fell over from wind) and would NOT let me have the wood. They haul to this same site 30 miles away and are paid. I asked the cutter to call his boss and I would pay him for the big wood and they could haul the little stuff to the free town site! I couldn't pay much but I figured he didn't get much, they didn't act like they get much at all. That site just mulches the stuff. The thought of that fantastic firewood being mulched really got my goat. Especially me being willing to pay. It's rare you see a big hedge like that here. The cutter guy seemed to be on my side but he never came through. He acted like he tried. EDIT: I forgot to add... thank goodness the utility (electricity) finally truly trimmed these trees. They have come here I don't know how many times and they'd snip a few tiny limbs and leave. And then we'd lose power again and again. The neighbor is kind of a mover and shaker in the town and she'd raise cain about them destroying her live oaks. The electric lines went right through the middle of those trees! What a bozo for planting four live oaks directly under utility poles! That was sixty years ago. For this trim job, a manager from the utility came and he talked to the neighbor and told her they would do a full trim this time. I thanked him. They trimmed ten feet all around the electric line. This will help. She really should just cut the entire trees down, they certainly got hacked up and certainly are no pretty now. It's her own fault.
iv just cut 2 ponds the trees were all over it and you could not see the pond at all.i have piles of wood up there the farmer said i could have, and i cant give it away,now over winter the wood will get very wet when the pond fills up.
I don't bother with those guys at all. Not worth it in my opinion. Around here they move as slow as molasses on a cold winter day but they do generally just chip on site.
cutting into firewood is non productive for right of way crews . that same company did bring me 20 truck loads of chips though.
Around here they usually don’t pick up the wood right away. Sometimes for months. Hence I never bother talking to them. IMO they do that because they know Brad will scoff it all up saving them money. Cutting for towns and utilities. The state on the other hand sometimes has subcontractors that will chip or haul within minutes of it hitting the ground. Surrounded by cops and using big equipment. Wouldn’t recommend anyone try and stop for a chat.
I talked to a town contractor here, and he stated that the town doesn't want wood left on the road as no one in that town burns wood (see if that changes after this winter . . .) but that if the land owner or someone was there to pick it up, he'd gladly leave it. The tree guy in my situation knew the landowner where I was cutting, and left the wood off the street for me to get=blessing. Perhaps its company by company: the bigger ones with more equipment might not care for us, but the smaller outfit might be real glad not to chip stuff and move on to the next job. Especially if they are paid by job not hour. So far, all of our scores have been word of mouth. I haven't had to call tree companies to drop wood here or form relationships with them so they'd call me if there was wood they dropped within my reach. I did consider trying to work for a smaller outfit, maybe just as a laborer on weekends, and then go pick up what we leave. SCA
Yeah I’m sure different towns operate differently. Small rural towns around here usually pick up the wood with town crews. Saves them some money to have their own crews do it. And most town crews have several guys that burn and sell. Only the junk makes it to the dump. Only thing they can’t control is when the bossman will let them go grab it. Huge procrastination on that depending on workload and budgets. Being on a town crew is a sweet deal for a hoarder. Use their equipment and be paid for hoarding. Truck it straight to your house. Not bad.
The crew i witnessed the other day was LAZY! They worked a half hour and did nothing for the next half hour. Packed up and left to go dump chips. I talked to the other crew earlier and they explained the prentice truck (thanks to Chud for that term) wasnt far behind, but driver was on vacation. My incentive to get my rear back and grab the nice maple. More there ill grab tomorrow. With Asplundh it can be pot luck. Cool crews or uptight ones. Ill respect their rules and allow them to work. The lazy crew said i was good as long as i stayed on the other side of their cones. One last week was working with a state crew that was driving a dump truck. I left the cut (my Oak Crest score) and will come back later. The Asplundh boss showed up (nice lady) and i had a good chat with her.
Our town in VT was looking to add a pellet stove to the maintenance garage a number of years ago. They decided against it because they always had a good amount of wood on hand from keeping roads passable.
I guess I've been lucky with a couple of the tree services around here. The power company uses A-h for their power line easements, and one crew has hooked me up with some great scores, even coming by the house to let me know that there are some decent-sized trees they're taking down fairly close to me. They also went so far as to ask the homeowner's if I could have the wood before contacting me. Additionally, they've dropped off around 15 loads of wood chips, coming back a few years in a row. Can't complain about that. I don't know the speed in which they work as I don't bother the crews when they're working. There's another tree crew that has dropped off several loads of timber over the last couple years, although in fairness, the owner of that company's father only lives a couple houses away from me, so I consider that a 'local' hook up.
ours doesn't do that, but they should. They don't accept any woody brush or trees. Our town chips everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, and then sells it as mulch. With all the ash trees dying and needing to be handled, I hope they change that policy. I mean everyone loves cheap mulch, but at some pint that's a crapton of mulch
They were in our neighborhood a few months ago. They had a 6 man crew, were here for 6 or 7 days, and got about 3 man-days worth of work done. Really, really, shockingly little got done. Wonder why my electricity bill is high. They left a bunch lay at the neighbors house and I picked it up for them.
I don’t remember exactly what the Asplundh contract is worth, but it’s in the billions. Add in all the other contractors doing line clearance pole replacement, line repair… Captive consumers can’t say nope to power. I watched Asplundh when they came through my neighborhood and wondered if they had a minimum distance to cover daily and noticed what I assumed was the crew foreman sitting in his truck at the nearest shopping center and the chip and bucket trucks sitting idle for most of the day across the street at the school. Maybe they don’t have a minimum distance. I used to feel bad for Asplundh brush monkeys until I saw they get plenty of cab time.
Re: the OP, I was shocked at how little they got done. I'd look over at them and the bucket guy would be on his phone for the longest time, I have no idea what he was doing. It was so often I couldn't make sense of it. And the two guys on the ground, I thought to myself, how in the world can they do this job, aren't they bored to tears? It was the most overpaid crew I've ever seen. And I have never seen any crew other than their company on a utility job.
