Hom, first, see if either company employs ISA-certified arborists. Quite likely they do, so that may be a wash. Next, see if you can discuss the work with both parties. Since you are not well-versed in tree care, it may be difficult for you to learn much by doing so, but a few hints might be dropped as to general professionalism. Maybe ask what they think about "target pruning" (the cutting back of branches to a side branch as opposed to simply lopping it off and leaving a stub) or what their views are on timing of oak tree pruning relative to the oak wilt fungus-(this should not be done during the growing season if oak wilt is active in your area). Sounds to me-and this is really conjecture more than anything else-that both firms may provide satisfactory service. Tree work is among the most dangerous of all occupations, the techniques used have changed drastically since around 1980, and there are indeed gyppo outfits out there that do not know what they're doing. Hopefully, I've provided at least some idea of how to proceed.

+oM

I would get another estimate and see where that one comes in relative to the other two.

I agree with lisanti, a third estimate would probably help to determine if the more expensive company is just trying to charge you more of if the less expensive company is trying to undercut (possibly due to less experience or possibly because they want you to go with them in the future).

Have your neighbors had significant tree work done with them? It might be worth seeing what the less expensive company did for them and how things turned out. The company may be eager for new customers in the area, if they have existing customers in your neighborhood already. I'd normally say it's worth a little extra money for piece of mind if you like the company you're using, but that's very expensive piece of mind (to me, that price would only be justified if they were offering something extra like amazing knowledge on your tree's exact needs). Just my two cents. :)

You might ask each about the mechanics of how they plan to do the job. If one plans to use a bucket truck while the other will strap a set of spikes on his legs. You don't want the latter.

Also compare how each plans to clean up after the job. Does they both plan on cutting, hauling, chipping? That part of the job is expensive in terms of time and equipment.

Have you asked for proof of insurance? He needs to carry insurance to protect your property against damages and to cover himself and his employees against injury.

Here's a useful fact sheet that might give you some ideas, too. Tom and lisanti have important suggestions, too.

i dont know how anyone can tell you anything.. w/o seeing the trees.. and knowing specifically what you want done ...as to cost ...

and this is why you get 3 estimates .... lol ...

i hope we arent talking about topping any of these trees ... else wise.. i have no clue why you need to spend big money on a mature oak or maple... unless they are storm damaged or rotting from the inside out ...

as you can see.. i can dream up a million variables.. and other than cost #s.. you really havent told us what need be done.. and why ...

ken

Hi there - thanks for the helpful replies everyone. Wasn't looking to find out if the costs were reasonable as much as some general advice about how to proceed. Getting a third estimate definitely seems reasonable.

Both companies are fully licensed, etc etc and have been around for 15-20 years at least. I will say though that the breadth of knowledge of the person from the more expensive company was much more impressive.

The work I'm talking about is just some general pruning and maintenance work. i.e. trimming off some dead areas, and balancing some of the branches to reduce the risk of branches coming down. After hurricane Sandy everyone is pretty paranoid about this sort of thing now.

Is this sort of maintenance something that most people recommend doing? At least for trees over or near structures? I am pretty sure that none of these trees have been pruned in at least 10 years.

Thanks again for the help.

H

In my experience this is an area of commerce where wildly varying estimates are the norm.
In all likelihood the $3200 landscaper just thinks you're loaded, and figures he'll turn you upside down, shake, and see how much money falls. I encountered one like that years ago. A real jerk.
"Hom, first, see if either company employs ISA-certified arborists."
There seems to be a lot of certification inflation in our society. Pruning trees, except in very special circumstances, is just not something that should require a 3rd party seal of approval. Not that there aren't terrible practitioners out there, whom consumers should be dissuaded from using. The state of Maryland, for example, requires a very basic kind of licensing for tree removal workers. But the notion that you need a certificate to stop you from doing something either revolting, like topping a tree, or unsafe, is just plain silly. Beyond that, yes there's a certain art to tree pruning, but 9 times out of 10 the homeowner has some concept, right or wrong, of what they want done. That they are going to insist the arborist, ISA certified or not, carry out. Are these people really going to turn down the business? Does doctors having MDs prevent malpractice from occuring? Ideally we'd spend 3 week of intermediate school teaching basic horticulture to every young American so they don't ever want their hideous silver maple tree topped when they settle into the suburbs, (or better yet, don't plant it in the first place) but that ain't gonna happen.

The reason why we might reach for the ISA-certified arborist is that he or she has demonstrated at least a modicum of ability to become educated in the theoretical underpinnings of the very work they perform. Does this automatically prevent all substandard practice? No, of course not, and DRT is right that these days, there are just a lot of certified arborists around, and not every one of them is going to be top-end. But to damn the concept of certification in a business where the basic tech has changed drastically over the past few decades seems a bit reactionary (or something) to me. If anything, the very ubiquity of the ISA-certified arborist these days should be heralded as a bit of progress, not relegated to meaninglessness.

I generally like your level of awareness as to what might reasonably be done with trees. We might often be heard to say that the mature and still healthy tree just doesn't need a lot of attention, but your mention of "re-balancing" indicates that you may have a fairly sophisticated awareness of large tree issues and mechanics. This is a growing area of study among groups like ISA-the treatment of fully-grown trees, up to and including the orderly process of judicious size-reduction of certain leads as weather events and other aspects of the tree's phenology lead to unbalanced plant parts in the crown.

+oM

Here's a good way to explore Davidrt28's analogy about ISA-certification and doctors. Pruning trees is kind of like doing surgery (actually, of course, it is surgery). If you are the kind of person that would trust someone without a medical license to do surgery on your husband, wife, or kids, then maybe you don't need that ISA-certified arborist; after all, living life on the edge may be for you. If however, you want at least a little reassurance that the person you are hiring knows something about what they are doing, then insisting that they are licensed/certified might be a good idea.

Yes, there are a few out there (a small minority in the tree-cutter's world, I can assure you) that may know all they need to in order to do a great job pruning your trees, yet still aren't certified. I'm sure there are people out there that could competently perform surgery on one of your family members but don't have a medical license. Do you want to take that chance?

Most homeowners (some on this forum may be exceptions) don't know how to prune trees. Since they don't know how, they are not able to instruct some rube-with-a-Ryobi in how to perform the job.

David's assertion that an ISA-certified arborist would cave to the homeowner and not perform the job up to standards is not usually how things go! Any decent ISA-certified arborist will take the time, if necessary, to educate the customer on why they can't leave a hatrack in the customer's front yard. David's suggestion is like saying that a licensed doctor would do some botched surgery job, just because there'd be a few bucks in it for them. This isn't how things work! ...at least not usually!

All that said, not every tree job requires an ISA-certified arborist. If you are having a tree taken down out in the middle of your field, that probably doesn't require a huge amount of knowledge about how trees work. Significant pruning on a tree in your landscape probably IS a situation where you want a professional that knows what they are doing.

I can't believe I'm further wasting time on this, but you've managed to completely and rather willfully botch up and misunderstand my analogy.

The point was that even with their "hard-earned" medical degrees...which do require orders of magnitude more time and effort (and I daresay, in some cases, intelligence) to obtain...medical doctors still, at best, sometimes commit unintentional errors, and at worse are guilty of gross malfeasance...in some cases. So the notion that some certification obtained with a few hours here and there of study and taking an exam is going to guarantee excellence from someone holding it in the art of tree trimming, is absolute rubbish. Yes, it will probably reduce the chances of bad work. I certainly agree with that. But so does the basic state licensure I already mentioned. And the bigger, still, point being...obviously lives are not at stake. (except those of the tree trimmers themselves...and that's their problem) It isn't open heart surgery or anything even close to it. I'd much rather have someone charging me $1000 who has basic common sense and an understanding of how trees grow - things which certainly don't require certificates - than someone charging me $3000 who has a certificate. If the guy with the ISA wants only $500 more...ok...it starts to become a reasonable thing to take into account. But still not worth $500 more if he does basically the same job as the non-ISA person did for $500 less. Forget open heart surgery, it isn't even drilling cavities. No, no one in their right mind would pay a non-dentist to drill out a cavity with a dremel...but that's hugely different than the choice of "non ISA certified" "ISA certified" tree trimmers. I'm sure Longwood, Tyler, Morris, et al. managed to take care of their trees for many decades just fine before certification came to prominence.

"...it will probably reduce the chances of bad work, (b)ut so does the basic state licensure..."

...although not nearly to the same degree in most cases. Many state certifications don't do nearly as much to ensure the certification holder has a good knowledge of tree physiology or how to prune for tree health.

"...obviously lives are not at stake."

Certainly there are! The life of the tree and possibly the life of the homeowner! Still yet, not everything worthy of consideration has to be life or death! If the health of your tree is important to you, then so should be the decision of who you get to prune it. There are various ways to ensure (or increase the likelihood of) a decent job, and ISA certification is one of them.