BEWARE!
We needed some firewood, and Crowley Tree Experts is located just 7 minutes from our home so we decided to give them a shot. We set up an appointment for the following Saturday.
Saturday rolls around and there is no call / no show. We texted them to follow up, and they told us they had an issue with one of their trucks and rescheduled for the following day.
The next day, no call / no show again. We texted them back, and they told us they'd come by in 15 minutes.
They did finally come by with the firewood. The dimensions of a face cord are 8 x 4. They partially filled the wood bay we have- about 7.5 x 3- shorting us a quarter of our wood.
The wood they did give us is not seasoned. Properly seasoned firewood should have a moisture content of less than 20%. This wood is so green that it's outside the measurement range for a moisture meter. I found a few pieces near 40-50%, which is still completely unacceptable.
This unseasoned wood doesn't burn. We tried throwing a few pieces on an established fire built with seasoned firewood. It just hisses and pops with all the moisture. Burning unseasoned firewood leads to rapid creosote buildup and other problems for your fireplace/chimney.
This is firewood, not rocket science, so we figured it should be easy enough to fix this with Crowley- after all, they're located only 7 minutes from us. My wife left a voicemail explaining the situation. They did get back to us,and I'm including our text message conversation here so you can decide if this sort of hassle is something you want to deal with when you just want some simple firewood.
Bear in mind this is occurring on a Tuesday, and they are literally 7 minutes away.
Crowley: Got your message. Just leave it there I will swap it out Saturday.
Customer: Saturday isn't soon enough. My husband can drop the wood off for a refund. Are you available tonight or tomorrow?
Crowley: No. That would should burn fine. Try some other pieces.
Customer: We tested several different pieces of wood with a moisture meter, and it is clearly all greenwood. We will be posting pictures of this online along with our one star review.
So first they'll remedy the problem, but we have to wait a week (given their proven history of no calls / no shows, I doubt they had any intention to follow through on this). Then, when a refund is requested, suddenly the wood is fine and there is no problem....
Who needs this sort of headache, just for firewood? There are plenty of reputable firewood sources in the area that sell seasoned wood. Don't be fooled by the low price- do yourself a favor, save yourself the hassle, and choose ANYONE BUT CROWLEY to do business with! You'll thank me later!
