Today's Tree Service, Inc.

Three years ago I hired Today's Tree Service to fix a tree that had formed a split in the primary crotch. The owner/arborist [redacted] quoted me for installing 2 cables and a bracing rod. He peformed the work while my wife and I were in the hospital for the birth of our daughter. When I got back home, I noticed there were 3 cables and no rod. He told me this was the best way to support the tree. A little over 2 years later, two of the cables had pulled out and the third cable had stretched opening the crack further. Upon further inspection, the eye bolts that were used to fasten them had bent and broke. I placed phone calls every couple weeks over the course of 8 months. Intially, I was going to pay him to repair. As time went on I deceided to do some more research on the repairs. ANSI 300a part 3 is the spec that covers supplemental bracing of trees. I purchased the standard and discovered that all the work he did was performed improperly. The reason the 2 cables that failed came down was that he did not load the eye bolts in an axial direction to the cable. This is clearly defined in the standard and was not adhered to. This put a side load on the eyebolts ultimatley leading them to fail. Once the upper cables had failed, the lower cable stretched for two primary reasons. It was undersized for the location in the tree (for the size branches it was supporting it would have required to be 1/2" common grade or 5/16" EHS cable. 5/16" common grade was used). In addition, he used cable clamps on all the cables to secure them. The standard clearly states not to use cable clamps on any cable over 1/8". Thimbles were not used in any location. Once again, against the dirction of the standard. After learning this, I still reached out to speak to the company to see if we could come to an agreement of any sort and they would not return my phone calls. About 4 weeks ago I arrived at work and they were trimming trees on the property. I spoke with the foreman and gave him my card and phone number to please pass along to the owner. Once again, no reply. The bottom line is that I paid this company $700 to fix a tree and they did so improperly (I also had to pay a fence company $400 to pull down and reinstall a fence to allow access for the tree equipment). So I paid $1100 for a substandard job. I then had to pay another $650 to complete the job myself. This time all hardware and technique was up to standard. I replaced all 3 of his cables and installed 3 brace rods. Very dissapointed with the entire process.