greener pastures
ArboristSite Lurker
First time poster, long time lurker on this great site. Apologies for the very long post. Made some mistakes hiring a crew the other day but mainly looking for input from professionals on expectations. And please don't flame me for being naive.
We had some big trees removed from our lot during the last two winters by a professional arborist when the ground was good and frozen. We have been talking about renting a stump grinder to finish the job during the summer but some of the large stumps were absolutely dauntingly.
This time of year my wife and I are working around our mini-farm from sunup to sundown on weekends, and during a water break on Saturday a young guy and a helper drove up with a rental grinder trying to sell their services. As a general rule we never hire anyone without a reference but we also realize "you gotta start somewhere."
Apparently they had been working for a neighbor and still had the rental, and he had told them we had tree work done and might want the stumps removed. He did not have a set price per inch, but wanted to see each stump and gave us a discount on each additional stump we came up with. When I asked how he set the price, he said he had to cover his rental of the machine at $230 a day but kept saying "these are really good prices" even though we weren't even trying to negotiate. On some of the really big stumps he said they needed to be sawed down but his saw wasn't big enough. I thought about sawing them down myself but I had a ton of bare root perennials and trees that needed to go in the ground ASAP. We finally agreed he could use my saw (with me watching out of the corner of my eye) in exchange for a break on the price (this actually worked out OK but was a mistake). But I made some other mistakes.
1. No written estimate with exact description of what was to be done and when.
2. No confirmation of insurance (turned out not to be an issue but we should have gotten this)
3. Use of safety equipment (ditto)
So we ended up hiring these guys to grind 12 stumps (some small, a couple really big) not on price but because we just wanted to check something off our 2-page to-do list. Being the weekend we could keep an eye on them as well. I work from home and it is incredibly distracting to have contractors on site during the work week.
I looked straight at him with a smile and said, "and you're gonna do all this today?" because it seemed like a ton of work and I've run a stump grinder before. He said "well yeah" and they would get to work right away (I think it was about 11 AM). And they got through most of them by 530 when they quit for the day.
He said he would be there between 9 and 10 on Sunday morning to finish up. He asked for a partial payment and I agreed since it easily covered what they had done so far. They left all their equipment.
They never showed on Sunday which I thought was strange since he was paying for the rental.
When they showed up on Monday at 11 AM I asked what happened he said they were "too burnt out," and "it was a Sunday." They were late Monday since they had "forgotten the key" and had to go back. I told him he should have called and he responded "but I don't have your number." When I reminded him it was on the check he replied that it was "long gone." We had a lot of back and forth about how to run a business, and he said "hey I'm just a private individual."
When he said I was being "petty" I told him to pack it up and go. We had a disagreement about what I owed since I thought he promised an additional stump in his quote. We finally agreed on a price and he left.
So my question is this, was I expecting too much for him to work on a Sunday? I just don't understand his response since he had even told me what time. And how can he afford to keep that machine idle an entire day?
We had some big trees removed from our lot during the last two winters by a professional arborist when the ground was good and frozen. We have been talking about renting a stump grinder to finish the job during the summer but some of the large stumps were absolutely dauntingly.
This time of year my wife and I are working around our mini-farm from sunup to sundown on weekends, and during a water break on Saturday a young guy and a helper drove up with a rental grinder trying to sell their services. As a general rule we never hire anyone without a reference but we also realize "you gotta start somewhere."
Apparently they had been working for a neighbor and still had the rental, and he had told them we had tree work done and might want the stumps removed. He did not have a set price per inch, but wanted to see each stump and gave us a discount on each additional stump we came up with. When I asked how he set the price, he said he had to cover his rental of the machine at $230 a day but kept saying "these are really good prices" even though we weren't even trying to negotiate. On some of the really big stumps he said they needed to be sawed down but his saw wasn't big enough. I thought about sawing them down myself but I had a ton of bare root perennials and trees that needed to go in the ground ASAP. We finally agreed he could use my saw (with me watching out of the corner of my eye) in exchange for a break on the price (this actually worked out OK but was a mistake). But I made some other mistakes.
1. No written estimate with exact description of what was to be done and when.
2. No confirmation of insurance (turned out not to be an issue but we should have gotten this)
3. Use of safety equipment (ditto)
So we ended up hiring these guys to grind 12 stumps (some small, a couple really big) not on price but because we just wanted to check something off our 2-page to-do list. Being the weekend we could keep an eye on them as well. I work from home and it is incredibly distracting to have contractors on site during the work week.
I looked straight at him with a smile and said, "and you're gonna do all this today?" because it seemed like a ton of work and I've run a stump grinder before. He said "well yeah" and they would get to work right away (I think it was about 11 AM). And they got through most of them by 530 when they quit for the day.
He said he would be there between 9 and 10 on Sunday morning to finish up. He asked for a partial payment and I agreed since it easily covered what they had done so far. They left all their equipment.
They never showed on Sunday which I thought was strange since he was paying for the rental.
When they showed up on Monday at 11 AM I asked what happened he said they were "too burnt out," and "it was a Sunday." They were late Monday since they had "forgotten the key" and had to go back. I told him he should have called and he responded "but I don't have your number." When I reminded him it was on the check he replied that it was "long gone." We had a lot of back and forth about how to run a business, and he said "hey I'm just a private individual."
When he said I was being "petty" I told him to pack it up and go. We had a disagreement about what I owed since I thought he promised an additional stump in his quote. We finally agreed on a price and he left.
So my question is this, was I expecting too much for him to work on a Sunday? I just don't understand his response since he had even told me what time. And how can he afford to keep that machine idle an entire day?
