And the record has been broken!!

[capetrees]

For all the years I have been in business, regardless of what I have been doing, I have never had a liability issue or damage issue ever. Well, be that record no more!

Saturday, while taking down a tree, I decided to go one step further and trim an additional tree for the homeowner at no charge, something I felt I could accomplish while in the adjacent tree. I trimmed back a branch away from the roof, a small branch, but didn't take the time to cover all the bases. Sure enough, RRRRRIIIIPPPPP, the brach falls to the ground and rips right through the screen door on the porch. $35 later, I fixed the door and as I did, knocked the head of the guys outside shower off the wall. $30 later, after fixing that, I left.

Yesterday, I got a call from a woman, a trustee for a subdivision association, telling me she needed a tree taken down for a view easement. She tells me second driveway on the right, half way up the driveway on the right side is a choke cherry with flag on it. Remove please. I am onsite and describing the tree to her, the tree I see in front of me and she keeps telling me, yes, yes , yes. Tonight I go there and I remove the tree, Once down, I see another tree, another cherry with a flag on it and call to see if i should remove that one too. She asks "What other tree with a flag? There's only one." With a pit in my stomach , I ask, "Am I at the right house, brown house with walkup steps?" "Does it have a lawn?" she asks. No.

Uh-oh. :jawdrop:

Wrong tree, wrong property. It was the FIRST house on the street, half way up that driveway was a cherry with the flag on it!! What are the odds??!! These houses are a quarter mile apart so it's not like I can see from place to place. She tells me she'll work it out with the property owner, it wasn't a specimen tree and it looked as though it had been hacked down by someone recently for the same sort of view easement too so maybe no big deal.

But man, the winning streak is over.

 

[dingeryote]

Fecal matter occurs.

Meh.....

Call me when ya toss the wrong pair of the wifes shoes in the trash.


Bummer dude.

Here's to another Streak of at least 5 years and no injurys!

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[treevet]

I have done the screen thang a few times.

As for the wrong tree removal....maybe offer to plant another tree and maybe they won't take you up on it. Maybe you can claim it. In any case, the tree wrongly removed doesn't sound like it would appraise very high and again, it certainly can be claimed.

Good luck

 

[capetrees]

I've offered to the woman I did the work though to plant whatever the homeowner wants to make up for the loss. The tree that was cut was a wild growing choke cherry, pretty bad shape, all cut up and "trimmed" usually considered weeds around here. Regardless of my opinoin, they may have liked it. I haver other friends in the subdivision so maybe I can get some backup from them as far as credibility.

New rule, meet in PERSON onsite with the person and clearly point out the right tree.

 

[treevet]

I've offered to the woman I did the work though to plant whatever the homeowner wants to make up for the loss. The tree that was cut was a wild growing choke cherry, pretty bad shape, all cut up and "trimmed" usually considered weeds around here. Regardless of my opinoin, they may have liked it. I haver other friends in the subdivision so maybe I can get some backup from them as far as credibility.

New rule, meet in PERSON onsite with the person and clearly point out the right tree.

Take an industrial staple gun and nail it with a marker tape too IMO.

 

[pdqdl]

I sent a crew once to remove an Austrian pine at 1 W xxth st. They spent WAY too long, came back many hours later, asserting that I was crazy, that was a big tree.

Three days later, I sent them back to grind the stump. No problem, but again, it took too long.

The next day I got the call from the fellow that lived at 1 E xxth st. It seems that not only did someone steal his tree, they came back a few days later and stole the stump too. He was pretty good natured about it, and didn't seem too upset.

I got insanely lucky on this; the guy was happy with some extra yard cleanup, and a promise to do some landscaping. Even though I called a bunch of times, he never took me up on replacing the value of his lost tree...A 65' tall hemlock tree, perfectly matched to the beautiful remaining one on the other side of the yard.

I don't want to think how badly that would have turned out if this guy had called a lawyer.

 

[treevet]

I sent a crew once to remove an Austrian pine at 1 W xxth st. They spent WAY too long, came back many hours later, asserting that I was crazy, that was a big tree.

Three days later, I sent them back to grind the stump. No problem, but again, it took too long.

The next day I got the call from the fellow that lived at 1 E xxth st. It seems that not only did someone steal his tree, they came back a few days later and stole the stump too. He was pretty good natured about it, and didn't seem too upset.

I got insanely lucky on this; the guy was happy with some extra yard cleanup, and a promise to do some landscaping. Even though I called a bunch of times, he never took me up on replacing the value of his lost tree...A 65' tall hemlock tree, perfectly matched to the beautiful remaining one on the other side of the yard.

I don't want to think how badly that would have turned out if this guy had called a lawyer.

No offense or anything personal pdqdl, as I have had my share (thank God) but that is what is commonly referred to as "dumb luck".

 

[outofmytree]

Ok, well whilst weare confessing our sins......

I removed a tree for a HO that he called a paperbark. You know how people can be. If you tell em they are wrong they get their back up and you don't get the job no matter how much you know....

I call him after the job is done and realise when he said "next to driveway" he meant next to neighbours driveway........

From then on I meet em on site or they tag the trees. I just dont carry enough glue to put em back together.:greenchainsaw:

 

[tree MDS]

Around here if you put ribbons on trees some other hack will stop by and underbid you by half. True story, I know one guy that had to stop using them because of this.

 

[derwoodii]

Hey your not alone try this 11 trees by local council

Council admits liability for tree removal

9/09/2009 8:53:00 AM
The Bega Valley Shire Council had admitted liability for the removal of trees on a Tura Beach property and has apologised to the owners.
The council failed to check the status of the block and had incorrectly assumed it was a council reserve.

The Jindabyne owners of the Nolan Drive property, Mark Robinson and Joanne Mills, were devastated to learn from their tenant of the unauthorised removal of 11 mature native trees from their property on Monday, August 24

http://www.merimbulanewsonline.com....dmits-liability-for-tree-removal/1618455.aspx

 

[tomtrees58]

its happens tom trees

 

[arbor pro]

take photos!

Since I'm the guy who bids the jobs and also the guy who does the jobs, seldom is there confusion between the two of us. That said, if I was to have someone else do the work, I think I would use a camera and take photos of the house and tree(s) to be worked on. Pretty easy to print out a couple of photos and attach them to a work order for each job. It would also make it easy to discuss each job with the crew if you could point out branches to be removed or shrubs to be pulled out while looking at a photo. It would also be a nice reference when a customer calls back a month after the bid was given to ask you questions about the job and you can't remember what the site or tree looks like.

To take it one step further, a gps-enabled camera such as the Ricoh 500se would capture the lat and long of each photo taken and allow you to print out the location information. It also gives you the ability to enter information about the object of the photo such as genus and species, dbh, etc and print out that information right on the photo (watermark it). So, if it's a big property, this would give you an approximate location within 5m accuracy.

These locations can then be printed, not only on each photo but, also on an overview map of the area showing where each photo was taken. At the very least, it get crews to the right address each time and, on bigger acreages, get them close enough to the tree where they can use the photo to further identify which one it is among others.

These gps cameras are very easy to use and very easy to download, process and map the photos. Cost for the software is about $300. Cost of the Ricoh 500se camera and accessories will set you back about $1500 but it is not your average camera. It is military grade (shock and water prooof) and 8megapixel so it takes great photos. GPS is about $200 of that cost but you could also use your own gps and bluetooth or wifi to the camera.

 

[treevet]

Around here if you put ribbons on trees some other hack will stop by and underbid you by half. True story, I know one guy that had to stop using them because of this.

Good advice MDS. Maybe I start putting the ribbons on the side away from the road.

 

[Curlycherry1]

Confession time here: I put the wrong color roof on the wrong house. Two houses next to each other sold jobs by competing companies. Shingle supplier got both orders and delivered them on the same day, but flip flopped the orders/colors. I showed up, no homeowner home so we started putting the roof on the first house on the left of the cul-de-sac with only 2 houses on it. Homeowner comes home and says WTF are you and why is my roof that color! I should have been at the OTHER house on the cul-de-sac, the one behind the 8' high hedge, putting on the other pile of shingles I could not see because of the hedge. I was told it was the house with the shingles in the driveway. First house I saw on a 2 house cdc matching that description and away we went!

The guy we were subbing for ate the entire cost to reroof the house because he told me specifically to start without a job sheet which was a summary copy of the contract. I got a bigger chewing out by my dad who told me NEVER start a job without the job sheet in hand! He dope slapped me big for that one.

 

[coolbrze]

Since I'm the guy who bids the jobs and also the guy who does the jobs, seldom is there confusion between the two of us. That said, if I was to have someone else do the work, I think I would use a camera and take photos of the house and tree(s) to be worked on. Pretty easy to print out a couple of photos and attach them to a work order for each job. It would also make it easy to discuss each job with the crew if you could point out branches to be removed or shrubs to be pulled out while looking at a photo. It would also be a nice reference when a customer calls back a month after the bid was given to ask you questions about the job and you can't remember what the site or tree looks like.

I'll 2nd this, pics at each estimate I go on.

 

[mckeetree]

Around here if you put ribbons on trees some other hack will stop by and underbid you by half. True story, I know one guy that had to stop using them because of this.

Around here too. You can't mark anything or the #### Mexicans will beat their door down. I had a lady call me last year and tell me "You have the job, don't worry about it, but come get these ribbons off the trees because the winos and Mexicans are driving us out of our minds."

 

[CaseyForrest]

Haha... Ive got one.

When I was in the landscape industry, often times Id run the lawn crews to keep up with the customers to make sure everything the company was doing the customers were satisified with.

Boss give me an address of a new customer to have their lawn added to the weekly rotation. Lawn hadnt been mowed in several weeks. Its right across the street from an existing customer. So, we wrap up the existing customer and head over and mow the new customer. We get all finished up and a nice old lady from across the street comes over and asks if we are going to do hers while we are there.

Boss gave me the wrong house number. Both lawns hadnt been mowed in some time.

Man did I feel dumb.

 

[BC WetCoast]

Around here too. You can't mark anything or the #### Mexicans will beat their door down. I had a lady call me last year and tell me "You have the job, don't worry about it, but come get these ribbons off the trees because the winos and Mexicans are driving us out of our minds."

So now you know what to do when a HO wastes your time with an estimate, ribbon all their trees.

 

[treeoperations]

i havent chopped down the wrong tree but few years ago boss sends me out to do a house excavation,

i read the boudary pegs get my crap sorted measure it out mark it and start digging, im going Great guns absolutly flying i send out 22 truck loads of dirt and just tracking down site access gravel its 3pm.

i pack gear up and look at the boundary peg, OH #### i worked off the wrong side of the peg mega ####.

unload all the gear mark out where its suposed to be and start digging, i finished the cut at 10pm that nite, the neighbours was all filled again just lacking grass.


i never heard a thing about it haha

 

[pdqdl]

WOW ! That's even better than my dumb luck.