Ron's Tree Service

I have used Mr.Sanders several times to trim my trees. I have a little under 2 acres full of foliage. He has always arrived when he said he would, had properly working equipment and left my yard no worse for the wear. Trimming my trees usually involves trucks, dump trucks, and cherry pickers. His rates are reasonable for the amount of work involved. Although he may not stay all day, he checks in several times. However, his son and grandson are on the property the entire time. This is a family owned business. I appreciate the kindness and respect his workers show to my elderly mother who wants to be outside supervising( and usually managing to get in the way). This job took 1 full day and approximately 3 hours the next.

The quote we got from Ron's was the best quote we got from a tree service that wouldn't required us to take down our fence for their equipment. They came to the house promptly on the day that they were scheduled to, and they seemed to work efficiently to cut down the tree, which took most of the day.

When they were about 3/4 finished, Ron came to the front door to ask me for payment so that he could take the check to the bank before they closed. I asked him what I owed him -- my husband had been the one to talk to him before, and I wanted to be sure -- and he told me that it was $1,550, but that I should hold $100 back because their stump grinder had broken down and they would have to schedule a time to come back out and grind the stump.

I paid, they finished up that day, and they left without saying anything else to me. I waited about two weeks before calling to see when we could expect them to come outside and grind the stump (which is about six feet across and not inconspicuous in our yard). When I called at about 8 in the morning, a woman answered who I assume was Ron's wife, and who I had clearly woken up with my call. She was very rude before giving the phone to Ron, who was also rude and acted confused when I asked when I could expect them to come back out.

He told me that "it was going to be quite a while," and that I would just have to wait because the part that had broken in their stump grinder would costs thousands of dollars to replace, and he indicated that it had been broken down for a while. He said "I don't know what you want me to do, we don't have the money to fix it right now," and acted like I was being unreasonable and demanding.

Essentially my experience with Ron's is that he came to provide a service under false pretenses -- he knew his stump grinder did not work and that he would not be able to finish the work in any foreseeable amount of time -- and overcharged us. As he didn't respond when I tried to call him last time, we've been trying to seek quotes from other tree services to get the stump grinding done, and it's definitely going to cost more than the $100 he told me to withhold from his final payment. I absolutely would not deal with him again.