Almstead Tree & Shrub Care Co

I was very pleased with the quality of the work. They arrived on time and reviewed the scope of the work I requested. The spruce and the sycamores were located in tight spaces. Their experience shown through as they tackled the job skillfully. They cleaned up both job sites promptly and thoroughly. I would definitely use them again.

Almstead was prompt and professional. They did a great job.

Trimmed and cleaned trees.

Very well. All went as expected.

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They did everything that we contracted for in one day and left no mess behind.

These guys were great.
1) they came quickly and on schedule to provide recommendations.  Received a detailed written quote the next day.  The crew came as scheduled a week later.  They were on time, very polite.  They cleaned up everything.  I am very pleased with them

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Our landscape looks beautiful. The men were very friendly, responsive to our requests and very professional. We've used Almstead many times. It is our go to tree service.

Great service, fair price- did a great job!

The initial consultation.  The person was on time, and seemed very knowledgeable.  I think he is actually an arbor-ist (not sure what the correct term is). Some of his recommendations were different from other professionals we met with, but I suppose there is more than one "right" way to do things.  We'll see how our trees look next spring! 
The quote.   A bit more expensive than the other 2 quotes we received, but not out of line.  They were all pretty close.  The differences were that (1) both of the other companies said they'd "throw in" pruning some other shrubs and trees whereas Almstead did not.  But what I really liked about their quote was that it was all itemized.  The others were a lump sum, so I had to ask how much we would save if we didn't do one of the items.  Almstead's quote was very clear and made it easy to decide what to do or not do.  The quote was not negotiable, no coupons or discounts for Angies List members, or first time customers. . 
The job. 3 men showed up at 8:25 on the appointed day.  They were organized as to how they approached and divided up the work.  The trees looked beautiful when they were finished. To my uneducated eyes, I think the Pear trees were shaped and thinned really nicely.  The men all seemed knowledgeable about how to selectively prune (rather than butcher) various types of trees. 
Cleanup was good, could have been a little bit better.  And a little more care could have been taken with not damaging the garden.  But I realize that they did have a large amount of pruning to do in a very small area. 
One thing that was somewhat frustrating is that there was a misunderstanding about whether one small tree was included in the price, so they weren't going to do it.  I showed them the quote (it was included) so they did it, which took all of 5 minutes.   Then after questioning whether the one small tree was included in the $2000 job (rather than just going ahead and doing it), they then spent 45 minutes working on a neighbor's shrub for twenty bucks! 
Follow Up & Responsiveness.  Excellent.  Someone from the company called to see how the job went.  And I left a msg for the arbor-ist and we set up an appt to review the work. (Again, he arrived right on time).  He addressed my concerns and answered my questions.  And someone from their office called me subsequently to let me know that what we discussed was taken care of.
Minor quibbles aside, I think they did an excellent job, were professional, knowledgeable and easy to work with.  I would definitely use them again. 

Brian was nice on the phone, came out to quote the job in the fall.  We didn't end up having the work done until the spring.  The crew came and removed the trees.  We wanted to keep the trees for firewood.  They left these huge pieces of the trunk scattered about the yard, basically taking up the whole yard. It looked awful.  We had to pay someone else to come and cut them down and stack them nicely to the side until we could split the wood.  They left huge stumps and never communicated that they'd be back a month later to grind them.  Then one day they showed up unannounced on the property to grind the stumps.  In the process, they cracked a whole section of our slate patio stones.  The communication has been unclear.  We continue to receive invoices though we are disputing because of the damage.  They told me to go through the leg work to get an estimate and never even came to the property to assess the damage.


Update 8/27/13:
Nearly 2 months after the damage occurred (6/29/13), a representative finally came out to the house to inspect the damage first hand. We agreed to a remediation plan in writing for the resolution of this issue on 7/3/13.  To date, this issue has not been resolved and we are still shown as owing a balance to this company.  The representative is unresponsive to emails and phone calls.

Once we called to give a deposit, they were able to come out to do the grinding work in the rain in order to get it done before a party we were having that weekend.  The guys worked carefully of the other plants in the yard and the kids' swingset and also did not tear up the ground with the machine even though it was raining heavily while they were here.  They also came to rang the doorbell when done to tell that they recommended that I wash off our fence due to the dirt and bits of tree that had been ground up.  Got our final bill today and we'll be mailing back the balance tomorrow.

Almstead was quick to provide an estimate.  This estimate was materially below another quote from a competing tree service that I used in the past.  Scheduling was a bit difficult, because I think the estimator was working on a few other larger jobs.  Once the crew came out (on a weekend, which I didn't mind, because I was home), they got to work.  The crew was very nice and open to explaining to me what they were doing.  Also, they cleaned up very well.  The only negative, is that it would have been nice to know that they needed to use my neighbor's driveway ahead of time, as the job might not have gotten done if my neighbor's weren't at home!







Almstead will be my first call the next time my tree needs work.

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Michael Almstead looked at the tree and its surroundings.  He gave me a written estimate at that time.  When I decided to use Almstead's services, Michael scheduled the job at a convenient time.  The crew was punctual, courteous, and efficient.  I was very pleased with the results.

Wow, they were fantastic.  I received a quote from Brian and agreed to it the same day.  He told me when his crew would be coming and there they were.  I had a huge pile of sticks and brush that had to be chipped and thought it was going to cost a lot more than it did.  Since I wanted to keep the chips that they made they simply left me with a pile of chips from the truck and took the chips from my yard.  They also trimmed some stumps that were on my property and did an excellent job cleaning up afterwards.  Super thorough, took their time, and at a great price.

Excellent

Almstead returned my phone call promptly and an appointment was made for a day or two later to assess our needs.
Ed Gulinowski was the arborist who arrived on time on the specified date.  He was very knowledgeable and thorough (I had him look at several trees on the property.)  After we walked the property together, he took some time to study everything on his own and then, to my surprise, rang my doorbell and presented my with a proposal about an hour later.  He also followed that up with an email a few days later to see if I had any questions about the proposal.  I said I was waiting for other proposals before making a decision.
We ultimately went with Almstead because 1) they were the most professional 2) they were the most reasonably priced 3) they were the most communicative.
Ed kept trying to schedule the work, but bad weather kept intervening.  His guys did the job as soon as the weather allowed.  They took one day to do it, they were all very pleasant and answered our questions, and everything was cleaned up afterwards.
Almstead also called a couple of days later to ask us how we felt about how everything went.  That impressed us, too.
As far as we're concerned, Almstead (and, hopefully, Ed Gulinowski) is the only tree service we will ever use.

They charged too much for the application. It was about twice as much as the average and was a little over $100. My lawn was a mess and my neighbors were not and I thought that I would hire a professional lawn care company. They had an agronomist that was on their staff this year and he came out and they took soil samples in which they lost and charged me twice for it. He came out in July and said it was because I didn't water and it was terrible. I've never seen my lawn so bad. He supposedly applied lime and nothing did any good, so it was not a good experience for lawn care. Tree wise they're probably fine, but the reason I called them about the lawn service was because of the tree service I had with them a few years ago in which the guys were nice, were quick, and efficient and the price was right. The lawn service was terrible, so I won't be calling them back although they were willing to come out.

excellent

We discussed every detail from start to finish and put the plan down on paper.   Once the job was done, Bob went over each item with me on the property to make sure it was done to satisfaction.

They were the best price of four providers, they were quick, clean and thorough.  The response time to get a quote was a bit slow, but otherwise, things went great.  I used them afterwards for some landscaping.  Again, they were very good and very responsive.  I am turning my tree care and maintenance over to them.