Donald Strom Tree Service

Overpriced, dishonest, and unprofessional... I contacted this service on Sept 17 because of the August 10th derecho storm in Iowa; they started "work" about 10 days later, but one of their workers got sick and had to stop. Then, a few days later they came back, and weren't able to finish again. A week later they came back with equipment but said they needed bigger equipment to remove the tree. I had to pay 30% of the job even though they'd only done 10-20% of it. They promised to be back in 10 days (Oct. 13) to finish. I had to track them down via phone on Oct. 13 and they said "a guy" would be there. Since Oct. 13, they have not responded to several phone calls and texts about the unfinished job. Today (Oct. 28), another tree company quoted me a better price for the remaining job, and are doing it today. In the end, I feel like they are overpriced, dishonest, and unprofessional. I would look elsewhere. If they were to refund me $750, I would be willing to amend this review and call it "bad luck and circumstances," but we'll see if that happens.

When in the neighborhood, salesmen came to my door to bid on discounted tree service. I had already contracted with another provider for some tree trimming, but eventually hired them to trim and remove some trees that I had not planned to trim before. They started that same evening and completed all work the next day. Although the sales technique was pretty high pressure, they did a fine job and it was very quickly finished. Only complaint was that I had asked for a load of chips to be left on the property, and that was not done. After calling a couple of times, we decided that this would be done in the Spring as snow had already begun to fall.

efine

Friendly crew -- good work. I don't have a great frame of reference for the price, but we've had this done once before by another company and the price for the time involved seemed pretty comparable. This is a task that I detest doing myself and I don't feel comfortable going too high. They had a good, attentive eye for detail in keeping the tree's shape, so to me it was a good value.

It went very well. He explained what he was doing and why as work progressed. He checked with me during the process to insure they were doing what I expected.

They stopped by to see if I wanted any trees trimmed. They were "in the neighborhood". I asked if they sold firewood. They gave me a price that seemed reasonable, so I agreed to have a face cord delivered. They said they would call me and let me know when they would come out (within the next week or so). They didn't call, but just showed up while I was at work. By the time I got home, it was dark. They proceeded to stack the wood. When I paid them, they wanted some of it in cash so they had enough money for gas to make it home. Maybe they were afraid I was going to cancel my check or something (which I should have done). The next week, I wanted to have a fire, and after grabbing some firewood, I realized that 90% of the wood was poplar! It was also dirty, and most likely green, because it doesn't burn hardly at all. I've left multiple messages but no one will return my calls. I'm glad I didn't have them cut some trees down. They'd probably have ended up on my house! I'm glad I "tried" their service with something this small. If they had given me good service, I was planning on spending a couple thousand to take down a large tree in the backyard. Their loss...