I have a massive kwanzan cherry tree in my front yard that needs a good pruning. Local ISA arborist (Bartlett) quoted me $1920, is this fair for the scope of work? I’m in Philadelphia and these guys are pretty much the only certified arborists that service my area.
by sansmyserif
13 Comments
Get a couple more quotes
Holy smokes! According to the specifications they’re going to reduce/ remove live branches from the entire canopy, a well as branches that fit other descriptions. There won’t be any branches left!
massive rip off. seems small enough to climb and do
edit: sorry for angering the overcharging arborists.
That’s an fnnnn monster…
That’s a massive Cherry tree that’s going to take a long time to prune correctly. The specs are a little thin in terms of detail, but I don’t think that’s a bad price to get that Cherry under control.
That must look amazing in full bloom.
Not an arborist (I just like hanging out here to learn). Should this project be a 2+ year reduction, or can you cut it pretty hard once dormant?
Fair price where I’m at working with a three person crew. Easy half day worth of work. Now if this was a solo job on my own. 1k would do it. Dont let any joe shmoe touch this tho, isa certified arborist is the way
That’s a ridiculous price. Tree business owner here and I wouldn’t land a single job bidding that high.
It’s a massive tree which will take hours to prune correctly. It sounds a little high, but that’s Bartlett for ya!
Yes. I’ve pruned these before when I used to work at Davey, they take soooo long.
$985
How much time do you want them to spend on it?
If that was my tree and I was doing the work myself, I’d probably allocate about four half days to it (20 hours work?) but I wouldn’t do all of the work on the same day. Might spread it out over a couple of years to help the tree adjust to having less leaves.
Wether the quote is reasonable depends how thorough they are. My company would quote more than that.
I suspect they’re worried you won’t accept the quote so they didn’t put much time into it or provide much detail. Most likely if you accept the quote, they’ll just get as much done as they can in the amount of time they’re given. It won’t be enough time but that’s good, because most trees don’t handle having too much removed in one day.