It Pays to Shop Around

Chippers Tree Service taking out the hollow, rotting hackberry tree.

After the sticker shock I got for removing the trees, I decided to call a couple of other tree service companies.

I looked up tree services on Yelp for Denton and checked out their ratings. Fortunately, I found a couple of tree service companies that had high ratings and did work in Denton.

The first company was called Monster Tree Service out of Flower Mound.

They gave me a good price for removing the two trees that had to go (the pecan that was touching the house and the hackberry that was in the way of the new addition). He quoted me a price of $1,500 plus tax to take out the two trees and grind the stumps, plus he threw in removing all the brush piles I had accumulated from the trimming I had already done.

Unfortunately, they would not take out the rotting hackberry tree that also needed to go because he said their insurance company wouldn't let them work on rotting trees. Since his price we so good and they could get the two trees out before the deadline that our homeowner's insurance required, I told him to go ahead.

They did a great job and had the trees removed and the brush piles cleaned up within a couple of days from their initial visit to give me a bid.

All that I had left to worry about "tree-wise" was the hollow, rotting hackberry tree that really needed to come down too.

I went back to Yelp and looked through the tree service companies again. I found a comment on one company where a customer had mentioned that the company had removed a rotting tree for them. I called that company (Chippers Tree Service out of Irving) and they sent out their rep to give me a bid. Luckily, they handle rotting trees.

Also, on walking the property with their rep (Varo) we noticed that there were a couple of large branches hanging over our house from the other side of the lot and one other large hackberry tree on that side that was going to cause us problems when we put up our fence since it was way out of alignment with the other trees on that side. His bid to remove the rotten tree, the other large tree that was in the way of the fence, grind the stumps and remove the two large branches that were threatening our house from the other side of the lot was $1,900 plus tax.

I said "do it".

So in the end, after getting an initial bid of $7,000 plus tax to take the two trees that were in the way of the new edition and the rotting hackberry tree, I ended up getting all three of those trees removed, plus another hackberry tree in the way of the future fence, plus two large branches over the house, plus four stump grindings, plus all brush piles removed, for $3,400 plus tax (less than half the initial bid).

In addition, both the companies that I ended up using were licensed and insured (as was the first company) and very professional. Both crews worked efficiently and safely and were very friendly and customer service oriented.

Sometimes, it really does pay to shop around.