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Overheard a homeowner say arborists just 'chop trees for money'
I was doing a removal in Oak Park last Tuesday and the neighbor was talking to my client. She said arborists are just guys with chainsaws who charge too much to cut stuff down. I wanted to explain crown reduction and soil aeration but kept my mouth shut. It got me thinking about how few people know we study tree biology and risk assessment. Have any of you run into this kind of disrespect on the job?
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nancy_wood11d ago
Man, that story just makes my blood boil... I've had people watch me from their kitchen windows while I'm doing a careful preservation prune on a 150 year old oak, and they still act like I'm just making noise. The equipment costs alone are insane, and people forget we're one bad knot away from a hospital visit... It's like they see the saw but not the hours of study or the thousand dollar rigging gear keeping us alive up there. I feel for you, having to bite your tongue like that, especially when you know you could teach them a whole lot about why that tree is worth more than they realize.
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abby_cooper11d ago
Yeah but that's not even the worst part of what she said. The thing about "just guys with chainsaws" really gets to me because it totally ignores the fact that we spend years learning about tree biology, soil science, and proper pruning cuts that actually help trees live longer. I mean, a bad haircut on a tree can literally kill it or make it dangerous for years to come. The whole "charging too much" thing is also pretty off base when you think about the insurance, equipment costs, and the fact that we're literally risking our lives climbing 80 feet up in a bucket truck. Not to mention the hours spent studying tree identification and disease patterns just to know which branches to remove and which ones to leave alone. It's just frustrating when people see the chainsaw and the stump grinding and think that's all there is to it.
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