In August of 2013, I contracted Davey to prune a few older ash trees in our backyard. When they finally showed up, they did a sloppy job and left a lot of trimmings and bigger branches hanging in the remaining branches and laying around the yard in the grass and in the garden beds.
During the pruining, a very big branch one of the crew members was standing on broke and landed on the power line, knocking out power to our house and starting a fire on my neighbour's fence. I wasn't home at the time, but luckily my neighbour was home and he was watching the activities in my yard. My neighbour grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out his fence fire.
The crew member was dangling from his safety rope and his partner came to the rescue. According to my neighbour, they quickly finished up and left. My wife was home and phoned 311 to report the power outage and damage.
When I got home later that day, the backyard was a mess with branches laying around and debris from my house scattered about. The power line had been ripped from the wall and damaged the stucco and metal fascia.
The City and Enmax were on the scene fairly quickly and did a temporary fix to retore power.
Davey's insurance covered the repair and restoration of power service to my home, which took place in the following weeks. The City inspected and approved the repairs.
Davey's crew finally returned to the scene a week or so later to 'finish the job'. I met the guy who fell from the tree and he was okay but it was difficult to talk to him because he was on his cell phone the entire time. He returned to finish trimming the tree and remove the remaining branches. He chucked the branches over the fence and then drove off. I had to call Davey again to get them to pick up the branches, which they did a few days later.
To make matters worse I received two late payment notices from Davey's head office in Ontario somewhere even though I had spoken to the local office and told them I wouldn't pay until the house was repaired and the job was finished.
I was surpised that they still expected any payment at all given the poor service and damage to our home, our neighbour's fence and our yard.
A nightmare.
I would never use them again and would not recommend them to anyone.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,200.00
- What could this company do to improve their services?
- Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?