Response from 3n1 Tree Service
Ma'am, thank you for leaving your feedback. I see that you feel our estimate to cut down one tree is excessive. We have a "Pricing" tab on our webpage that details why tree work is so expensive for legitimate, fully insured companies. In your specific case, Farmersville is a 45-minute drive each way from our company headquarters in Beavercreek. Therefore, the logistics/mobilization costs are quite high. We provided a free estimate, which is not free for us. That estimate required my estimator to drive a company truck an hour and a half round-trip. That cost, along with his hourly pay, is a sunk cost for our business. If we had gotten your project, we would have experienced a high mobilization cost of placing 3 trucks on the road for the hour and a half round trip. Now that the costs of the estimate and mobilization are accounted for, we have our crew labor to account for which is over $100 and hour. Then, we have the variable costs of fuel, topsoil, and misc expenses. The overhead costs are very high for a tree service. Marketing alone can be several thousand dollars a month. Then, we have insurance, worker's comp, taxes, and many other overhead expenses. One of the other cost drivers that is often overlooked is risk. From what I understand, you have a tree that is dangerously leaning into other trees...that is above a horse fence. My estimator told me that we'd have to spend an hour or so securing the tree with ropes before we even begin the cutting/removing portion of the project. I grew up on a farm and I understand the cost/benefit of performing project on your own versus hiring a company. If the fence damage is the only concern, then I understand that it would be much cheaper on a personal level to remove the fence, cut the tree down, and then replace the fence. I do appreciate you calling us for a free estimate. I hope I was able to shed some light on our pricing model. I'm not sure if you got competing estimates from other companies with a similar mobilization challenge. As for the estimate we provided, we stand by it as fair and reasonable. Thank you again, 3n1 Owner