The Davey Tree Expert Company

After the large July storm, I had a very large branch down in my front yard. After a couple of quotes, I chose Davey, as they were the cheapest. The quote for the work was broken into two sections. The first was to remove the branch, trim the damaged limb, etc. The second part was to install support cables on the remainder of the tree. I was told to line through the parts of the scope that I didn't want (if any) and email a scan to them to proceed with work "in about 10 days." I made a poor quality scan, unfortunately, and on it, both my lineout of the cable portion of the work and my signature are barely/not legible. I emailed in the scan as an attachment, with the text of the email reading "Attached is the scanned signed copy of my estimate. I'm <name> at <address> What you probably can't tell by the poor scan is that it is for the $582 top portion of the quote only. We're going to wait on the cables. Let me know if there's any questions." I received an acknowledgement that the email was received that contained no request for clarification, then waited. After 10 days, not only was the work not performed, but I had not heard from anyone to schedule it. I contacted the rep who quoted the work (whose name I do not remember and is one of the few things that did not make it into my notes), and was told the work would be done "on Monday." Monday came and went, and no one arrived to do the work. I contacted my rep again and was told that he had clearly told me that it would be the following Monday (a week from that day) when that was definitely not the case. A week later, the work team arrived. I was at home and asked them if they had any questions about the scope of the work. I was assured that they did not, so I let them alone while they proceeded. The removal and trim work was of high quality. I did not notice it at the time, but not only was the trim and removal work performed, but the cables were installed as well. A couple of weeks later, I got a bill for both portions of the quoted work (i.e. including the cabling). I called the local office and talked to Dave. He told me that the computers were down, so he couldn't do anything about it, but he'd pass that on. A week later, I had not received any contact, so I called the local office again and spoke with Dave a second time. He remembered me, but admitted that he hadn't passed on my info. I was then forwarded to the voice mail of someone in accounting, where I left a message. A couple of weeks later, I received another bill in the mail that said that I still owed on both portions of work. I sent in a check for the amount that I had authorized, then called the local office again, where this time Dave forwarded me to the voicemail of my rep. To his credit, he eventually called me back and left a voicemail, but by that time, I had given up on trying to go through the local office and contacted corporate customer support in Ohio. On the first call to corporate, I explained my side of the story, and Barb took down notes into my file. Some weeks later, I got another bill for the cable amount (as it correctly showed the cleanup amount as paid.) I called corporate customer service again and was assured that if I had contested the item, I should not be receiving bills for it. Over the following months, I called corporate a number of times, until eventually I figured out that we were stuck in a do-loop. Step 1 in the loop would be that I would contest the charges. Step 2 is that the dispute was sent to the local office. Step 3 is when the local office would rule against me without contacting me to hear my side despite my insistence on repeatedly disputing the charge. Step 4 was no one at local or corporate advising me that I had been ruled against, and then I would get billed again. At some point in the process, I stopped calling them weekly and they even sent me to collections. I asked for the extension of the head of corporate customer service and twice left her voice mails explaining my issues. She, like everyone else, did not bother to call me back. I also submitted a complaint through the website and specifically asked that I get some assistance in my dispute with the local office. I was never contacted regarding this. Eventually, I got Kevin at corporate customer service to get the charges dismissed, but only after at least a dozen phone calls and close to 6 months. When I finally did get the charges dropped, I was called by Lisa at the local office and assured that the miscommunication was entirely my fault and, in a voice dripping with disdain, bid me to enjoy my FREE cables that she was doing me such a favor to grant. I will freely admit that my original scan was confusing, but I called attention to it in the original email and there were multiple opportunities for anyone on their end to clarify the scope of work before it began. I'm also not sure that my signature (which authorized the work) was any more legible than the lineout, but they all took it as gospel that the signature was there but the lineout was not. Had I been treated with any level of respect at the onset of the dispute, I probably would have split the cost of the cables with them and called it an honest misunderstanding. Instead, I got ignored almost every time I tried to contact them, and was ruled against without being told at least three times (I stopped counting). After I posted a summary of this experience here, I was contacted twice by a representative of the company to verify my ID (my spouse and I have different last names). That is larger the sum total of calls that I got from them during the entirety of my 6-month dispute that saw me begging for someone to contact me. After being ignored for many months, this infuriated me so that I wrote up this longer, more detailed post about my experience. This is too crowded of an industry for any of you to take a chance on this group.

Very good experience. We were very impressed with Michael's appraisal of necessary work. Their estimate was below several others. Crew showed up when scheduled, and they were very professional, efficient and skilled. Among other work, they took down a very large oak in a difficult location with no damage to nearby fences or other vegetation. No problems whatsoever.

They are somewhat expensive, but great work so it's worth it. I have used them for several years and will continue to do so.

The Tree was removed and about a week later the stump was ground up. Nothing better than paying for quality work. We have referred Derek and Davey tree to family friends and they always have done a great job at a good price.

Davey tree came out to do an estimate for tree pruning for several trees in the yard. They spent about one hour with us going through the yard, and then gave what we considered a fair estimate for pruning. They said they would begin the work in about 7-10 days and would call with a firm start date. WE NEVER HEARD FROM THEM AGAIN. Unfortunately, we lost our favorite tree in the front yard in the derecho - had it been pruned, it may have better withstood the winds. Needless to say, we were very disappointed in Davey Tree and will never use them again.

The tree trimming and work to our maple tree went very well. The crew was very professional and asked if I was pleased with the shape of the trees after trimming. The problem's started when I tried to get the company to come out and grind the two stumps left behind. The crew that did the removal told me another crew comes out for that part. Unfortunately we had a period of wet weather that made the stump removal impossible (spoke with Mr. McDaniel on 12/8/11). We went through the winter and spring and never heard back from Davey and in June I called to schedule removal. Unfortunately I did not write down that date. Mr. McDaniel told me that they had had some issues with their equipment and should be able to get out to do it soon. I arrived home one day to find orange makings in the lawn indicating where the utility lines were located. We were hopeful that they would be out within a day or two. Days passed and the stumps remained. I called again last week and Mr. McDaniel said they were still having equipment issues but said they would be out on 7/23/12. Once again the utilites were marked and Monday came and went without any call from Davey. I just left Mr. McDaniel a message telling him we were no longer interested in using his company. I would have hoped to at least receive a call from the company if they were not able to come out. I understand there is more money to be made with storm debris removal but they have lost my business for repeat tree trimming and the business of anyone I would have recommended them to. Although the initial work was great this has left a bad taste in my mouth.

On Tue, June 5, 2012 at 10AM Davey Tree Company of Chantilly arrived in front of our home and took over our life for the day. We live in Alexandria Virginia's North Ridge community and the Davey Tree crew came to do their work on a property next to ours. As they pulled their massive equipment in (parking a crane on top of the home's fragile yard where a damaged gas line exists), along with two trucks, one with a chipper that they parked in front of our yard, they began a day-long job. Needless to say, I immediately called Davey's Chantilly office at 703-297-3002 and expressed our concern to Dave who answered the phone. I asked Dave to help move their equipment that was unnecessarily blocking our sidewalk and the front of our home, and I asked several times to have the arborist return my call because of the crane being parked on the front yard lawn of 816 Crescent Drive directly over the natural gas line (and other issues). After waiting a few hours and not receiving any call backs from Davey's, I then made several more calls, requesting that the arborist call me, all to no avail. At approximately 1PM I called and was told that the arborist finally talked to my wife at my home around 12-noon saying they would be done with their work in an hour. That was not true. Around one-o'clock they pulled their chipper equipment and truck up a very narrow 8-foot wide driveway that is directly on my home's property line (they then parked the chipper on the driveway approximately 10 feet from our living room windows). I again called the Chantilly office to ask what was going on and to express my concern that this big equipment was not appropriate on such a narrow driveway so close to our home. Their work went on. Chipping up much of the debris that they didn't want to haul to the front yard, as well as blowing a great deal of dust and debris toward our home and yard. When I inquired with Dave at the Chantilly office yet again, asking to have the onsite arborist call me, Dave got testy and hung up on me. My wife, who was at home witnessing these events, then also called Dave, and after a brief discussion, Dave hung up on her. Finally, at approximately 3PM, my wife looked out the living room window and saw that they were finishing their work, and cleaning up, by blowing the wood chips off the driveway, and into our backyard brick patio!!! That was the final straw, and I called Dave back again and said, "Please give me your corporate telephone number", which he did, and before I could say thank you, he hung up on me yet again. So, while Davey may have technically done their job today, you did absolutely a zero job in promoting their ability to work with residential customers and the local office also got an absolute zero in their customer relations. I am appalled by Davey's Chantilly office. Finally, after arriving home this evening, and spending almost 3-hours cleaning up the dust and debris in our yard, I looked at the neighbor's yard and noticed that in fact their yard was very badly damaged by the large crane that was parked on the yard over the natural gas line. The yard had ruts that were very deep and wide crossing the yard. I hope there is no damage to the natural gas line, but if there is damage, I was very clear in my warning as I expressed my deep concern about the use and location of this very large crane by your office in Chantilly. They clearly ignored my advice and continued to do what they wanted to do.

We were very satisfied with the service. They arrived at 8:30 am, but waited until 9:00 am to start working so the neighbors wouldn't be disturbed. They took down the tree which had a circumference of 14 feet, and took down a smaller tree along our driveway in less than 1 day. They removed all debris and cleaned up. We wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.

they did an excellent job pruning my trees.

The spring mulching, edging and clean-up went very well. I was so pleased with the work I even tipped the workers who came out to perform the services. I was very pleased with all aspects of the job.

They were very courteous. They gave me a good detailed estimate and recommendations on what they thought should and should not be done. They were very prompt when they came to perform the work and they did an excellent job. In fact a neighbor asked me who I used because they thought they did a good job. I am going to use them again.

The one thing was that I wish I knew they were coming. They called me this morning and came after lunch. I wish they gave me a little more lead time. They took all the dead wood out and they said they were going to. They hauled out all those branches and they had the shredder truck so they did that right in front of the house. All the branches and leaf and twigs that were just on the yard and we had not done. They were all taken care of. The hollies look good they were looking a little unruly before. I think it was an even price, as we did not do a lot of price shopping. When they said they were coming in a couple of hours, they were here in a couple of hours. Nothing was left lying around. The man that first came out and looked at the property and everything was an arborist, that what we were most concerned about because we wanted to make sure our trees were healthy and not dying or falling on our house due to heavy snow and how to get them out of the yard.

They were not the cheapest estimate, by far. They have a very good local reputation so we used him. They were on time and did the work. The clean up was amazing. My patio was cleaner after they left than it was before they got there.

They are really very good at taking trees down. It is all good, they always show up on time, if they see something that we should see, they will point it out to us. We will continue using them in the future for any of our tree work.

Derek McDaniel is completely professional, as are the men who cut the trees: Jamie, Ernesto, Israel and Jesus. There were other men who worked on this project, but I did not get their names. To our tremendous relief, the men worked very carefully - in a rainstorm! - and no one was hurt, the tree was taken down with no great damage to the land. This was because they climbed the tree and cut it section by section by hand. We now have a huge pile of rounds to split for firewood. It was not easy to aim the huge pieces of the trunks to fall within the work area designated. The area they cleared of invasive shrubs moves us ahead in managing our yard for wildlife and beauty. We appreciate the sensitivity they showed toards the raccoon in the tree, and towards our every concern.

The price they gave was very high, so I did not use them. They quoted me $1100 and someone else did the job for $200.

They were great, had the best bid of all the companies we looked at, and the only issue was a scheduling issue that was quickly remedied by the company.

It was a reasonable price but they were a little bad about scheduling appointments.

I called the company for estimate on tree work. Representative came out and first promised immediate estimate. Then he said he needed to check with colleague. Estimate was never sent. I called twice to follow up. No response. Don't waste your time with Davey's.

Davey provided timely and best estimate for the job. While scheduling was a minor issue they did meet the dates that were provided to me. The crews were very professional and answered all my questions as work proceeded.

The workers were great. They were very knowledgeable and really seemed to know their business. They were very prompt and cleaned up after themselves really well. I would recommend them to others. I would rate them highly and would use them again in the future if necessary.

We have always had a great experience with this company. My yard always looks amazing as they have provided care for several years now. They are always professional and clean up after their work. The price is always good and we never have any complaints. I would recommend them to anyone in the future looking for great lawn care.

We called several companies for estimates to remove this dying tree (70ft. tall white oak). Davey came in with the lowest price, almost half what the other guys wanted. The job required a crane, so we had to relocate a newly planted tree and a rose bush in our front yard. The took the tree down and hauled away all the debris. Couldn't be happier with the results.

I like their price and service. They are professional. They do a handwritten note when they do their work and go. They are generally responsive.

He took a look at the tree and the house where the tree would be relocated to. Then give me an estimate. The price is reasonable but I couldn't afford it. He gave me a good advice and I learn a lot from him. He is very honest and professional.