Asplundh Tree Expert

Four guys with 2 trucks milking the job! An Asplundh crew has been working in my neighborhood for the past 3 days. These guys are in no hurry whatsoever. The posted picture shows the results of 5 hours work for the crew of 4, barely enough trimmings to fill a pickup bed. The chipper ran for a total of 8 minutes to chip the downed branches.
What a waste of our utility dollars!
WE Energies needs to crack the whip.
The word «EXPERT» in the company name is a far reach.

Just watched these clowns «trimming trees» over power lines in front of my house. 1.5 of the 2hrs they were working, were spent sitting in their truck texting or God knows what.
Work consisted of cutting down all of probably 10 small branches hanging around the power lines, so there would be no need to let the chipper «cool down». This resulted in 2hrs of on the clock work, which could have been completed in about 30−45min, with water breaks.
Clean up was a joke, my yard, driveway and street now look like a strong storm passed through. A few left over leaves is one thing, but I will now have to clean my yard of branches before mowing it.
Hopefully it was Peco paying for today’s service, but I’m sure one way or another tax payers covered the bill.

I haven’t ever hired Asplundh, but I’ve watched them numerous times, doing work in my neighborhood in Jenkintown and Cheltenham Township, and nearby townships. Most often when I see this company doing work, they’re trimming trees along the PECO power lines.
I appreciate the work this company does to keep trees and branches from falling on power lines. This is important work for safety and protecting human life, and for preventing power outages.
I think though that this company is overzealous and sloppy in their trimming of trees along power lines. Some of the things that I have observed that make me wary of this company:
(1) In Ralph Morgan park, Asplundh contractors aggressively pruned trees along Glenside avenue, but they cut trees down that were nowhere near the power lines. For example, they cut trees down the whole way to the base, both small trees and large, mature trees, when the trees could have been pruned much more sparingly. I’m concerned about the loss of these large trees both because it’s unnecessary loss of natural beauty and biomass, and because their roots hold the soil, and there is already a problem with erosion and mass wasting undercutting Glenside avenue.
(2) In Ralph Morgan park, after their work, Asplundh left large trees, branches, and chunks of wood blocking the footpath through the park. The township came to clean them off the path. Cheltenham Township is not in very good financial shape right now and is grossly understaffed and underfunded for maintaining their park system. Asplundh then returned WEEKS later, and brought lots of heavy equipment, including a large truck with a commercial-​size dumpster, and drove this equipment way back into the park in an area where there is only a footpath. I’m concerned about soil compaction, mud and erosion, and also the noise from all the use of this equipment.
(3) The team doesn’t seem to demonstrate consistent knowledge of the natural size, growth patterns, and growth speeds of trees or shrubs, in how they do work. For example, I’ve seen them cutting medium to small shrubs way back, which are very slow-​growing plants already near their natural maximum size. I’ve also seen them be a lot less assertive at cutting back other species of tree or shrub that are very fast, aggressive-​growing plants. They market themselves as tree experts, but I’m not convinced that many of their employees could actually identify even the more common trees or shrubs.
(4) When I’ve approached the employees about these concerns, on the street, they haven’t interacted with me in a manner that I find respectful. They tell me things like that they’re just doing their job. Some of them don’t seem to speak fluent English. I don’t want employees to tell me that they’re just doing their job, I want them to listen to my concerns, and I want them to pass them on to a supervisor and address the problem. «Just doing your job» can be used to justify anything – look at what happened in Germany in WWII.
(5) In spite of the overly aggressive pruning in some areas, I still see egregious safety hazards being completely ignored by the Asplundh team in others. For example, Asplundh contractors will come through and do one block, and spend HOURS or DAYS on it, cutting stuff WAAAAAY back from the power lines. But then like, one block away there will be trees growing up through the power lines, or with big or even dead branches overhanging the lines, and it’ll stay this way for months. This is ridiculous. I don’t care if they’re hired to do it this way… a competent company would point out that the specifications of the job are problematic, and would shift it so they could use their work more wisely – doing the most good and the least harm.
I want Asplundh to be more sparing in their pruning of trees, but also more consistent, prioritizing the safety hazards, and not overzealously cutting where there is no compelling reason to do so. I also want them to quickly and immediately remove fallen branches or wood that are blocking pedestrian paths. But I also want them to leave large pieces of wood when they cut them in woods or natural areas; the large dead wood is beneficial to the forest ecology, and removing them is unnecessarily costly and resource-​intensive, and the noise and heavy equipment imposes on people who use the parks in which this wood is removed.
I also would love to see Asplundh do more to like, help their employees develop a more holistic understanding of trees, shrubs, and ecology. I want their employees to be made aware of issues like soil compactions, invasive species vs. native species, and to know the growth habits of the trees and shrubs that commonly occur in this area. In this manner, I think they could make much more intelligent use of their resources – they could do less work, but do more to promote safety, while doing less damage to the environment.
This would be a win-​win, everyone would benefit!