First Energy offers Professional Tree Care

First Energy (Ohio) tucked a flyer in my last electric bill. They're now offering professional tree care; at least that's what they call it. Is this something new or is it happening in other areas of the country? Here's the website:

https://www.firstenergycorp.com/con...sumer_Products/Professional_Tree_Service.html

Well, they've got crews and equipment. I guess they want to keep them busy. Every company is looking for ways to turn an extra buck these days.


This ought to be scary for you tree guys. If they can schedule residential tree work in sync with their regular maintenance work, they've got tremendous efficienies built it. Tough to compete against them. You guys will have to sell knowledge and quality.

These may be appealing to a few people:
* No money down
* Low monthly payments on your electric bill (FirstEnergy customers)*
* Fully insured contractors

Phil

That's out of control.

What a marketing advantage, being able to utilize the electricity bill! Pay it off on your electricity bill! You have 48months to repay!!!

That is a monopoly that is out of control.

"The rich are getting richer the poor are getting the picture" was the lyrics of a song here by Midnight Oil.

Over here clearance crews are not allowed to poach private work ...

I would be getting right onto the energy minister right away and all tree crews in the region affected should band together and get that tossed.

Corporate America, your future is a number for a large corporation.

In 2005 they had a revenue of $3.6billion and $332million profit. http://abclocal.go.com/wtvg/story?section=local&id=3571901

And here's how they're tracking now.

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Sto...&guid={39FC169E-D160-4881-AA88-1C438F2C004A}&

Try to compete against that! OUT OF CONTROL.

That is total crap! It's bad enough that in Austin I have to compete with kids with chain saws and no smarts, but if the power companies start soliciting for residential tree work here I will probably be forced to either make very little money by underbidding to absurd new lows or go out of business. I cannot believe this! If any of my fellow arborists in here read this post and do not vow to fight this should it come to their towns, then they deserve what they'll get. I'm honestly not sure how to fight back, but I'll sleep on it tonight and try to figure it out in the morning. Very scary stuff.

Don't forget the consumers stake in this. Now the power consumers will be underwriting the tree care business. Will they get a rebate? Not.

Maybe you can fight it from this angle.

Can you see their managers dancing to the beat of "Electric Avenue" as they dance down the hall counting their bonuses?

gasman said:

Don't forget the consumers stake in this. Now the power consumers will be underwriting the tree care business. Will they get a rebate? Not.

Maybe you can fight it from this angle.

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Let me pick your brain------- Expand on this, man.

At the risk of assuming too much

What residential client would want a utility line trimming crew to touch their tree?
All the public sees from their end is line clearing work and all the disfigurement that comes along with that.
It's hard enough to trim correctly when you and your crews do residential on a daily basis...imagine trying to change the mind set on a crew that does repetitive line clearing work to all of a sudden doing a 1" maintenance prune on a nice 36" red Oak.:bang:
In my opinion, not going to happen after those first few customer complaints per district.:jawdrop:

You guys act like this is new. This has been going on for years.

It was done on cinergy property with asplundh and nelson crews 7 years ago.
They even put out strictly residential crews for it.
A few months later, those crews were back on LC.

This is not for the power company.
The LC companies know their poeple are approached for pvt work. this way the crew can sell the work, then rent the equipment from the company. the company gets paid for the use of the equipment (verses it being used anyway behind their backs) and the crew men get the use of the equipment and the insurance.
The other way it is done is the LC company sells the pvt work that the men get, and pay the men their regular wages to do it off utility hours.
It was billed as a way to increase the men's poor payscales. supplement that with more hours.
Its a crock, and most guys are smart enought to figure that out.
It hasn't been successfull anywhere it has been used that I know of.
-Ralph, former LC contract manager for 7 years.

Sunrise Guy said:

Let me pick your brain------- Expand on this, man.

Click to expand...

I'm an not an expert on the utility industry or government regualtion, but these are my concerns.

Utility companies and the public have a trust with each other. This may take the form of price controls, use of public lands, easements etc.

The utility company benefits from using the publics property to make profit. The public gets power and a fair price. If however the money in possestion of the utility company is used for other purposes then what was agreed upon the original agreement may be violated. The utility company may very efficiently run a tree business because they already have trucks, workers, administrative setup, maintainence staff, etc. obviously the list goes on and on. But who really pays for that stuff. The electrical customers. It is the electrical customers who make the whole business possible.

I am sure that the elecric company will say that the tree part of the business is billed for costs incurred to the electric side. However that is likely to be the dirty secret in the whole thing. The books will be made to look good but we all know the largest benefit will go to the managers in the form of a bonus. Some will also add to the health of the company, and I doubt anyone will see the proportional decrease in prices. Yes, the consumers will benefit from a more healthy company, but that is not the main purpose of the move.

Also a company should not be using public money to compete with private tree companies. That is not part of the original agreement.

Obviously this gets very complicated very quickly. You will need to discuss this with professional consumer advocates/lawyers to determine if you have a case.

Talk the the energy department and find out what they say as well. However remember they generally tend to side with bigger business, and don't like to make waves in general. So take what they say with a grain of salt. I'm thinking there must be orgainizations who focus on the consumer advocate angle of the utility industry. Especially after Enron and the California price manipulation flap.

begleytree said:

This is not for the power company.

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I think its true that the company doesn't need the trouble for a coupla mill but, those managers are still getting a bonus for their trouble don't you think?

Maybe its not a big deal or maybe...

What's a fifty cents or a buck out every consumers pocket? Just one or two small tree companies hurt.

I agree with treedoc on this one. After going through and doing row clearance in someone's backyard-those treemen are about the most hated people on the planet by the homeowners. Res trimming is a whole different animal from line clearance.