Hacks in utility arboriculture?

[treeman82]

I know that every industry has their share of hacks, but I didn't think that utility companies were very tollerant of them. For the past few months I guess? Asplundh has been working around here like mad doing line clearance. For a while though I did not see them around here... several years I believe. They had Tamarack for a year or two, and then about a year ago they got some little company. I saw this company out doing line clearance for at least 1 or 2 towns. From my understanding of things, Tamarack and Asplundh usually has 2 or 3 bucket trucks working in one spot. This company did not have one bucket truck at all. I believe their equipment consisted of; a brand new Morbark 2100, a several year old Ford F350 type dump truck, a small, old Toyota or Nissan pick-up, and an OLD makeshift logging truck.

How could these people have gotten the contract for the clearance work when they clearly were not properly equipped for the job? I know that lowest bid is what they are looking for... but there has to be a point at which they say "you are too low," no?

 

[TREETX]

I interviewed yesteday with a company that does utility work in addition to tree service work.

They informed me that when doing utility work, spiking on pruning was mandatory

Next please.....

 

[Tom Dunlap]

What is the quality of the work they do? If the work meets the standard the equipment is meaningless.

A company that has great equipment and does hack work would be a "Cowboy without a herd"

Why are you calling them hacks?

Tom

 

[NeTree]

I worked for Asplundh in "old money" neighborhoods, so out work HAD to be good. I also had the befefit of a bunch of guys who really took pride in their work.

Guess I had it easy?

 

[treeman82]

Tom, I honestly don't remember the quality of the work they did. I do remember the way in which they actually carried out the work... and that was not as good as Asplundh. I am calling them hacks for the simple reason that, that was the only equipment I ever saw them using. Meanwhile, when Asplundh or Tamarack is working around here, you see LOTS of trucks parked along the sides of the roads. So the basis for my arguement is that they got involved with something that they had no business being involved in.

 

[MasterBlaster]

When I worked for Asplundh, in the early 80's, I was a card carrying hack... thats for sure!

 

[Smeagol]

I worked for an asplundh crew that averaged one serious injury a month, young masters. When the real guy left, they promoted an absolute moron with no training or skills to be the foreman, and never once came down to check him out.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Were you ever part of those accident statistics, oh Skinny One?

 

[Smeagol]

When you falls out of a tree, it hurtsssss, young master!

 

[Guy Meilleur]

Originally posted by Smeagol
I worked for an asplundh crew that averaged one serious injury a month, young masters.
And how many bucket trucks did they have? No connection between vehicles and work quality. From 85 to 91 my main gig was contracting for the fed.housing authority. I was low bid because A. I was not racist so one of the few who'd work in the projects, and B. low overhead, which means no big payments on mechanical crap.

I had an F150 and a 6" chipper and subbed log hauling. Did good work and made good money. hacks do bad work, no matter what they drive. bucket trucks can be a major, destructive crutch. I did a training for a city crew once; came back to them after lunch and found their boss had sent them on a politically urgent job, getting a pecan branch away from a roof. They were about to cut their way thru many other branches on the tree to get to the offending branch when I told them to take down the bucket. 15 minutes with ladder and polesaw and it was done. So in that instance bucket truck = hack.

When the real guy left, they promoted an absolute moron with no training or skills to be the foreman, and never once came down to check him out.

And how many bucket trucks did that crew have? Last utility crew I worked on, my ground man went from foreman to supervisor in less than 6 months. Knew absolutely noting about trees, jsut showed up early to shmooz the brass, and spent much of his time boasting about the size of his, er, equipment. Rose to the level of his incompetence; the Peter Principle at work, you might say...

 

[OutOnaLimb]

The first climbing job I got when I moved back home to Colorado from Georgia was on a transmition line clearance crew for Asplundh working in the Rocky Mtns on a 250kv transmission line that fed power from Utah into Denver. We exclusively were working in the mountains and national forest, climbing (spiking) lodge pole pines and spruce. and then topping said trees so that they would not grow into the transmission line. There were a few times that we actually had to use mules, (yes mules) to haul saws, ropes, fuel and other gear up the mountain and to the power line. We would drop the tops and a ground man would saw them up so that they we no higher than 18 inches off the ground. The bunny huggers here liked that better than clear cutting under the lines. Our crew consisted of 3 climbers 2 groundmen, one of those 6 wheel drive ATV's, a truck and trailer to haul said equiptment. and a 32 ft camper, a 16ft pop up camper for us to sleep in for the 4 days we were up in the mountains camping out in the National Forest. (we worked 4 ten hour days.) and the occasional mule or pack horse to haul our gear. We were in spikes for ten hours a day and then went home to a cold camper with no shower and did this day in and day out for the whole summer. Us climbers made, 12 bucks an hour and the ground men made 8. But you know what? Excel Energy paid Asplundh 4.5 million for that year of line clearance work on that 35 mile stretch of line in the Colorado Rockies.
Who needs bucket trucks when you have horses and mules right. ?

PS, I am now not a big fan of Asplundh any more.


"there are few problems in life that cant be solved with a suitable application of high explosives"

Kenn

 

[MasterBlaster]

What time period was this, Kenn?

How were your meals provided?

 

[Newfie]

Hey Matt,

I don't think "hack status" can be determined by the amount of equipment a company has, but by the quality of the finished product and their ability to deliver work on time and safely.

By your definition, driving a Benz would make me a better person than someone driving Yugo and we all know that cr@p won't fly.

 

[OutOnaLimb]

Hey Butch, I was on the Asplund Mountain Crew from May 2001 untill Aug 2001, Then I got wise and started up my own tree service in Breckenridge. If I am correct we got like $12.50 a day For chow. Asplundh policy stated that since we were living in the company owned campers we were not intitled to any Per Diem pay. And I found out later that we could have been lodged in local Motels but the good boys in Willow Grove thought it more ecconomical to just buy a camper and let us live in that for a week at a time. FYI, the crew I was working on was based out of Alamosa Colorado, but working in Summit County Colorado. That is like a 3 1/2 hour drive that we had to make every Monday morning at about 4:00 am in order for us to be on the line by 7:30. Dont get me started on the whole Asplundh thing. We really dont want to go there.

"there are few problems in life that cant be solved with a suitable application of high explosives"

Kenn

 

[treeman82]

Mike, that wasn't what I meant. To put it in another way, I shall make an example.

2 farmers each own 1000 acres of corn crop land.

Farmer 1 uses a couple of LARGE tractors to work his land.

Farmer 2 uses 2 teams of horses to work his land.

Farmer 1 is using the proper kinds of equipment for the land he has.

Farmer 2 should not be working 1000 acres... he should be working more like 50 acres in order to keep up with yearly demands.

 

[OutOnaLimb]

Hey Mike you do have a great point there. From the outside looking in, I would much rather have some one who knew what they were doing and took pride in their work and would not compromise quality for quantity. This discussion can be viewed from both sides of the fence. Utility work-vs-residential arbor care. The sole mission for Line clearance companies is to keep trees from growing into lines or becoming a hazard. Asplundh's motto is, "we trim for clearance not appearance" But on the other side of the coin, I have met or heard about residential tree services who's sole goal was to get a job done as quickly as possible with out any regard to the quality of work. get paid and then move on to the next one. Personally, I would rather have an old Mexican imigrant with a saw, rope, saddle and a pick up truck, that took pride in his work, and new right from wrong, over a big company that had buckets, chippers, and fancy paint jobs, whose sole purpose was to get done as quickly as possible, collect a check and move on to the next "sucker"

"

"there are few problems in life that cant be solved with a suitable application of high explosives"

Kenn

 

[MasterBlaster]

Originally posted by OutOnaLimb
If I am correct we got like $12.50 a day For chow.

So did ya'll load up and go to a store each time for grub? Eat out of cans?
The last time I worked out of town, 12 of us lived in a trailer set up on some property. 6 at each end, with showers and a kitchen between.
Some older lady came in during the day, and cleaned up. Before she left in the early evening, she left supper on the stove for 12 hungry guys. It wasn't so bad

Other jobs we just stayed at motels, and ate a cafe's, BK.


So, did ya'll eat beans on the mountain, or what?

 

[OutOnaLimb]

Hey Butch, For the most part we would just pack 4 days worth of chow up with us in coolers. simple for breakfast, sandwich's for lunch and then when we got back to camp we could either start a camp fire and cook off of that,or fire up the Coleman stove and boil up something out of a can. It wasnt really that big of a deal for me considering I spent the last 8 years before that as an Army Special Operations Sniper. If nothing else we had a generator and there was hot coffee every morning.

"There are few problems in life that cant be solved with a suitable application of high explosives"

Kenn

 

[MasterBlaster]

Thats hardcore, dude.

I woulda hated that $hit!

 

[Stumper]

Back to 82's original premise. Equipment is a poor indicator of quality work-or life in Hackdom.
The best equipped tree service in my area does "High quality Hacking"-They top but leave twigs rather than a complete hatrack.
The company with an old bucket truck raises and guts(extreme and awful) no safety gear-scary.
The best climber in town does pretty good work but his equipment is caca, his saddle is drooping loose threads everywhere, and his knowledge of tree biology is limited.
Then there is me. Small equipment. Good safety gear, lousy climber(that's me), professional service and quality work.