We guarantee our work. Nobody can guarantee a tree.
Those are two different promises, and a company that blurs them is either confused or selling you something. Here is the line, drawn where we think it honestly falls.
What is covered
- Cut placement. Every cut on a tree that is staying is made outside the branch collar, and no cut is left as a long stub. If you find one that isn’t, we come back and correct it at our cost, and if it cannot be corrected we say so and credit the line.
- The written scope. If a line on the scope was approved and is not on the card at the end, it was not done, and you are not billed for it. The card is checkable against the scope on purpose.
- Clearance targets. If the scope said eight feet off the roofline and you can measure less than eight feet, that is ours to fix.
- Grind depth. Stumps are ground to the depth written on the scope. If a grinder hit something and stopped short, the card says the actual depth and the reason, and the price adjusts down.
- The property. Fence panels, cage screens, pavers, irrigation heads, sod. If our rigging or our tires damaged it, we repair or replace it. This is what the insurance is for and it is not an argument.
- Cleanup. Chips raked, not blown into the neighbor’s beds. Sawdust off the deck. Ruts in wet ground put back.
What is not, and why
- That a pruned tree will not fail. A tree is a living structure loaded by weather. Correct pruning reduces the odds of a specific failure; it does not remove it. Anyone who tells you a tree is now safe has told you something no arborist can know.
- That a tree will survive. Pruning is a wound, correctly placed. Trees that were already in decline, already root-damaged, or already carrying more decay than was visible sometimes decline further afterwards. We will tell you before we start when we think that is likely.
- Storm outcomes. No pruning specification is a hurricane guarantee. Reduction of end weight on long limbs genuinely lowers the chance of those limbs failing, and that is the honest size of the claim.
- Regrowth. Oaks and especially water oaks push new growth after pruning. That is the tree working, not a defect, and it is why maintenance pruning is on a cycle of years rather than a one-time purchase.
- Anything found inside the trunk. A cavity, a column of decay, a nest of carpenter ants — these are frequently invisible until the tree is opened. If we find one, it goes on the card and it changes the recommendation. It is not a reason to re-price the job upward mid-day.
The residual risk sentence
Every risk assessment we write ends with a version of this, and it belongs on this page too: after the recommended work is done, some risk remains, and the owner is the one who decides whether it is acceptable. Our job is to describe the odds accurately enough that the decision is actually yours.
A tree with a target under it can be made lower-risk by pruning, by reducing end weight, by moving the target, or by removal. Those are four options, not one, and the last one is not automatically the safest — it is simply the most final.
Terms described on this page are part of a demonstration site for an invented business and are not an offer or a contract.