¶ … service industry. Some companies do strictly line clearance while other tree service companies only do residential or commercial work. Line clearance companies, such as Asplunhd, the largest line clearance company in the world, use bucket trucks and climbing crews to work with the electric companies to make sure tree limbs are far enough away from the electric lines. (ISA leader board for 1999, Arborist News Magazine article on the ISA website) Ballard tree service is one of the largest residential tree services in the country, removing and trimming trees for customers at their homes or businesses. (ISA leader board for 1999, ISA website) They also use bucket trucks and climbing crews, but there work mainly consists of removing limbs over roofs, not electric lines. If a person were to start a tree trimming service, investment would very easy if the person wanted to start a residential company. To begin, all they would really need is a pickup truck, a fourteen or sixteen foot, flatbed trailer, a couple of chainsaws and miscellaneous supplies. The main thing anybody would need to start the business is many years of experience. This would play a key role in future success of the business. If a person wants to make their tree company last a long time, they need to know every aspect of the business, which cannot be taught in a classroom. It can only come from years of training and practice. Tree trimming is one of the very few blue-collar jobs left that is better learned in the "school of hard knocks."

Learning to run a crew for a line clearance company also gives a person adequate experience for running a residential and commercial tree company. However, building up this type of business takes many years and required much more money. The cost of a bucket truck is anywhere from $25,000 used, to $125,000 new. That does not include the cost of a chipper, which disposes of the tree limbs that are cut, nor does it include the large amount of insurance that is required by most electric companies. On average, most electric companies in the United States require a line clearance company to carry at least one million dollars of liability insurance. Sherry Brown Insurance Company, a national liability insurance company, located in Dallas, Texas, quotes the cost of a million dollar insurance policy at an estimated $650 per month. If a person were to add that on the top of all the other expenses that it takes to run a line clearance company, they would understand why a residential company would be much more encouraging to pursue. (Hecker and Sherry Brown Insurance Agency, HeckerBrown.com)

One of the main reasons someone would be interested in starting a tree service company is that amounts of income it can bring. The better the crews and the company are, the more money they can make. The average tree company charges nearly one hundred dollars an hour for a two-man crew. Actually, the better the company is, the more they charge. Choosing a tree company to remove a tree over a house is nearly the same as picking the best hotel to stay in at Disney World. The hotel that has the half lit, blinking sign with different colored doors, and a cheap price per room posted by the road, is not going to be as good as the Marriott down the street that has the seventy-foot tall sign with their name on it and the twenty three million dollar hotel. When a person goes into the first hotel, they are not going to be expecting much, because they did not pay for much.

The same goes for tree service companies. If a person has a price given to them by one tree company, and another tree company's price is double the amount, then the person who pays for the high dollar tree company is going to be expecting every limbs and leaf raked and cleaned up, the whole tree removed and hauled away with even a scratch on the roof, or one broken bush in the flower bed. If a company charges a lot of money and does not do that, they will not be in business for very long, because they will not be getting referral from customers. Instead, they will lose business to the cheaper company.

Another great reason for owning a tree company is the freedom it would bring. The owner...

They would also have the freedom to go to lunch were ever they pleased, unlike many indoor companies. There is also no set time schedule for tree companies. When they go to a job, they either work until they are tired or the job gets finished, depending on the owner or supervisor running the crew. There are also many challenges when it comes to working on a tree service crew, especially for the climber. The climber is the heart and soul of any tree company. They are the ones who have the most experience, next to the owners and supervisors, and they are the ones who do all of the dangerous work.
Some of the difficult tasks they have to endure daily are the height of the trees, working around the tops with a half-inch rope and using a small chainsaw just inches from the rope to cut and remove unwanted limbs. The also get the challenge of removing large limbs over the tops of houses using another rope, and having a person on the ground lower it down.

This type of business caters to just about everyone who owns trees, which makes it a top market to get into. When a refrigerator goes out, the owner of it has to go out and buy a new one. The same goes for a tree. If it dies, it has to be removed, and there is nothing else the owner of the tree can do about it, except for doing it himself or herself. If the owner of the tree does not have any chainsaws or ropes, however, they are going to need someone to do it. Also, if it is of significant size and dangerous, they are going to want a tree company to remove it so that it does not damage their house, storage buildings, other trees, fences or anything else that is in the yard that the owner wants to protect.

The owners of houses also know that a well-kept yard with many trees increases the property value of the land, and they want to keep the value up by taking care of their trees. This is another area that a tree company is useful. They can trim the trees buy cutting out the suckers that grow all over the truck and lower limbs, cut out deadwood in the tree to help the tree stay healthy, and they know the proper times and the proper ways to fertilize the trees. For example, in the book issued to tree worker by the International Society of Arboriculture says that the proper time to fertilize trees is in February and September. The reason why is because it is the only time of the year that trees pull up nutrients and minerals from the ground. (Arboriculture Certification guide, ISA Standard, 1993)

Tree service companies can be used by just about everybody who owns a house or a business. Business owners love to use tree companies for the same reason residential customers use them. If the trees in front of a business are properly maintained and trimmed, it makes the business look more appealing to the customers of the business. The same goes for removing dead trees. The owner of the business has to keep dead trees and large dead limbs removed from the property to keep their customers safe. In today's cutthroat world, many people look for anything to sue a company for, and a limb falling out of a tree and hitting them or their car gives them a good reason to send the company to court.

Residential customers also need trees trimmed away from their roofs and their chimneys to protect their investment. They know it is a lot cheaper to hire a tree service to keep the limbs from rubbing off shingles instead of replacing the shingles. Overall, the need for tree service companies is overwhelming, and they will always be needed.

One great thing about running a tree service company is the location a person can put one. Just about every town in the United States has trees, and all tree trimming pertains to basically the same thing. This gives the person starting the coming a great freedom to where they can place the business. A tree company can also be used in other countries as well. The location for the business is wide-open and only limited to the imagination of the one stating it.

If the person starting the…