Ask questions. What are they going to do? How are they going to do it? Is it just a couple of guys in an old pick-up truck, with some hand tools, who want to be paid in cash? Or is this a professional tree service? Are they licensed contractors? Will they provide you with a copy of their licenses and insurance policy? Does any of that matter to you?
You're describing a tree maybe 25 or 30 feet tall. Are they going up to the top of the canopy, then cutting it off in pieces? Or is the guy just going to chainsaw the base of the trunk, and let the tree fall? Are they bringing a wood chipper? Is disposal included?
Now what about the stump? Are they leaving a stump in the ground? Are they going to dig it up and remove the roots?
I've heard a lot of crazy stories over the years. Different friends and family members have made the mistake of "getting it done cheap".
One guy, who advertised as a handyman, cut a tree and it fell on a fence. He's lucky that it didn't fall on his house.
Another guy, a door to door guy who does yardwork in the neighborhood....... you think he knows what he's doing because he has a pickup truck with a bunch of yard tools. Tried to uproot a stump, and damaged the underground plumbing.
A guy from Craigslist chopped a tree at waist level, then left the whole thing there. He got his $$$, did what he said he would do, and left. He cut the tree down. He didn't promise to cut it down to ground level, just cut the tree.
One time. Just once. I knew someone who spent an arm and a leg. A real tree service came with all sorts of trucks. They started with a basket lift truck where a worker spent a few hours cutting the tree branches off. Then there was a crane with a lift strap, which they wrapped around the tree from above. So that when they cut the tree, it didn't fall. The crane then lifted out and set it down safely. They then went to work digging a perimeter around the trunk of the tree, cut the roots, and pulled the stump out of the ground. Then they backfilled the hole in the ground, instead of leaving a big hole in the ground. They had a huge wood chipper. My friend was offered the option of keeping the wood chip mulch for his property, or having the company haul it away for disposal.
Avocado trees grow back with vigor. A few years ago, my friend trimmed a 2 story avocado down to 3 feet. It was just too tall to pick the fruit. Nobody wanted to climb a 20 foot ladder to get the fruit. It wasn't worth falling down to get $1. We left 3 feet of the trunk sticking out of the ground. Within a year, new branches grew out of that stump, flowered, and fruited. Now, he keeps the tree under 10 feet. If a 6 foot tall person can't reach up to get the fruit, the tree is too tall.
