we bought a new house, and got a bad roof job about 3 months ago, what do we do?

We just bought a house 5 months ago, and we knew it needed a new roof. We thought we did our homework finding a good roofing company, but we didn't. They finished the job about a month and a half ago, and the shingles look awful, and some have fallen off. We can tell by looking at our neighbors, that had theirs done a month before we did, that things are terribly wrong. We don't trust the roofer to make this good, and we don't know who to call to come and inspect it, and tell us just how bad it is. Who do we call?? There are other big things that need to be fixed in this house, and we ended on a bad note with our realtor...everyone says to ask them for names of companys/contractors for our needs, but we don't want to have to deal with her. We are about to get a divorce from all of the stress and fighting this and having our pool repaved has caused. We need direction!! We need someone we can trust to help us find honest good reliable contractors. Mainly, our immediate problem, do we call another roofing company? Will they come out, and find problems, so that we have to poor more money into it? Or should we call a home inspector? And how do we go about trying to make the roof company fix it? Or should we even trust them to do that? The guy we hired was pretty shifty, and the roof workers kept showing up to collect their money, even though we paid for it all with a cashiers check 2 days after it was finished. What do we do? we paid 10,500.00 for this, we can't afford just to lose it...please, please help

Reply to
Leslie
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"Leslie" wrote in message news:7d5b8$56b14d51$cf3aab60$ snipped-for-privacy@news.flashnewsgroups.com...

Did your or your roofer pull a city permit for the job?

If a license is required in your state for roofers, does your roofer have one?

If "yes" contact the city building and planning dept and ask for their advice, and the contact the roofer.

Reply to
Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney

First, resolve that no matter the outcome you will end up losing some money. Did the roofer get a permit? Did the nspector come out and look at it? If so, you may be able to get some written evidence that the job is bad.

You can get a lawyer, but that will also be costly.

I'd contact another roofer and see if it can be fixed. If so, you can then go to small claims court.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Two thing in my mind;

  1. This may be a troll
  2. I suspect the roofing supplier also did not get paid for the material since workers are coming to collect their money. Better check the lien against the house from supplier.
Reply to
Tony Hwang

  1. This was posted years ago, and is just another re-post. Considering the user name, I suspect this....
Reply to
Paintedcow

Despite that, you probably have to give him a chance to do so. If you were the contractor, you'd want a chance to correct your workmen's mistakes.

Although if you really don't want him to, I suspect you can be demanding or annoying enough that HE refuses to. I don't mean calling him a thief, or insisting he comes on Tuesday afternoon between 2 and 3. But if you give him a list of flaws, real flaws, not ones you've made up, and say you want them all fixed, he may say no. To go into more detail I need to know what is wrong with it. What about it looks bad?

Have other people like friends or neighbors agreed with you that the whole job looks awful? What's wrong with it? The rows are crooked? Different colors? What? What kind of roof? Asphalt shingles?

How many years are the shingles guaranteed. When you get an estimate from the other companies, get one for the same quality shingle. If it was 25 years, then get 25 years.

So the question is, Is he capable of fixing it right? Is every part of the roof bad or only parts? Did he tell you, or will he now, of other roofs he's done. Look at them. Knock on the door and make sure he actually did them and idn't just take a beautiful house and right down the address. (When I had my roof done, it was by the same guy who did the townhouse across the street and the one to the right of it, and maybe one other, so I saw that he worked well and did a nice job. I didn't rely on his having a nice smile, being friendly, and well-spoken. But if your spouse thought that was good enough, don't fight about it. You'll know for next time. At most we're talking about 10,000 dollars. )

Stop fighting with each other. Everyone makes mistakes.

Of course they'll come out, and if there were no problems, you wouldn't be complaining. (unless you're a couple of fuss-budgets, which you might be for all I know) If they're competent, they'll find them.

And they won't work for free, but they will give you a firm "estimate" of what they will charge to make your roof like it was supposed to be with the first roofer. Not better, but the same. If you decide you want it better, get a separate estimate on that, because the first one will be your evidence in court. It shouldn't just say "new roof" but should refer to correcting specific, described problems in the current roof. It should say what is wrong with the current roof. If they can't write an estimate t hat includes this stuff, tell them you won't win in court and you won't have the money to hire them.

Make sure what they say is compatible with your observations. You don't want them claiming things are bad that your photographs show are not bad. Take plenty of photographs before starting the second roofing job. A lot of people seem to not do the second job until after the lawsuit, supposedly because they haven't got the money. If your roof isn't leaking and damaging the inside of your house, you can wait too.

You could do with two estimates.

Hopefully the cost will be less than the maximum small claims court verdict in your area. But if the whole roof has to be done, that doesn't seem possible.

If they have to remove the whole thing and start over

I don't see that. If it's leaking you can testify to that yourself. If it looks bad, you should be taking pictures. I would take a video in addition to stills, starting at the front of your property showing teh whole house including the street number, to prove that it's your house, and then getting close to every bad area. You can leave all this on a laptop and bring the laptop to court.

People who use cell phone pictures for lawsuits over 300 seem like idiots to me. Buy a camera for 150.

You ask them. You have to give them at least one chance to correct their errors, unless you've got some very good reason not to. What reason do you have?

See above. What reason do you have?

My guess is that bad finances on their part does not in itself mean thye are technically incompetent. OTOH, if they hired inexperienced workers, that would mean that. When the next worker shows up ask how long he has worked for them, how much experience he has, where you can get in touch with him. If he appears in court with you as a witness, you should expect to pay him, but if he just gives an sworn affidavit, not much (not that he'll be willing to do either of these things, but if he's angry enough, he might be. Of course if he's too angry, he won't be believable.)

Reply to
Micky

I thought the same thing when i first read it, and later too, but decided to answer anyhow.

If the homeowner didn't sign for the materials, I dont' think they can get a lien. Of course he might have.

Darn. How is one who doesn't use google supposed to know this?

i never look at that stuff. Of course you're also saying, I think, that this was a real post years ago, not a troll then.

Reply to
Micky

Micky, please elaborate on this.

Reply to
Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney

Of course it's a troll, even if the contractor was so bad that they did not nail down half the shingles, their weight is sufficient (along with the overlap) that they would not just start falling off a few days after they were put up.

Reply to
philo

Probably so. But in case anyone else comes across this in the future and has a similar problem, I'd suggest contacting the shingle manufacturer. They offer warranties, provided they are installed correctly. The problem most likely isn't the material, but they have field reps they will come take a look on a claim. I'd be there, go up with the rep, take pics, document everything, get a written claim denial in writing explaining what the real problem is, etc.

Also a sign that it's likely a troll is that there is no mention of the roofer being called back. You would think that some initial problem would surface, they'd be called, etc, ie there would be more of a progression than it's 3 months later and the shingles are falling off. Never heard of a shingle job where that happened, not without high wind, etc.

Reply to
trader_4

I had a new roof put on 25 years ago that went over the existing shingles. The new roof did not lie 100% flat. The roofer told me that because the original shingles did not lie flat the new roof would not either, but would eventually settle in.

That never happened, they are still a bit uneven and doggone it the roof is 100% leak-proof.

Problem is, my home insurer closed operations in my state and I had to find a different carrier. Most of them...right off the bat...took a look at the roof and said they would not insure me. It did not matter that there were no leaks.

I will never do business with State Farm ...ever..because the agent insulated me as well. I was refused due to "lack of pride of ownership" or something like that.

The next roof will require a "tear-off" as there are now two layers. Thing is, why replace a roof that doesn't leak?

Reply to
philo

Two aspects to that.

1 - Being the roofing pro, he should have told you that he wouldn't do the job unless it was a tear-off.

2 - IMO, tear-off is well worth the extra cost. The older the house, the more true that is. With a tear-off you can see any rot, any bad plywood, etc.

Did he use down or just fiberglass?

Yeah, that's a bummer, when it's just an aesthetic thing. Harder to justify fixing it.

Reply to
trader_4

I'm not surprised that most of them want the roof replaced. It costs them nothing (other than loss of your premium) to require a new roof. I'm sure that their actuaries have weighed the cost of a claim with a 25 year old roof vs. the loss of premium and determined that the risk is not worth the reward.

At 25 years, leaks or no leaks, you may be approaching (or have surpassed) the manufacturer's warranty on the material, especially since it was installed over an existing roof. I obviously don't know the specifics or your situation, but "2nd roof" warranties can range from full to "minus X years" to none.

I have been been involved in 2 "age of roof" situations recently and it's not just the Ins Co's that want to know about the roof.

I refinanced a HELOC on my own home and had to provide documents showing the age of the roof (5 years in my case).

I am helping my Dad sell his house and the realtor asked about the roof. She said it looks really good, but wanted to know the age. She said that, depending on the lender, any roof over 10 years old could count as "points against" (in a sense) approving the loan.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

Way too late, but he did go up into the attic prior to doing the job and inform me there was no rot. I had caught the small amount of leakage in time.

Back then I did not have much money, so even if presented with the wisdom of a tear-off, probably would still have not gone that route.

When I told him how broke I was he held the bill for six months and added no interest. I doubt if anything like that would happen today.

Reply to
philo

Quite a proclamation. What if they had storms the next day with 50 mph winds.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

The shingles were rated for 25 years, so it's now "end of life". When I do get it replaced (tear-off aside) it's going to be a big job.

Since I have a new furnace that does not require a chimney, It would make sense to have the chimney removed. That's where the leak started originally.

The problem is, I still use the chimney for the water heater and will need to get it replaced with a chimney-less variety. The present water heater is six years old and is rated to last 12 years.

So...the roof will get replaced either if it starts leaking or else when the heater nears it's expected end of life.

Between the "tear-off", new water heater and chimney removal, I better be prepared to spend $15k. I will have to tell my wife, no vacations that year. Maybe I could break this up into several smaller jobs such as water heater one year. Chimney removal the next.

Of course in five years we are going to be damn rich from all the photographs I'm going to be selling :)

Reply to
philo

I thought of that but decided to condemn the OP anyway. Since the identical post was made a few years back I was quite confident that it was indeed a troll.

Reply to
philo

In my neck of the wood, tear off is must. No one dare to pile up shingles on top of each other. Any roofing job includes tear off. What kind of people would do roofing without tear off? To save money? Our roof is metal ceramic coated tiles. Nothing to do with roof in my life time. Wind proof, fire proof.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I was wondering about that. Shingles fly away/off even properly installed. All by itself, it'll act like a sail in the wind...,LOL!

Reply to
Tony Hwang

explaining

ownership"

Good for you, Philo. My experience with State Farm is that their adjusters are incompetent or dishonest. I had a water damaged floor. All that was needed was a few pieces of flooring replaced next to a sliding door - a small job that I could have done. But I called BS Farm to see if insurance would cover a professional job. They sent an inspector/adjuster over and right off the bat wanted to tear up 1000 sf of hardwood flooring, most of the main part of the house. He gave me a contractor to call. I knew it was crooked and never followed up. Ended up replacing one slat and all was fixed. Total cost - one six-pack for a helpful neighbor.

Pretty soon the BS Farm insurance premium went up. The story was that when I called them, they considered that a "claim" and up went the premium.

Also had a driver hit me who had BS Farm auto insurance. Estimates were $1300-1500. They would not pay that much on my old car but offered to have one of "their" shops fix it. Their "fix" would have been to knock out dents and paint only that part, trying to match the old faded paint. Cost for them to paint the whole car was $3K. Funny - out front of the shop was a sign "We welcome all insurance coverage"

Farmers Insurance is also rotten. They bought 21st Century which I have had for 20+ years. Last year I made 2 payments at once because of being out of town for the next one. Instead of doing as I asked, they counted that as one payment and invoiced for the 2nd payment as usual. A few days after that I had a flat around 11pm and called their 800 roadside assistance number which never answered. I called every 10 minutes for a half hour, then called the local tow. I sent the receipt in with a note explaining it. They never replied. I ran across the receipt 6 months later and called. The explanation was what I just said, that I had missed the 2nd payment and insurance lapsed 1 day before the tow. This was not in keeping with their promised "grace period" but they would not budge. Plus they had added on a reinstatement fee that I had not noticed at the time. I asked how long I had had the insurance, and the gal looked it up - "Since 1993". "How many claims have I filed." "None." "Do you think you could credit me that towing charge and reinstatement error charge." "No."

So, I'm shopping around and will be canceling Farmers by mid-Feb when the payment is due.

Reply to
Snuffy "Hub Cap" McKinney

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