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Roofing and Siding since 1985
Sat, May 16 2026, 8:41am [ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3] ]
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Date Posted: Sun, Jul 14 2002,12:41pm
Author: A Roofer
Subject: Re: Good Things To Know
In reply to: Laurie Wright 's message, "Good Things To Know" on Mon, Jul 08 2002, 5:21pm

Tuff question. A roofing company is only as good as the installer doing your job. Some might say that its best to hire a big reputable company that has been around for a long time. I believe the reasons that they say this are sound. If you have a problem with your roof down the road they are easy to find and service your problem. Problem??? Hearing this I always think "Its a new roof what do you mean have a problem?" How would you improve your chances that you don't have a problem down the road? Your intuition will probably serve you best here. I am the owner of this roofing company and its important to me that a customer is willing to meet or at least have a good conversation before having me drive over to their house to give them an estimate. I have many people call me that want me to come by and leave an estimate at their door as if all roofing companies are created equal with equal success. I spent 12 years at one company that had salesmen sell their jobs and I don't know how many times I showed up at a job where the homeowner had requested something be done a certain way that couldn't because the salesman told him it could be done. As if a salesman was a roofer. Its funny to me that some of these salesmen actually say they have roofed before. Probably a dog house. Remember, he's living off commission.

I would think well experienced hourly help would be better then piece workers because if something was a little more difficult hourly help is paid at the same rate while spending more time on it where a piece worker loses money out of his pocket the more time he spends on it. I worked piece work all my life before I started my company and I remember the company always told us they'd pay us hours for extra time spent on something to make it right but they always made us feel that we were out of line asking for more and made it seem like we where wanting something for nothing. Sometimes they would flat out refuse to pay it. I remember other employees would become disgruntled and the company would seem oblivious to this. They said they were about quality but as an employee it seemed that they were more about the money.

You'll want to find out how well a company knows it's products they install. Ask for a good, better, best estimate then have them discuss the differences in what they are presenting to you. Not even all compositions are installed the same and some are much better systems then others. The details to which they are able to discuss the differences they present to you are going to give some insight to their experience with particular products.

Try to find a company where peer groups are strong. Like maybe a family operated company where family members have trained or are the foremen. I'd stay away from the huge roofing outfits because between the salesman and the labor no one else in the company even knows what the labor is doing to your house until you call to complain about something and I've seen stuff that should have been complained about never receive a complaint because the homeowners didn't know right from wrong. I remember a previous employer being upset that we employees didn't police each others. If we saw something someone was doing wrong or in an unattractive fashion they wanted us to tell them about it but I remember speaking out a couple times and the first thing they said when they confronted the fellow employee was "Tim said that on that job you did...." Of course most of us except the excessive butt kissers never commented to the employer about each others work. At one time they had forty roofers working for them and us fellow employees knew between us which ones of us were good and bad installers better then the management did. I'd think I'd recommend a company with probably no more then maybe 12 to 15 employees.

As far as to how do you know if your getting ripped off, I don't know. I know personally that I have given people estimates for work before where I was the lowest bid and sometimes a high bid. I have actually seen bids so low where if I was to do the job without a single employee for that price I would have made better money working as an employee for someone.

We have all came across people that seemed to be a little common sense deficient in our lives. Well, I was at the supply yard one time and one of these guys that I was familiar with from high school came walking in. I almost fell over when he told me he was a roofing contractor. He has since went out of business but there is a point that I want to make. I had a tear off guy work for me that had actually worked for this guy before. He had informed me that he had a hard time getting paid for working for him and that he was told that this guy claimed his company couldn't make any money. As I talked to him about this guy he said that he would beat any estimate that anyone else gave not even knowing if a job would be profitable or not. He lack all ability to do job costing.

I know price is important but I don't know if its as important as quality, skill, experience, and professionalism. I know that with big companies you can chase off the crew the morning they show up to roof your house if they give you the creeps. I've seen it done to people before. Don't hesitate to get rid of people that you don't want on your job. REMEMBER, YOU ARE THE BOSS AND ALL YOUR CONCERNS ARE VALID! Don't hesitate for a second to put you foot down. Have it your way!

Bottom line meet your contractors and go with your intuition.

Good Luck,

Tim Soth
A Roofer

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