Contractor Installed Black&White Roof!

11145 Views 79 Replies 11 Participants Last post by AaronB., Jan 8, 2005

gotjacked?

Discussion Starter · Dec 15, 2004

We hired a lisc. bonded contractor to put a roof on our home.

The home is an 1800 square feet ranch home, plus has a two car garage. Is not steep.

His crew of 7 guys tore off two layers of roof, laid plywood, and laid new roof all in 11 hours. This seems like an awfully short time to do a good job. What do you think?

More important though, is the fac that our roof is not BLACK AND WHITE. The roofer put slate grey roofing on most of the house, which we picked from a catalog that he gave us. BUT he put this ugly white looking stuff on our patio, and the white stuff goes up along the roof a bit too. It makes our house look like a shack!

We contacted the contractor and asked why our roof is two colors. His response was that with the roofing material we picked that white was his onlin option.

We said, look you told us to pick a color. We picked slate grey. You NEVER told us that our roof would be slate grey and white! We told you at the start that the house was being reroofed so that we can sell it. And, we told you that we wanted the patio to look nice - not with any ugly rubber or unmatching roofing.

His answer was that the contract did not specify that our roof would be one color - so basically tough crap for us.

I think that he should either:
A) Make our roof all matching AND make sure that our 30 year warantee still stands per our contract.
OR
B) Refund our money so that we can get another contractor to do the job right.

My Dad told me to call the contractors board.

What is your opinion on this. Is it reasonable for us as homeowners to expect one color roof? Does this guy have a leg to stand one? Is it reasonable for him to give us two different colors for our roof?

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PipeGuy

· #10 · Dec 15, 2004

Grumpy said:
my reputation is more important than the few hundred bucks it would cost to lay over.

Gotjacked? - Do you see what this says? It costs a few hundred bucks to do the layover (don't confuse contractor's cost with customer's price).

If it were me I'd call the roofer and tell him that we can either find a resoltion that addresses both my concerns and his interests or I'll use the outstanding 50% (+/- $4,300) to hire someone else to fix the problem and when it's done I'll send you whatever is left.

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PipeGuy

· #16 · Dec 16, 2004

gotjacked? said:
We hired a lisc. bonded contractor...we picked from a catalog that he gave us. My Dad told me to call the contractors board.
Is it reasonable for us as homeowners to expect one color roof? Is it reasonable for him to give us two different colors for our roof?

What does 'we' imply. Is it you and your Dad or you and a 'significant other'. If it's not your Dad, what does the S/O think?

It's reasonable for a homeowner to expect a a one color roof unless the contractor tells you otherwise. I'm GUESSING that the burden is on him, when it comes to the contract, to specify otherwise.

As to the warranties, no one is going to warrant something he doesn't get paid in full for. The manufacturer's warranty for the materials will remain valid provided that the materials are properly installed and, only if required by the manufacturer, a 'certified' contractor did the installation.

If your so stressed out, have some fun - file a $17.3M 'pain and suffering' counter-suit in consideration of the emotional distress you've been subjected to. I hear Mark Garegos is looking for some work.

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PipeGuy

· #21 · Dec 17, 2004

gotjacked? said:
Says he will not pay his suppliers or his workers. That he will pay no one and that he will lien our property. I wonder what he did with the $4500 we paid him?

Judging by his irriational reaction to your concerns, I'm guessing that there are nuances to this situation that we will not learn by hearing only your side of the story. I fully understand the contractor's refusal to 'work with' you given what I am guessing is your combative attitude. He probably figures he's going to get screwed wether he fixes it or not...so why fix it? I'm also guessing that the other 1/2 of the "we" that hired the roofer doesn't feel the same way you do. Admittedly, I'm taking the liberty of reading between the lines of your post in that regard.

It sounds like you got an appropriately spec'd and properly installed roof system. It also sounds like you didn't have a proper roof on the patio before -given that all the roofing materials were the same color and given what seemed to be your infamiliarity with the bitumen product that was installed. So I don't think anyone's trying to 'pull something over' on you by using a product they otherwise wouldn't.

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PipeGuy

· #25 · Dec 17, 2004

Grumpy said:
The pictures will be the truth.

Based on the posts so far, I'm expecting the 'before' picture to look something like this

and the after picture to be something along these lines

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PipeGuy

· #27 · Dec 17, 2004

gotjacked? said:
My attorney feels that his actions are irrational and indicative of someone who has financial problems completely unrelated to this project. The attoreny says that even if we do pay him the guy may not pay his suppliers/contractors and they could put a lien our house. Therefore he says that the guy must calm down, honor his commitment and sign lien releases.

I think you have a well informed and experienced attorney.
Your pictures speak volumes. I certainly wouldn't accept that as the finished product. Good luck in the days ahead.

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PipeGuy

· #50 · Dec 19, 2004

gotjacked? said:
This has gotten totally out of control. I think he has a screw loose. I'm glad we have an attorney. He is harrassing us with ridiculour messages.

My brother is going through a 'bad contract(or)' thing right now. Unfortunately for him he's more than $20K in the hole on the deal. After months of nonproductive interaction with the contractor he's finally engaged an attorney.

The first thing done was to issue a "cease and desist" notice so as to preclude the contractor from returning to the site and attempting to perform additional work for the purposes of improving his legal position in the dispute. You might ask your attorney about that. If it were me, I wouldn't want the roofer back at this point even if he was inclined to address my concerns. Heaven forbid some accident should take place while he was finishing and I wound exposed to even more of his aggravation.

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PipeGuy

· #59 · Dec 19, 2004

Mike Finley said:
If I had known that from the beginning my advice would have been completely the opposite. You simply don't need to put major money into homes in a sellars market in order to get them to sell. They sell themselves. In a sellers market all you do is cheap cosmetic work, You also might consider getting a new realtor if they have contributed to any of this in regard to advice on staging your house to sell.

Great catch Mike. Your right on track if the market is as stated. My neighborhood has been like that for three years now. 18 months ago you'd have three offers at 107% of the listed price before the sign went up. Now they're back to moving within a week at full asking price. Empty the closets, straighten up the house, keep the grass cut and the trash cans out of sight - just about all that's needed.

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PipeGuy

· #76 · Dec 28, 2004

Thank goodness the automotive industry doesn't have the same kind of warranty that roofers apparently have, otherwise when Midas put a new muffler on a car it would void the warranty on the transmission. How 'bout when I get new tires, does that void any warranty on the brakes? Maybe if Midas puts on the WRONG muffler then an ENGINE warranty might be in jeapordy, but otherwise the remaining warranty is intact.

No one is saying that if someone damages another's work that the original warranty should remain intact, what's being said is that it doesn't neccesarily stand that a warranty may be withdrawn for an entire system if only a part of the system is impacted by modifications or repairs. If the satellite guy installs a dish on the eave and then chimney flashing on the other side of the house starts to leak does the dish installation get you off the hook for the flashing? If you think it does (or even want it to) you should re-examine your position.

Frankly, I thought some of that work looked pretty unprofessional (flashing and caulking stand out in my mind's eye). But I readily admit I'm no expert. Any re-work that Gotjacked? might have done by another contractor should be warranted by that contractor and the balance of the roof's warranty should remain intact - IMHO.

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