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A conversation I came across between two roofing contractors.
Contractor Statement,
I have exhausted all my leads. If anyone can track down 6 sq of Certainteed hallmark bronzed brown i will reward $. Thanks
Other Contractor reply,
My guy at my lumber yard in Farmington called around for those a few weeks ago and couldn't find anything.
Do the shingles you need have a little blue in them? If so got a few tear offs comming up with them and the North sides although stained are in good shape. If your interested you can have all the shingles you want!!! I'll even tear them off for you...
Original Contractor re-reply,
Thanks I,ll check on the blue in them. They have the extra perpendicular laminate strips on them. I'll bring our trailer and take all your debris and help you tear them off(allthough i may slow you down).
We reroofed the house with them a year and a half ago and now doing an addition so need more. Could you call me at (removed number) when you do them? Thanks
(considering using torn off shingles on a new addition?)
This is why you need to ask questions, get everything in writing and absolutely never pay 100% of the contracted price until the work is 100% complete and to your Satisfaction.
5/13/2010 What is the best shingle to use?
The only answer to a question like this, it's an regional issue.
Manufacturers have several plant locations, all making the exact same shingle with slightly different results.
Equipment issues, man power, local codes, I do not know, but it happens.
That's same as when you talk about manufacturer rep's, they are regional, the person you speak to when you call from Washington may or may not be the same person I'm going to speak to when I call from Youngstown.
Regions have different pricing rates as well, in Youngstown I can purchase Land Marks, Duration, Heritage, Timberline, Pinnicle and Cambridge all at $75.00 per square and can get each of them cheaper from time to time on sale.
I priced a job 3 1/2 hours away in the Toledo area and the price of every shingle went up by 10% to 15%, the cost of Land Mark went up by nearly 30%.
Internet search results, all tho were all on the same world wide web, also change with regions as well.
The search engine detects your location and shows results more directly pointed at your location first, so if your in Portland and I'm in Youngstown the top results of the same search is not going to be identical.
Thus far this year I have used Gaf/Elk, Tamko, IKO, OC and am currently rapping up a 60 plus square roof using Certainteed Land Mark.
I walked away from each job feeling good about my work.
Is there a chance that one of these jobs may end up having material failure issues, yes,
is one more likely to have it happen than the others, no.Every manufacturer in the US, Canada and Mexico has experienced premature failures with their materials, not one has not.
When I'm a contractor selling a roof, when I'm a sub and just selling labor,
I'm selling my services/workmanship not the materials.
I inform home owners that material failure is possible with all materials but it is the least likely problem to occur.
Poor 'installation' workmanship, poor ventilation and storms being the leading reasons for premature roof replacement.
There is no "oh, sell this one" answer that will guarantee you to never have a problem with the materials your installing.
5/16/2010 Storm Chasers.
Storm chasers masquerade as local home repair companies
May 15, 2010, 9:00PM
The wake of a violent storm like the one that damaged this Lakewood house on May 7, can attract out-of-state storm chasers, who try to carve out a chunk of the home-repair market by masquerading as trusted local contractors.
Out-of-state construction companies blew into storm-ravaged Northeast Ohio last week -- and they're trying to carve out a chunk of the lucrative home-repair market here by masquerading as trusted local contractors.
These out-of-state storm chasers pay local roofing and construction companies big bucks to lease the local firms' good names, reputations and phone lines so they can pose as a home-grown business.
They're courting Cleveland-area companies now. But when they did this before in Ohio, they grabbed a company's name, imported their own out-of-state work crews, hit up homeowners for repairs to be paid for by home-insurance policies and blew back out of town.
What's not clear is how invested these so-called storm chasers are in the quality of the repair jobs they leave behind.
Some local construction company owners have raised an alarm about the secretive deals that allow storm chasers to cloak themselves in another business' reputation so completely that, under some agreements, these outside companies advertise under that name and even answer the local business' phones.
The local companies solicited tend to have excellent ratings with the Better Business Bureau or Angie's List, exactly the thing consumers look for when they hire contractors.
Several business owners say they've been offered at least $100,000 to allow a storm-chasing company to exclusively use their business names for six months.
But these deals could ultimately harm the very local businesses it targets, leave local construction crews idle and stick homeowners with little recourse if work turns out to be shoddy.
Because Ohio doesn't have home repair contractor licensing, there's no real way to see how widespread the practice is, or to police it.
Stan Yourkvitch of Stan's Roofing in Amherst alerted the Cleveland Better Business Bureau last week after he got a call from a salesman he said promised him "a chance to make some big bucks . . . you don't even have to do the work."
The storm chaser wanted to do insurance-funded work in Northeast Ohio under his business name and, in return, Yourkvitch said, give him an 8 percent cut, which he was told would amount to between $100,000 and $200,000.
"I was like, 'This is a scam,' " he said.
Chris Kamis of Absolute Exteriors said he has turned down three similar pitches from storm chasers since last week's hailstorm damaged an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 homes in Northeast Ohio.
One salesman visited his Parma office and offered him $100,000. "He wanted to buy the use of our name until Thanksgiving of this year," Kamis said.
The contract, a fairly vague document which Kamis declined to sign, would require the parties to keep the agreement's existence secret.
The salesman told Kamis that he planned to import Mexican crews to do the work, handle all phone calls and contracts and collect the insurance payments. Homeowners would be left with a two-year warranty, with the local company covering the warranty in the second year.
"I said 'No, you guys will do cheap work,' " Kamis said. "There's no recourse for the homeowner."
Cost of shoddy repairsfalls to homeowner
While insurance companies pay claims for storm-related damage to homes, the contract for repairs is strictly between the homeowner and the contractor, said Mary Bonelli of the Ohio Insurance Institute.
So if a homeowner gets a shoddy roofing job and has to replace it a few years later, the cost of those repairs would fall on the consumer.
Parma Heights attorney Anthony Amato, who handles home repair lawsuits, said the storm-chaser contract left with Kamis could expose any local company that signed it to a number of risks.
"This subcontractor, as they call themselves, is representing that they are contractor," Amato said. The two-year warranty doesn't prevent a homeowner from suing for shoddy work later, and it's the company whose name the contract is in who would bear the liability, he said.
The "rent-a-name" tactic is new to the Cleveland area, but Akron has seen it before.
Tony Umina of Dun-Rite Construction of Hudson recalls that a few years ago, after storms ripped through Akron and Canton, several competitors agreed to similar deals, lured by the money, by the chance to expand their reach and have their business advertised in a way they couldn't afford on their own. One's now out of business and another, which formerly had a sterling reputation, saw its complaints rise into double digits.
Umina says the out-of-towners bring their own crews in. "Do you think guys from Texas are going to pay their taxes?" Local companies like his, he says, get bonded, they register with communities that require it, they pay workers' comp and pay the going wage to employees -- all of which makes it hard to compete on price with companies that cut costs in all those areas.
Homeowners dazzled by salesmen's promises of a "free" roof after a disaster may not question the necessity or quality of the job -- especially if a slick sales job includes promises of enough cash back to cover their insurance policy's deductible.
What they may not realize is that unnecessary claims can change the equation insurers use to calculate risk -- which could drive up insurance rates.
After a hailstorm pummeled Akron in 2007, the Ohio Insurance Institute estimated insurance claims at $105 million. But an institute survey a year later found claims from the storm had topped $288 million -- a 175 percent jump Bonelli said indicated marketing rather than storm damage was driving claims.
And marketing is what this game is about.
A contractor in Canton who signed up with a storm-chasing firm in 2004 when his own business was struggling said his temporary partner came into the area with an army of 20 salespeople -- guys who know how to sell but who weren't roofers -- and 15 crews. He said he never heard from disgruntled homeowners because the storm chaser manned his phones.
The local contractor hired a crew to inspect the jobs, but with the out-of-towners slapping up 800 roofs, he had trouble keeping up. His BBB reputation took a huge hit, he said, even though he made good on a dozen jobs gone wrong.
He said he didn't want to be named because he didn't want to soil his company's now-recovered reputation. But his advice to competitors who are thinking of entering a similar arrangement is this: "The money is not worth it."
Not all storm chasers do poor quality work, local roofers grudgingly admit.
But even if the work is done well, the practice has larger ramifications for the local economy -- both because work crews get little of the available work and because the bulk of the money made on these jobs leaves the state.
The Akron contractor who signed on with the storm chaser said after the '04 Canton storms, "they took $30 million out of this area." He estimates $3 million could leave after last week's hail storms in Lakewood.
Licensing contractors would halt storm chasers
In some states that license home repair companies and subcontractors, this sort of revolving-door business wouldn't be possible. But in more than a dozen years of attempts, Ohio's legislature has repeatedly failed to pass a law that would license home repair contractors as a way to protect homeowners from contractor fraud.
Most notably, in 2008, public outcry killed a so-called "homeowner protection" bill that legislators reworked to exempt some contractors from consumer protection laws and make it harder for homeowners to sue over shoddy work.
Word is that another home repair licensing bill is in the works.
Until the legislature creates a meaningful system for ridding the home repair industry of fly-by-night contractors, Ohio consumers and the state's home-grown construction industry are going to continue to be easy pickings.
As Umina put it: "The thing that would solve the circus show that's about to take place would be to license them."
Until then, buy your ringside tickets.
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