Our First Bad Review!

Project: Install or Replace an Asphalt Shingle Roof

Comments: When my wife and I sat and talked with Jesse at New Heights Roofing on when the start date would be for our roof, he quoted us a start date around the 10th of June and stated that his brother Josh would contact us before then, to go over everything with us. We paid the $500 deposit to Jesse (which was cashed on June 1st) so we could get scheduled and “on the books” for the time frame he had quoted us. As June 10th came closer and we still had not heard a word from anyone at New Height Roofing, I reached out to Jesse via email to find out what was going on (client should not have to be the one asking for updates) and basically all I received in return was an email from Amy Moore that stated our roof project was not going to start until the 15th. Someone should have explained why there was a delay instead of having a random person we had not heard of and/or been dealing with, simply send a receipt for our deposit and then state that our start date was now pushed almost a week out. When Josh did show up to do the tear off, he explained that some people had quit recently or had some legal problems, so I was doing my best to be sympathetic to the owner and the remaining crew. The next thing I know, Josh is explaining to me (then me to my wife) that ALL of our roof deck has to be ripped out. That we should have been made aware of this prior to him coming out and that he hated being the one to tell me or any other client that type of info because it should have been listed in the quote/price that we agreed and signed upon. So now we were looking at $3,100 extra … which is extreme since the contract we signed states that “7. No Hidden Charges – We guarantee you won’t be caught by surprise when the final bill comes. We won’t ding you with charges you didn’t expect or bill you for extras you didn’t approve. The price you see is the price you pay.” … this certainly does not seem to be true. The worst part about this situation is that Josh didn’t even make me aware of the problem until AFTER he had already ripped some of the boards off the roof. At that point, I was quite upset because 1. What was the purpose of the roof audit and the guarantee if it can quickly be brushed aside when someone sees something on the start day of the project? 2. When some of the old roof decking was already on my lawn and/or in the dump bin, what choice do I have to complain while I am staring at a gaping hole in my roof? This forced my wife and I to downgrade to lesser quality material (it wasn’t like we had an option here .. we were literally forced due to the price increase and the apparent disregard to the guarantee in the contract). We had to “bite the bullet” and decide on something quickly since we literally had an open roof staring at us, thus we downgraded. What is probably worse than all the fiasco to that point, is the ongoing lack of communication on what is getting done with the roof. I spoke with the owner last Friday (June 26th) about if he was going to finish up that day and I was told (remember I had to ask HIM) that the soffit vents we not in stock at Home Depot so they had to be ordered. I made the comment of saying 1. Someone did not think it would be prudent to order them and or pick up the product at the start of the project, knowing that they were needed? 2. No other Home Depot store in the area (isn’t there like 4-5 of them?) didn’t have them in stock either? He told me that no Home Depot had them in stock, so they needed to be ordered and would be coming in today July 1st. Here I sit, July 6th … it has been about 3 weeks since our simple little roof of about 1600 sq ft was started and our project is still not done and the crew are somewhere else working on another project or two and probably putting those clients through the same aggravation, and I am still (the client) the one needing to follow up with New Heights Roofing.

First and foremost I really am very sorry that you feel the experience you had was anything less than pleasant or that you were treated unfairly through the re-roofing process.

I would like to break your concerns down into its 3 elements and deal with them one at a time.

1. It sounds like you feel the start date should have been set in stone. As was explained to you when you sat down with Jesse the first time, roofing is a very difficult business to draw hard lines when it comes to scheduling. Our schedule often gets changed by circumstances out of our control, such as weather and how the previous jobs go (and if we run into any unforeseen work that needs to be done). Although I readily admit that we are not perfect we do the best we can to let our clients know before-hand that these things can and most likely will happen. This is also why we let you know that we would start work as much as a week and a half early or late. We made several attempts to contact you before June 10, I am sorry you didn’t get any of our messages. I do understand that this can be frustrating and apologize that it happened to you.

2. It also sounds that you feel you were not sufficiently warned about the possibility of your roof decking being in poor condition. As a roofing professional I also wish that I could see under the shingles and flashing on every roof that I do work on so that I knew exactly what I was getting myself into on each and every job. But that is not the case. The best that we can do is give our clients a warning that it may happen. Sometimes it does, other times the plywood deck is in great shape and no work needs to be done. We can never know until we tear into the roof and inspect the sheathing directly.

I would also like to talk about what hidden charges are and what they are not. A hidden charge would simply be a charge that was known by the roofer before he started the work and not disclosed to the homeowners. When we say “7. No Hidden Charges – We guarantee you won’t be caught by surprise when the final bill comes. We won’t ding you with charges you didn’t expect or bill you for extras you didn’t approve. The price you see is the price you pay.” Obviously we are not stating that we can see all of the possible/unforeseen problems that we may run into on a given job. Every roof is different.

By “no hidden charges” we are stating that we will not charge you for items that should already be included in a standard re-roof or charge extra for upgrades that you did not approve i.e. charge you for a more expensive shingle because “The ones that you wanted were out of stock” etc… The other thing that this states is that we will warn you if we do run into an unforeseen problem with your roof right away rather than choosing to disclose those problems at the end of the job with the final bill so you won’t be surprised when it comes. Every thing you see on your bill will be disclosed up front or as soon as we find the issue as you stated Josh did when he found the decking issue on your home. Per your feedback we have changed the wording to make that more clear for our future clients.

3. Last of all it sounds as if you are unhappy that your roof project took longer than expected. To be quite honest so are we. It is always painful to have a job drag out longer than expected especially when it is due to finding major problems with a clients roof. Our commitment to always do the job right and never cut corners can delay a project. If we ever have the option to save a little time by cutting corners and do a lousy job, reusing defective plywood, not ventilating the home properly or any other thing comes up we have only one policy “if a job is worth doing its worth doing right” and for us that means even if it takes us a little longer.

Before I wrap up, I would like to apologize for something that was our fault and could have been avoided. We couldn’t wrap up the job on time because we were waiting on some parts we needed that should have been ordered when the job was started. That was our mistake and I apologize things fall through the cracks sometimes. However we did seal everything up and let you know there would be no problems if it were to rain anytime before the parts came in. Your roof was 98% done and in no danger of leaking.

I truly am sorry that we could not make you happy I wish you the best of luck!

I hate it that someone has had a bad experience with my company, but we are definitely not perfect so it’s bound to happen.

Thanks for reading,

Tyson