At New Heights Roofing we believe in transparency and showing all our cards up front so you know who/what you’re dealing with. Part of this is showing our bad reviews as well as our good ones.
Well we got our first bad review so I figured I’d share what it was and also our response. He found us through HomeAdvisor, but also left the review on Angie’s List. Here it is:
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!