My neighbor recommended a buddy of his who was not licensed but worked cheap. The guy gave me his estimate written in a barbed and illiterate hand on a piece of scribble paper: "Fix roof," with a total that would keep him in beer for months.
The neighbor's ex-wife recommended a guy who is indeed a licensed roofer and maintains office hours at the bar at the VFW.
A friend recommended the guy who fixed her roof. He showed up six hours later than his appointed time, got up on the roof and walked around for a minute in a vague, desultory, poetic manner, promised an estimate by the end of the week, and disappeared. That was mid May.
Finally, I called my neighbor, who is a licensed contractor, and said, "Stan, I need a roofer. I need a reliable roofer. Don't argue with me." So he gave me the name and number of the guy he uses.
Ian showed up at the appointed second, gave me a sample of the material he proposed to use, gave me a detailed description of the structure and a potential problems with Original Western Area roofs, gave me a list of references, drew a diagram of what he proposed to do, got up on the roof and measured and took a core sample (I have two roofs, one of which contains pumice, which absorbs water), and gave me an estimate a couple days later.
Today I came home for lunch to see workers swarming all over the yard and roof and the materials staged in the driveway. And now, after work, they have already removed part of the roof over the bedroom. It sounds as if they're coming right into the house because the sound carries so well down the chimney.
The odor of 20-year-old waterlogged pumice is very sour, like vomit.
Here is the roofing material staged on the lawn. You can see a corner of the roof in the upper right.
6 comments:
tathrI hope they get it finished before another rain storm!
Ignore the first five letters of the above comment--it was the word verif that got misplaced.
You got the same estimates we got when we got our roof. We had the person wander over the roof and give us a scrap of paper with a price on it, too!
We went with the contractor who gave us the itemized estimate and showed us a wide range of materials.
Nonleaky roofs are a good thing.
Hope the roof was done before this afternoon's showers!
Looks like you picked a winner! We have a metal roof. Ours used to leak before the metal and now...no leaks!
word verif: slitat - what you want to do to someone's throat when they give you a roofing quote on a piece of ragged, torn paper.
Glad you've finally got someone reliable. Finding the right contractor to do the work can be quite taxing, isn't it? But it's worth the wait as long as the new roof is properly constructed so you don't run into any problems in the future. And now you can recommend a good name to anyone if they ever need a reliable contractor in the future.
Presto Roofing Corp.
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