Roofing rant

[Deleted]

Back in 2009, we paid $6500 to have our house reroofed by a licensed contractor.  Although he had been in business for 8 or 9 years, he shortly afterwards went out of business. Remember this was the Recession timeframe.

We have spent almost $4000 repairing problems created by this roofing project. The sunroom skylights leaked. They leaked when he finished roofing, and we said so. He "fixed" them. In about a year, we noticed wood damage. We ended up replacing them. The company that replaced them also replaced some flashing installed incorrectly around the sunroom. We got the wood damage replaced in the sunroom and had it painted.

When we had the gutters cleaned on Tuesday, the guy took a picture of the roof over the carport. An entire row of shingles has slipped. If you look more closely, several rows are slipping. I checked the internet, and slipping is usually caused by improper nailing. That whole section, at a minimum, probably needs to be redone.

To make matters worse, the roofing company that we used to replace the skylights/correct the flashing doesn't repair another company's work. They said most companies won't! We did get a couple of referrals to try, but this is very frustrating.  I understand why. They don't want to "guarantee" the workmanship of something they didn't originally install. 

But am I really expected to totally replace a seven-year-old roof? 

Grr . . .

[zibazinski]

Ugh. I'm so sorry you got taken by a bad roofer. They should have to take responsibility but that's why they dissolve their business and then start a new one. To cover their lying asses.

[mroped]

If this guy was incorporated then is nothing you can do but if he was not then there is the option is suing him personally.
However, after 7 years I doubt that you'd have a valid claim.
I never heard of a company that doesn't "repair" because they didn't do the original job. That is a play for a roof replacement.
Granted, they can't guarantee for the whole roof but they can do a repair and guarantee that.
I know that it might sound mean but they might think that you are an easy target or the very opposite, a hard ass so they don't wanna deal with you in change.
Try some small contractors/remodelers and maybe you are in luck.

Anyhow, good luck!

[Deleted]

Jan 7, 2016 7:47:53 GMT -5 mroped said:

If this guy was incorporated then is nothing you can do but if he was not then there is the option is suing him personally.
However, after 7 years I doubt that you'd have a valid claim.
I never heard of a company that doesn't "repair" because they didn't do the original job. That is a play for a roof replacement.
Granted, they can't guarantee for the whole roof but they can do a repair and guarantee that.
I know that it might sound mean but they might think that you are an easy target or the very opposite, a hard ass so they don't wanna deal with you in change.
Try some small contractors/remodelers and maybe you are in luck.

Anyhow, good luck!

Maybe they are just busy.  Or maybe DH didn't explain well.  They fixed the skylights and flashing, and things were great.

They didn't ask us to get a new roof.  They just said it would be hard to find someone.

The guy had a LLC, which is a limited liability corporation.  I doubt if he personally could be sued.  We did our due diligence, by the way.  He pulled permits for the decks, was insured, etc.

I just needed to rant.

[tskeeter]

Jan 7, 2016 9:10:46 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Jan 7, 2016 7:47:53 GMT -5 mroped said:

If this guy was incorporated then is nothing you can do but if he was not then there is the option is suing him personally.
However, after 7 years I doubt that you'd have a valid claim.
I never heard of a company that doesn't "repair" because they didn't do the original job. That is a play for a roof replacement.
Granted, they can't guarantee for the whole roof but they can do a repair and guarantee that.
I know that it might sound mean but they might think that you are an easy target or the very opposite, a hard ass so they don't wanna deal with you in change.
Try some small contractors/remodelers and maybe you are in luck.

Anyhow, good luck!

Maybe they are just busy.  Or maybe DH didn't explain well.  They fixed the skylights and flashing, and things were great.

They didn't ask us to get a new roof.  They just said it would be hard to find someone.

The guy had a LLC, which is a limited liability corporation.  I doubt if he personally could be sued.  We did our due diligence, by the way.  He pulled permits for the decks, was insured, etc.

I just needed to rant.

Am I understanding this right?  You hired a general carpentry contractor to do a roofing job?  That might be where you went astray.  Roofing to prevent water intrusion is a bit of a specialty.  One where practice tends to improve results.  Especially when you have skylights, which seem to be particularly problematic when it comes to water leaks.  You might have been better off with a company that specializes in roofing rather than a jack-of-all-trades contractor who only does a roofing job once every year or two. 

Hopefully others can learn from your unfortunate experience and avoid similar problems.

[Deleted]

Jan 7, 2016 12:43:11 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Jan 7, 2016 9:10:46 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Maybe they are just busy.  Or maybe DH didn't explain well.  They fixed the skylights and flashing, and things were great.

They didn't ask us to get a new roof.  They just said it would be hard to find someone.

The guy had a LLC, which is a limited liability corporation.  I doubt if he personally could be sued.  We did our due diligence, by the way.  He pulled permits for the decks, was insured, etc.

I just needed to rant.

Am I understanding this right?  You hired a general carpentry contractor to do a roofing job?  That might be where you went astray.  Roofing to prevent water intrusion is a bit of a specialty.  One where practice tends to improve results.  Especially when you have skylights, which seem to be particularly problematic when it comes to water leaks.  You might have been better off with a company that specializes in roofing rather than a jack-of-all-trades contractor who only does a roofing job once every year or two. 

Hopefully others can learn from your unfortunate experience and avoid similar problems.

Is it just a Southern thing, but many general contractors do roofing here.  The company that fixed the skylights and corrected the flashing is a contractor.

In any case, both companies showed up on Angie's list under roofing.

[teen persuasion]

Jan 7, 2016 6:35:45 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Back in 2009, we paid $6500 to have our house reroofed by a licensed contractor.  Although he had been in business for 8 or 9 years, he shortly afterwards went out of business. Remember this was the Recession timeframe.

We have spent almost $4000 repairing problems created by this roofing project. The sunroom skylights leaked. They leaked when he finished roofing, and we said so. He "fixed" them. In about a year, we noticed wood damage. We ended up replacing them. The company that replaced them also replaced some flashing installed incorrectly around the sunroom. We got the wood damage replaced in the sunroom and had it painted.

When we had the gutters cleaned on Tuesday, the guy took a picture of the roof over the carport. An entire row of shingles has slipped. If you look more closely, several rows are slipping. I checked the internet, and slipping is usually caused by improper nailing. That whole section, at a minimum, probably needs to be redone.

To make matters worse, the roofing company that we used to replace the skylights/correct the flashing doesn't repair another company's work. They said most companies won't! We did get a couple of referrals to try, but this is very frustrating.  I understand why. They don't want to "guarantee" the workmanship of something they didn't originally install. 

But am I really expected to totally replace a seven-year-old roof? 

Grr . . .

Is the carport roof a separate section that could be redone independently?  Are you planning to completely replace the shingles there, or just renail them?

I'm just trying to figure out how you misnail several rows so badly that they slip out of position.  We redid our kitchen ell roof maybe 8 years ago.  The main house roof was fine, but the kitchen one was shot.  The difference in level meant they are not connected at all, so we did that part only, and did it ourselves.  Along the way I learned that most of the roofing work is pretty easy - tear off with shovels (messy cleanup below), roll out tar paper and attach with staples using tack hammer (easy - bam, bam, bam) or ice and water barrier (sticky adhesive), line up shingles and nail in (not really hard since shingles are thin), cut end shingles to length with razor knife (my job, again not hard since thin), stagger next row's seams.  One row of shingles overlaps the next row 50%, so there is plenty of area to nail in and still have the nails be covered by the overlapping row; you also nail each shingle in multiple places, so even if one nail fails, the others should hold.  There is also a sticky adhesive strip on the back of each shingle to bind a row to the one below it.  Hot weather activates it, as I understand it; that's why roofing is not done when it is too cold (here) - the shingles don't seal properly, and they may be too brittle when cold.

So I'm really at a loss as to how someone could misnail whole rows of shingles!  That is really the easy part of the job.  Only thing I can guess comes from Pat Stab's allusion to using a nailgun on the shingles - maybe they used that to speed up the job, and had it set too strong so that it tore thru each shingle setting the nails too deep.

[Deleted]

Jan 8, 2016 9:38:27 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Jan 7, 2016 6:35:45 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Back in 2009, we paid $6500 to have our house reroofed by a licensed contractor.  Although he had been in business for 8 or 9 years, he shortly afterwards went out of business. Remember this was the Recession timeframe.

We have spent almost $4000 repairing problems created by this roofing project. The sunroom skylights leaked. They leaked when he finished roofing, and we said so. He "fixed" them. In about a year, we noticed wood damage. We ended up replacing them. The company that replaced them also replaced some flashing installed incorrectly around the sunroom. We got the wood damage replaced in the sunroom and had it painted.

When we had the gutters cleaned on Tuesday, the guy took a picture of the roof over the carport. An entire row of shingles has slipped. If you look more closely, several rows are slipping. I checked the internet, and slipping is usually caused by improper nailing. That whole section, at a minimum, probably needs to be redone.

To make matters worse, the roofing company that we used to replace the skylights/correct the flashing doesn't repair another company's work. They said most companies won't! We did get a couple of referrals to try, but this is very frustrating.  I understand why. They don't want to "guarantee" the workmanship of something they didn't originally install. 

But am I really expected to totally replace a seven-year-old roof? 

Grr . . .

Is the carport roof a separate section that could be redone independently?  Are you planning to completely replace the shingles there, or just renail them?

I'm just trying to figure out how you misnail several rows so badly that they slip out of position.  We redid our kitchen ell roof maybe 8 years ago.  The main house roof was fine, but the kitchen one was shot.  The difference in level meant they are not connected at all, so we did that part only, and did it ourselves.  Along the way I learned that most of the roofing work is pretty easy - tear off with shovels (messy cleanup below), roll out tar paper and attach with staples using tack hammer (easy - bam, bam, bam) or ice and water barrier (sticky adhesive), line up shingles and nail in (not really hard since shingles are thin), cut end shingles to length with razor knife (my job, again not hard since thin), stagger next row's seams.  One row of shingles overlaps the next row 50%, so there is plenty of area to nail in and still have the nails be covered by the overlapping row; you also nail each shingle in multiple places, so even if one nail fails, the others should hold.  There is also a sticky adhesive strip on the back of each shingle to bind a row to the one below it.  Hot weather activates it, as I understand it; that's why roofing is not done when it is too cold (here) - the shingles don't seal properly, and they may be too brittle when cold.

So I'm really at a loss as to how someone could misnail whole rows of shingles!  That is really the easy part of the job.  Only thing I can guess comes from Pat Stab's allusion to using a nailgun on the shingles - maybe they used that to speed up the job, and had it set too strong so that it tore thru each shingle setting the nails too deep.

What I read online about slipping shingles says they were probably nailed too high.  Apparently, there is a nail row on shingles to help know where to nail.

They will have to be replaced.  I can't imagine a repair company wanting to reuse them.  It is on the back of the house, at least, if they can't be completely matched.

I tried to post a picture, but it was my first experience with Photo Bucket.  Could anyone help me post it?

[Deleted]

Let me try one more time.

[wyouser]

You said the contractor back in 2009 was licensed? If so did the entity he was licensed under require him to be insured? You might check to see if you can find out who  his insurer was.  Entities usually require the contractor have his insurance company file a certificate of insurance as a requirement to hold his license. With a company name and policy number you might see if you could file a claim. That might be worth checking out.

[Deleted]

Jan 8, 2016 11:51:15 GMT -5 wyouser said:

You said the contractor back in 2009 was licensed? If so did the entity he was licensed under require him to be insured? You might check to see if you can find out who  his insurer was.  Entities usually require the contractor have his insurance company file a certificate of insurance as a requirement to hold his license. With a company name and policy number you might see if you could file a claim. That might be worth checking out.

That's a great suggestion.  I think we may even have a copy of his insurance information in our files.

Of course, that is probably not what the insurance was for.  I think it is liability insurance in case they damaged our property (broke a window, for example) or someone got hurt.  I sort of doubt if they are insuring his workmanship.  Even if they did, six years is probably too long.

But I certainly can check.

[wyouser]

What you are looking for is to file a claim under the Products and Completed Operations part of the policy if he carried that at the time.l

[Waffle]

I can certainly relate. In 2004 the remnants of Hurricane Ivan blew through Indiana (of all places).  The back half of the roof of my 4 year old house had to be replaced. I can't remember now exactly when it started leaking, but I know it was less than 10 years. And the original roofer (who had been recommended by a colleague) was now out of business.  I had the whole roof replaced that time.  The only "good" thing about my situation was that my homeowner's insurance paid for the faulty roof (less the deductible). 

[teen persuasion]

Jan 8, 2016 10:42:38 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Let me try one more time.

That looks so odd.  A strip of architectural shingles doesn't have that sawtooth look (alternating tabs and spaces), it is a solid strip with no open spaces.  Rather, it has built up levels in a random pattern, 1 to 3 layers deep.  That almost looks like an individual strip delaminated, the layers coming apart, which could be a manufacturing defect.

[Deleted]

Jan 8, 2016 20:04:12 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

Jan 8, 2016 10:42:38 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Let me try one more time.

That looks so odd.  A strip of architectural shingles doesn't have that sawtooth look (alternating tabs and spaces), it is a solid strip with no open spaces.  Rather, it has built up levels in a random pattern, 1 to 3 layers deep.  That almost looks like an individual strip delaminated, the layers coming apart, which could be a manufacturing defect.

The second roofing company came out today; they are giving us a quote next week.  He said they could probably reuse most of the shingles, but they will have to buy some replacement ones as well.

The guy said what I read online: the installer didn't line up the nail lines.  He also said he used a nail gun with too much pressure so that he split some of the shingles.  He didn't mention a manufacturing defect.  I don't know what I could do about it now.  He didn't install the shingles on the quote; they turned out to be not available.  I don't think he bought a lesser quality, but he did end up getting them from Lowe's.  There was a shingle shortage because of petroleum prices when the roof was installed.  Or something like that.  He didn't tell us that; I am just vaguely remembering.

The good news is that the rest of the roof looks fine.  The guy said that guys are put on opposite sides to install and nail.  The ones on the other sides knew what they were doing.  The one on this side obviously did not.  The front was done correctly as well.

We went through the paperwork; we don't have the insurance info.  I did figure out that this guy wasn't a general contractor.  He did roofs, gutters, decks, and that sort of thing.  It makes me cry to look at all the great comments on the BBB site that made us trust his work.  We printed it off at the time.  This reminds you that comments are usually posted at the time of installation.  They are pretty useless at that point. 

The roofing company doing the repair work has been in business 20+ years.  That is the best I can do this time around.

[CCL]

Yeah, it kinda looks like they are just falling apart. I know you probably  can't do much to the guy now, but I'd be pissed. I would also lean toward replacing the whole thing, thinking the rest will fail, too. If it's a manufacturing defect, maybe you could get some king of reimbursement from them?

[CCL]

There have been some class - action lawsuits involving roofing shingles. 

[CCL]

Just saw your last comment, maybe this new guy can fix it all for you at a reasonable price? That would sure be better than replacing the whole thing. Sorry . Those contractors really make me mad!

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Jan 8, 2016 20:35:22 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Jan 8, 2016 20:04:12 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

That looks so odd.  A strip of architectural shingles doesn't have that sawtooth look (alternating tabs and spaces), it is a solid strip with no open spaces.  Rather, it has built up levels in a random pattern, 1 to 3 layers deep.  That almost looks like an individual strip delaminated, the layers coming apart, which could be a manufacturing defect.

The second roofing company came out today; they are giving us a quote next week.  He said they could probably reuse most of the shingles, but they will have to buy some replacement ones as well.

The guy said what I read online: the installer didn't line up the nail lines.  He also said he used a nail gun with too much pressure so that he split some of the shingles.  He didn't mention a manufacturing defect.  I don't know what I could do about it now.  He didn't install the shingles on the quote; they turned out to be not available.  I don't think he bought a lesser quality, but he did end up getting them from Lowe's.  There was a shingle shortage because of petroleum prices when the roof was installed.  Or something like that.  He didn't tell us that; I am just vaguely remembering.

The good news is that the rest of the roof looks fine.  The guy said that guys are put on opposite sides to install and nail.  The ones on the other sides knew what they were doing.  The one on this side obviously did not.  The front was done correctly as well.

We went through the paperwork; we don't have the insurance info.  I did figure out that this guy wasn't a general contractor.  He did roofs, gutters, decks, and that sort of thing.  It makes me cry to look at all the great comments on the BBB site that made us trust his work.  We printed it off at the time.  This reminds you that comments are usually posted at the time of installation.  They are pretty useless at that point. 

The roofing company doing the repair work has been in business 20+ years.  That is the best I can do this time around.

I agree.  Which is why we are waiting to post online reviews of the Bozoes who "worked" on our house.  We want to be sure we have a final tally of everything they messed up.  I now have water coming into the light section in my bathroom ceiling fan.  

I worry that that our roof is going to fail fairly quickly.  It's hard to get quality people out to judge other people's work and pro-actively suggest repairs/alternatives.  You really just have to wait for the inevitable failures or just go ahead and replace the entire roof/ceiling/wall/floor/deck/fence/electrical with a new contractor.  

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

I also think that many trades no longer make repairs -- they now only "replace" for bigger pay checks.

[mroped]

As you all know, I'm a contractor but I gotta say : I've never seen such thing!
And trust me I've seen my share of crappy/ weird looking things.
For that to happen one has to skip not just one row of nails but multiple ones.
Another option would be that the sheething underneat is moving and that can be caused just by framing moving. In other words, you should have a gap in your gable on that end that would most likely extend on the inside and show on the drywall.

To repair that, one would have to remove most of the lower part of the roof and check the sheeting/roof framing and just after all is good, redo the sheeting

[teen persuasion]

Jan 9, 2016 10:12:02 GMT -5 mroped said:

As you all know, I'm a contractor but I gotta say : I've never seen such thing!
And trust me I've seen my share of crappy/ weird looking things.
For that to happen one has to skip not just one row of nails but multiple ones.
Another option would be that the sheething underneat is moving and that can be caused just by framing moving. In other words, you should have a gap in your gable on that end that would most likely extend on the inside and show on the drywall.

To repair that, one would have to remove most of the lower part of the roof and check the sheeting/roof framing and just after all is good, redo the sheeting

Wow, that might explain it.  I couldn't figure out why, if a row of shingles was slipping, the rows below it were still parallel.  I had to look down 6 rows to see the overlap/shift.  That would correspond with about the 4' side of a 4' x 8' sheet of sheathing.  All the shingles are still attached to the sheet, but the whole sheet slipped down, and the gap is hidden by the overlapping shingles above it, for now.

[gregintenn]

You got hosed. Fix your roof and move on.

[teen persuasion]

When you had the roof redone originally, did they replace any of the decking in that section?  Could they have laid that sheet down, forgot to fasten it, and then roofed over it?  As long as gravity held it in place it was ok, but with time it began to shift?

Is the underside of the carport roof visible, or is it finished?  Can you look up from below that section and see if a sheet of sheathing has shifted?

Another thought - did they do a complete tear-off last time, or is this layer on top of another layer of shingles?

[tskeeter]

Jan 7, 2016 13:46:04 GMT -5 @bamafan1954 said:

Jan 7, 2016 12:43:11 GMT -5 tskeeter said:

Am I understanding this right?  You hired a general carpentry contractor to do a roofing job?  That might be where you went astray.  Roofing to prevent water intrusion is a bit of a specialty.  One where practice tends to improve results.  Especially when you have skylights, which seem to be particularly problematic when it comes to water leaks.  You might have been better off with a company that specializes in roofing rather than a jack-of-all-trades contractor who only does a roofing job once every year or two. 

Hopefully others can learn from your unfortunate experience and avoid similar problems.

Is it just a Southern thing, but many general contractors do roofing here.  The company that fixed the skylights and corrected the flashing is a contractor.

In any case, both companies showed up on Angie's list under roofing.

I understand the South is different.  The practice of not using roofing specialists may explain why, when 17 of us bought new construction houses east of ATL over a four or five month period several years ago, we had 17 leaking roofs.

[zibazinski]

Yes. Inspectors from the city on your roof jobs are a joke. But it's the same in Oregon as well. I hired my own inspectors for my new builds by other builders. He caught a serious roof issue where the builder would have covered it up and the inspector would have just passed it. I felt the builder didn't pull as much shady shit because he knew I had someone watching him.

[mroped]

If you look at the head of the shadow, the shingles are heavily overlapping covering at the edge of the roof an entire row while at the gap is opening completely exposing an entire row.
There is the possibility that those shingles were never nailed on that end and the whole section holds together just due to weight and because of the glue.
Whomever worked on that end must have run out of nails and was too lazy to go get more or maybe was just one of those idiots that believes too much in YouTube videos and tought that would be a good time to experience. Why nail them if they hold?
Unfortunately you are paying for it now.

I don't know how it works in other states but in Pa you don't have to be a roof specialist or even a roofer to install roofs. GC typically have a guy or two that know how to do them and they are the ones running the crew.

[gregintenn]

Jan 10, 2016 8:02:57 GMT -5 mroped said:

If you look at the head of the shadow, the shingles are heavily overlapping covering at the edge of the roof an entire row while at the gap is opening completely exposing an entire row.
There is the possibility that those shingles were never nailed on that end and the whole section holds together just due to weight and because of the glue.
Whomever worked on that end must have run out of nails and was too lazy to go get more or maybe was just one of those idiots that believes too much in YouTube videos and tought that would be a good time to experience. Why nail them if they hold?
Unfortunately you are paying for it now.

I don't know how it works in other states but in Pa you don't have to be a roof specialist or even a roofer to install roofs. GC typically have a guy or two that know how to do them and they are the ones running the crew.

I've seen this before. My neighbor got a real deal on getting his house roofed. After a storm, he discovered that some of his savings were due to the lack of nails. Guy who roofed it had since bankrupted. I can't get my head wrapped around bankruptcy laws. Screw a bunch of people, file bankruptcy, and they can't do a damned thing about it. Rinse. Repeat.

[Deleted]

Jan 9, 2016 22:54:46 GMT -5 teen persuasion said:

When you had the roof redone originally, did they replace any of the decking in that section?  Could they have laid that sheet down, forgot to fasten it, and then roofed over it?  As long as gravity held it in place it was ok, but with time it began to shift?

Is the underside of the carport roof visible, or is it finished?  Can you look up from below that section and see if a sheet of sheathing has shifted?

Another thought - did they do a complete tear-off last time, or is this layer on top of another layer of shingles?

They did a complete tear-off. There were two layers already there.

The underside of the carport roof is finished and painted. It is wood panels . . . maybe plywood?  The paint is a light cream (part of the trim to the house) so staining would be noticeable if water had pooled. There is no swelling either. This happened in the last six months (since last time gutters were cleaned) and maybe only in the last few weeks. We had substantial wind and rain around Christmas Day . . . tornadoes formed in nearby areas, but not here. 

As gregintenn said, we just have to fix the roof and get on with it.   I'll update, though, when we get the estimate and let you know if the roofer added anything informative. 

[gregintenn]

I hate it happened, and didn't mean it to sound condescending. I just meant the effort and frustration of chasing this contractor likely wouldn't provide much but headaches and hard feelings. It sucks that the bankruptcy system is set up in such a way that people can get by with this.