our roof is leaking. Nothing serious, it started in the middle of the winter in the garage, but once one spot is weak enough to leak that means there is more to follow.... so I have started talking to roofers.
I hate roofers.
People in the roofing industry are notoriously liars, cheats, thieves and low lives... and those are the good ones. Every time I have to deal with a roofer I feel like I need to take another shower. Roofers make used car salesmen and insurance representatives look like potential Nobel Prize winners for truth and honesty. Do you see where I'm going with this yet?
Starting my quest for a roofer I e-mailed around to my friends in the neighbourhood to get some names of people that have done business with. I tried them first. That brought in the first round of quotes. Then I hit the Yellow Pages and started calling names in the book. All in all, I now have seven quotes (with one still to come) for redoing the entire roof. Same job, same materials, same house. The quotes range from $18,000 to $48,000. Do you see why I hate roofers! How could the same space and job have a range in quotes like this? It's just stupid.
To be fair, there are the six sky lights to replace also and I already know what that costs from the manufacturer, but even taking that into account the rest of the materials and labor are all over the map. To add insult to injury, every roofer has told me the same B.S. about how "they just did their own roof". What are the odds that eight guys all had to "just do their roof"? How stupid do I look?
Don't answer that.
Now it's crunch time. Do I pick Home Depot who's price came in the middle of the pack but the representative still hasn't got me a price for the skylights? How about the nice guy from Poland who is running his father-in-laws 20 year old operation and loves borscht? Russell Roofing sent the nicest manager out to quote the job. He used to manage a country & western singer named Brian McCombs. Now there's a true solid reference for good, down home honesty. There is the guy who's got the wrong type of skylights in his quote, two "one man and his brother, cousin & uncle" teams and the jerk yesterday who disagreed with everything I said about the property information. Doesn't he know that I live here? Uch, I needed an aspirin after his visit.
It becomes a 'pay your money, take your chances', toss of the coin, roll of the dice and spin of the wheel decision. Do you take the bottom dollar quote and hope the guy is still in business next year to fix what ever he didn't do right the first time? Middle of the pack quote? Pay a little more and hope it's worth it? Go high end and at least have bragging rights to having the most expensive shingle roof in the neighbourhood (like anyone would even care)? The roof is definitely getting replaced, it's all a matter of how much we opt to invest in it and who I can stand to have around the house for a week while the job gets done. I plan to take a lot of showers.
xox
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