Cheating Roofing Contractors
I am writing this to make home owners aware of some underhanded methods a roofing contractor can use to cheat you out of money. After I stopped contracting I ran into a roofer that had just received his roofing contractors license. He asked me if i would help him once in a while to roof. I had always liked roofing and was in good shape so i agreed.
For this article I am going to call the roofer
Helped him with a Tear off, OSB over spaced sheathing 35yr Comp
He made a deal with owner for the owner to pay roofing suppler for the materials. When we got done with the roof the owner was not there and John threw the left over 4 or 5 bundles of shingles in the back of his truck and covered them with shingle wrappers. The owner came home and asked him if any were left over so he could return them for a refund.
Helped with a Tile roof repair.
This house was very steep 12/12 pitch and some areas 2 stories to the gutter. His bid was to replace all the broken tile. We picked up the replacement tiles from a roofing supply. I was working on one part of the roof that was 40 ft to the gutter and had tree limbs almost touching the roof. I told John we should cut them while we are up there. The hardest part is getting up there with it so far off the ground. He said no “It’s not in the contract”. I told him that doing more than the contract would be good for his business, but he said no.
We ran out of replacement tiles with about 20 more broken tiles to be fixed. Instead of getting more tiles and finishing the job we went to the owners office to get paid. He told the owner he there was more broken tiles than he figured, but he wanted to be paid and he needs to get the trees trimmed. The owner said “Why did you not trim them when you were up there ?”
The owner gave him a check if he promised to go and finish the job.
This is the part that really got me:
Went went back to the house without getting more tiles. Knowing the owners wife was home John told me to wait in the truck and he climbed up on the roof and and made noise to appear as though he was doing repairs and then we left. He did this to cover his tracks knowing the owner would ask his wife if we came back.
He is not a man of his word and doing this is against the contractors license law, Under not finishing a job for the contact price or abandoning a job without finishing it or both.
Another Tear off and OSB over spaced sheathing 40yr comp roof.
The owner paid the roof supplier for all the materials. The owner announced that he was leaving to run some errands. Right after he left he grabbed a full box of staples about $70 purchased by the owner and stashed them in his truck.
This is blatant stealing.
The above 4 situations I know to be a fact. The below situations were told to me by former employees:
Roof loader got a job with a long time reputable roofing company to fix leaks. He had never done any roofing and was told to climb on the roof and spread some mastic around and it did not mater if the leak was fixed, just be sure to get the check.
Roofer was putting on a new shake roof after the old one was removed. The home owner told him the contract called for new valley metal. So the roofer called his boss who showed up with some cans of silver spray paint and was told to spray the metal to appear new.
Roofing contractor would bring #15lb felt to the job with the identifying wrappers removed and tell roofer to tell home owner that it is #30lb felt if asked. This is a scam to charge for #30lb felt, but use cheaper #15 lb felt.
In closing:
I am sure there are other ways roofers use to cheat One thing I have seen many times is a home owner pays the roofer the full contract price and then has to pay the material supplier for the materials who the roofer did not pay. The way to guard against this is to pay the material supplier and deduct the amount from the Roofing contract price.
