A Quick Look at a Poorly Installed Roof and Why it Matters if the Company is Still in Business.
Picture this – you just purchased your dream house. It has a beautiful yard, a lovely house surrounded by shade trees and a long and winding driveway. The realtor assured you everything was in ship shape condition and even the fairly new roof looked promising. To top things off, the home inspector found no signs of leaks or dry rot. There is nothing to do but enjoy your new home.
Fast forward three years and everything is going great, except for the brown stain that has appeared on the vaulted ceiling in the living room. No big deal, the roof came with a 10 year warranty on labor and a 50 year material warranty. Just a quick call to the roofing installer and the repair appointment will be set in motion. After 5 attempts to get a hold of the roofing company a quick search on Google reveals that the company is no longer in business. OK, but you have a 50 year warranty on the shingles.
Several weeks have gone by since you contacted the roofing manufacture through their website. You completed all the forms and attached the required roof pictures. You had a roofer come out and take some shingle samples and sent those off also. Now what? You wait, but what you don’t know is that there is nothing wrong with the shingles themselves, the problem is with the installation. Eventually you get the report back from the roofing manufacture – there is no warranty coverage for the shingles. The problem is with poor or non-existent ventilation.
The roofing contractor you hired had over 20 years experience. It was stated clearly in the roof ad. Of course, as you later learn from the Contractors Builders Board site, the average roofing company in Oregon stays in business 5 1/2 years. So 30 year to lifetime warranties can translate into 5 years? Yes.
To make a long story shorter, the leaking roof was removed and $6500 of rot was replaced due to condensation and leaking. But the moral of the story is: Hire a roofing company that has actually been in business for 30 or 50 or 60 years, such as Cascade Roofing, if you really want a warranty and 60 years of experience. But remember, the majority of roofing manufactures these days are overstating their warranties along with their misleading professional certification programs.
Concluding, only a very few roofing companies actually have their very own roofing professionals doing the installs (no subcontractors) and almost none of them compare to Cascade Roofing with all its foreman and many of its installers having at least 25+ years of work history with the company. That translates into over 200 years of roofing experience!
Hire a roofing company that has proven that is has the experience and professionalism to stay in business and most importantly, take care of its customers and warranties down the road.