WARNING!
This booklet could save you thousands of dollars
and a lot of grief.

Your roof is one of the most important and valuable parts of your home, especially if you live on the west coast (otherwise known as the “wet coast”). This booklet is designed to help homeowners prevent roofing disasters such as:

This information will help you hire the right roofer and get the right job done at the right price, so you can avoid the dreaded…“Roofer Madness”!

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BOOKLET CHAPTERS

1. New Roof or Just Repairs?
2. How Long Will it Take?
3. Can You Tell if the Roofing is Done Right?
4. Caution! Liability Issues
5. Quality Counts
6. War Zone or Work Site?
7. First Impressions Are Important
8. Warranties (What They Really Mean)
9. Attic Ventilation
10. Comparing Apples to Apples

Chapter 1.

What do you really need?

Unless you know and trust your roofing contractor, you need to have your roof properly inspected to know for certain what work is needed.

You may only need to spend a few hundred dollars for repairs and maintenance, or you may need to completely re-roof your home.

Roofs usually start leaking where there are details — roof ridges, valleys, vents, chimneys, flashing, etc. An inexpensive repair of such an area could give you many more trouble free years.

On the other hand, an inspection may reveal some very serious deterioration that needs to be addressed immediately to prevent water damage, rot and mold problems. It’s a good idea to replace your roof before it leaks to avoid potential damage as well as the cost and hassles of emergency repairs.

Have your roof inspected by someone you trust. Someone (like us) with lots of experience in the roofing business. Most general building inspectors don’t have enough roofing knowledge to perform this kind of inspection.
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Chapter 2.

How Long Will it Take?

The variables that determine how long roof repairs, or re-roofing will take are:
• size of the roof
• complexity of the roof
• and the size of the crew doing the work.

The longer the project takes, the more noise, mess and general disruption there will be around your home, and the greater the potential for water damage through an open roof. A smaller building with a simple roof will not take as long as a larger more, complex roof. If a plywood roof deck replacement or rot repairs are required the project will take longer.

Doing the work properly takes a certain number of man hours. The only real way to reduce the time is to increase the size and efficiency of the crew. You need to ask a roofing contractor questions like, “How big is your crew? How many people will show up each day? Will you work every day until the project is complete?”

Answers to these questions will help you compare the time one or another roofing company is likely to take.
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Chapter 3.

Can You Tell if the Roofing is Done Right?

Most home owners are not roofers. Even if you did feel comfortable getting up onto a roof you most likely wouldn’t know how to determine if a roofing job was done correctly. It’s those small, hard-to-see details that can cause problems, such as water damage, rot and mold issues.

There are really only two choices. You either work with a company you know and trust, a company with a definite and stated quality control procedure, or you pay for and get a third party inspection from a qualified roofing inspector.

If you decide to go the roofing inspector route, it is important to have the inspector prepare the specifications of the job before the roofers price it out. This allows all the roofers to price to the same specifications. It also removes any chance of disagreement between roofers, homeowner, and the inspector, because everyone knows, before submitting their quotes,what the specifications and standards are for the job.
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Chapter 4.

Caution! Liability Issues

WorkSafeBC® (previously Workers’ Compensation)

WorkSafeBC legislation requires you as the property owner to be responsible by law to ensure everyone working on your property is registered with WorkSafeBC, and that their insurance premiums are paid in full. If the roofing company is not registered, and paid in full,you become responsible for paying their premiums.

If the worker (whether he is a window cleaner, tree trimmer, drywaller or roofer) does not have his own coverage it is up to you to take out coverage with WorkSafeBC for each worker on your property.

The company may be registered with WorkSafeBC but not in good standing, or delinquent with their premiums. In this case they are not covered and again you are liable if any worker is hurt on your job. Don’t accept their word that they are covered. Get the company’s WorkSafeBC number and check it out online or by phone. If they are delinquent or
not registered with WorkSafeBC it may indicate that they are a “fly-bynight” company or are not financially sound. This should concern you as they may not be around to back up their warranty.

To protect yourself as the home owner, get a clearance letter from WorkSafeBC for the company doing the work.

The clearance letter states if they are in good standing. It also indicates the date of coverage. If that date does not cover the time that your project will require, you are not covered.

Get a clearance letter online at:
www.worksafebc.com (under Insurance sub-heading “Get a Clearance Letter”)

Contact the Clearance Section at:
Phone: 604.244.6380
Toll Free: 1.888.922.2768
Fax: 604.244.6390

Liability Insurance

Also check that your roofer has proper, up-to-date liability insurance that will cover water, fire, or other property damage. Many roofers don’t have this insurance because prices have increased and it’s more difficult to qualify. Many roofing companies are only insured for sloped shingle roofs — not for “Hot Work” which is needed on flat roofs. If you are re-roofing or repairing a flat roof be sure to get a copy of the roofing company’s liability insurance and be sure that they are insured for “Open Flame or Hot Work”. Plumbers and roofers start more fires than anyone else in the construction business so make sure the company you choose is properly insured.
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Chapter 5.

Quality Counts

You have probably used spell check on your computer after typing a letter, or double checked to see if a door was locked after you turned the key. These are techniques for quality control.

Even the best roofers can make mistakes. Accept the fact that you may find minor deficiencies on your roof while it is being installed or immediately after. The important question is, “Does your roofing company have a standard system for finding and correcting those deficiencies?”

After working hard on your roof for 8 to 10 hours in the hot sun your installer is hungry, tired, wants to finish your job and go home. I can tell you from experience that as good as they may be, they are not the right people to do your final inspection!

In my 22 years of managing roofing projects I have never gone onto a newly finished roof and found it to be 100% complete. There’s always some little deficiency — like an exposed nail head, a loose shingle, or debris in the gutters. These small outpoints can be found even after a good installer is finished. Usually they take less than an hour to correct.

After a poor installer leaves… Never mind… I won’t go into that! That’s Mike Holmes’ job! The point is that you need someone to inspect the roof after the installer is done. This can be someone from the same company (if it is a reputable company) or it can be an independent roofing inspector. They need to do a thorough inspection of everything from the last shingle on the roof ridge to the nails being picked up from the driveway.

It is worth noting that the quality of the installers’ workmanship increases substantially when they know your roof will be inspected by someone other than themselves. The best quality control system also corrects the installers as necessary. This way the quality of the workmanship keeps improving.
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Chapter 6.

War Zone or Work Site?

If precautions are not taken before your old roof is removed, damage can be done to your property and your neighbors’.

If your property is close to a neighbor, the old roofing material can hit their house as it comes down, leaving black tar marks on the walls. Flower beds can get trampled, bushes and shrubs can be crushed and broken nails can be left on the lawn or driveway.

There are ways to protect your property, such as tarps and plywood barriers. Each property needs a different approach depending on the roof pitch, access and surroundings. If you have a flat roof and can park a disposal bin right against the house you don’t have to worry about this too much. Unfortunately, that is usually not the case.

What to do before you start:

1. Go around your property with the roofing contractor you are considering and point out the areas you want to protect. Have the contractor tell you how he will protect them and then make sure the solution gets written into your contract. Getting details like this confirmed in writing increases the chance that site protection instructions will be passed on to the installer and followed. You are then protected by the contract if damage does occur as a result of the installer not following the site protection plan.

2. Ask the salesman if the crew will have a magnetic roller to pick up nails. His or her reaction will be a clue as to how seriously they take the business of cleaning up the work area. There is really no other way to get nails out of some surfaces like grass or gravel.

3. Ask your potential roofing contractor how they will keep water out of your house if it rains. Remember, we live on the “wet coast” and it can rain any time, unannounced. There are several things that can be done to minimize this risk to almost zero.

4. Make sure the crew that shows up is big enough to get the old roof off and the new roof on in a timely manner (two installers and two laborers minimum). If the roof is too big to do in one day, even with a larger crew, then have them do it one section at a time.

5. Have an agreement with your contractor to ensure unfinished roof sections are covered with a tarp at the end of every day. Never leave a roof open overnight, no matter what the forecast is and never let the installer talk you into leaving it exposed overnight. It only takes an hour of rain in the middle of the night to warp your hardwood floors, ruin your cabinets, stain your carpet, peel the paint off your walls, or damage your furniture.

6. Ensure the contractor always has a tarp on the job should the weather change during the day.

7. Re-roofing can be done safely any time of year as long as proper procedures are followed. You will probably get better rates and faster service if you have the work done in the off season.
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Chapter 7.

First Impressions Are Important

I can’t give you any surefire rules that guarantee a roofing company will be reliable, trustworthy and considerate, but watch out if they don’t respect the following courtesies:

• Did they show up to do the estimate when they said were going to? Or did they at least call if they were delayed?
• Did they get a quote back to you within a reasonable time, when they said they would?
• Did they call back promptly when you left a message?
• Did they include the things you asked for in the quote?
• Do you feel you have been understood? Did they make an effort

to give you what you asked for and what you said was important to you? Fundamentally, these are basic manners but they are also clues to the type of company you are dealing with.
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Chapter 8.

Warranties (What They Really Mean)

Warranties are a complicated subject that I could spend many hours explaining, and by the time I did they would have changed. I think some manufacturers purposefully try to make them complicated and keep changing them to gain a marketing advantage. I am going to attempt to explain a few of the basics.

There are labor warranties and material warranties. The roofing company provides the labor warranty and the manufacturer of the shingles provides the materials warranty. If the shingles are not installed as per the manufacturer’s specifications, it voids your material warranty.

Your roofer has to be in business for them to honor the labor warranty, so hope they aren’t a fly-by-night outfit.

Lifetime warranties are popular now, but usually refer to the time that you live in the home and are not always transferable to new owners.

Most material warranties are prorated. This means that the value they pay out if there is a problem goes down as time goes by. For example, on a 40-year shingle that breaks down at the 30-year mark, you may only be reimbursed at 75% of what it really costs to fix the problem. If it is then determined that the labor was faulty, the manufacturer may not even honor the prorated amount.
There are all kinds of extended warranties and various “star” warranties (One Star to Five Star) with different levels of coverage.

There are many more complications with warranties and most roofers don’t really know the difference in the warranties from one manufacturer to another or how their workmanship affects the warranty.

The main thing that you can control is hiring a roofer who has been in business for some time and looks like they will be in business for years to come. If your roofer goes out of business – there goes your labor warranty. You can also check references to see if they are the type of company that comes back to fix things if there is a problem.

Companies who are well established are more likely to handle a problem, rather than run from it, as opposed to the guy who operates out of the back of his truck with no insurance and nothing to lose.

Make sure you hire someone you are confident will be in business in 10 yrs to honor the warranty. You can also get a report written by Brad Gibson from Cedar Grove Roofing Supplies that explains warranties in simple terms and compares the different warranties of different manufacturers. This will give you more information about warranties than a lot of roofers know!

If your warranty questions are not answered by the roofing companies you are interviewing, this tells you they are not fully equipped to offer or follow through with their warranty obligations.
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Chapter 9.

Attic Ventilation

If your attic space is not ventilated properly the manufacturer’s shingle warranty will be void. Not to mention the fact that improperly vented attics can cause rot and mold due to condensation.

A properly vented attic can keep your home cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. This is especially important in older homes or poorly renovated homes where ventilation was not built into the design.

The homeowner should ensure the potential roofing contractor has properly inspected the existing attic ventilation, that he or she is knowledgeable enough to solve any problems and has included the proper solution in the written specifications and quote.

It is not enough to just put a couple of vents on the roof ridge. The Building Code says at least 25% of the air has to enter through the bottom edge of the roof (usually through the soffits) and this needs to be balanced on all sides. The Code also says the total minimum ventilation needs to be 1 sq ft of ventilation for every 300 sq ft of the total insulated ceiling area, on a pitched roof.

Ensuring correct ventilation can get quite complicated on older homes, on homes with cathedral ceilings, and on bigger homes with more complicated roofs.

Your job as the homeowner is to ensure the contractor knows all about ventilation, has inspected the home thoroughly, and has written up a solution in the quotation.

Questions you should ask your contractor:

• What is the ratio for minimum ventilation needed per sq foot of insulated attic space? If they can’t give the 1/300 ratio it’s a bad sign.

• Ask them what the minimum intake air percentage should be? And ask if it needs to be balanced. If they don’t say a minimum of 25% and that it should be balanced then I would not trust them regarding ventilation know-how.

Most roofers who don’t understand the importance of ventilation just automatically install only ridge venting for exhaust, but do not consider intake venting. Without a balanced system it will not work properly and can actually pull moisture into your attic. It is also common to find intake ventilation has been blocked off by insulation added to the attic. This can be rectified relatively easily but it takes someone who knows or cares enough to do an inspection of the attic to see and correct it. (Insulated spaces directly under the roof deck may not require additional ventilation). Chapter
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Chapter 10.

Comparing Apples to Apples

The biggest single reason for arguments in the construction business is misunderstandings…

“I thought that was included”…

“I thought you were going to do…”

Remove the possibility for misunderstandings by GETTING IT IN WRITING. All the details! Never go ahead without a written contract that explains all the details of what is going to be done, how much it will cost, what color, what type of shingle and every other detail no matter how insignificant it may seem. The more details the better. For every additional detail or specification written into your contract you are removing a possible disagreement later.

Without proper specifications written up on your contract, it would be like ordering a meal for a set price without knowing if it’s seafood or steak? How it would be cooked and what accompaniments would be included? If you want to be able to properly compare one meal against another you need the details and not just the price. It’s no different when buying a roof. Get all the details so you can compare and make the right decision.

If your roofing contractor has used all kinds of big technical terms then ask them to define them so you completely understand what you are getting. It’s easy to sound like you know what you are doing by using industry jargon and terminology, but if someone really feels they are providing value they will want you to understand it and try to present it in a way that it can be understood by someone who is not a roofer. Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification and don’t be fooled by big words.
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