We do quite a few re-roofing jobs throughout the year and recently had an interesting one.
When we started the tear-off of the old shingles this morning we found there was no tar paper under a lot of the shingles. The attached garage had no tar paper on it at all. The house had sporadic areas of tar paper under it’s shingles, and the flashing where the garage attaches to the house was poorly done.
We installed 2 rows of a Weather Watch/Ice & Water type self-sealing membrane on the eve edges, then 30lb tar paper over the rest of the roof. Metal drip edge’s are standard on all roof edges, and we use roof nail guns instead of roof staple guns. I’ve found that the 30lb tar paper holds up much better than 15lb, and that shingles that were nailed down are much harder to tear off than shingles that were stalpled down. There have been stapled roofs where I have grabbed a shingle and pulled and a large area easily comes up at once. Nails hold better.
The garage addition will be step flashed correctly and the roof will provide this house many years of solid weather protection.
When we first opened up this roof and I saw that there was no tar paper on much of it, I was amazed. I often see work that was done, and can’t believe someone was paid to do it.
I wonder if the guys who had shingled this house offered up the cheapest price to do it? It was not an extremely old roof, so the roofers had to have known better, and just chose to skimp in these areas and hope for the best. There were a few areas where ice daming had been a problem. I’m guessing no warranty came with this roof.
This roof reminded me of a phone call I got this fall. A possible client left me a message that he was going to hire someone else to build his garage because my estimate was more expensive.
Normally I email, or usps mail an estimate to the person requesting it. The estimate includes many details about the proposed project, although it does not include how every step of it would be done. The best ways to really know how a project is to be built are through meeting in person with the builder and going over the plans, and by knowing the builders reputation.
In a small area like ours here, people talk. Good reputations are known and poor reputations are known. So when this homeowner asked me for a quick estimate over the phone I called him back quickly with an estimate, but he didn’t bother to find out all the details. I would bet that by the time his project was done, if it actually cost him much less than my estimate, he probably got much less of a building. 5 different contractors could end up with 5 different end products, or the finished product could be very similiar for all 5, depending on skill level and how much pride and care they take in their work.
And unlike the roofer from earlier, I stand behind our work. If there is a huge price difference from one builder to another, I would have many more questions for the cheaper builder. Why is he willing to do it so cheaply? How can the quality possibly be the same? Will he stand behind his work, and answer the phone at night or on the weekend if you have a future problem arises?
Even such a simple thing as an hourly wage. If you are looking into a project that will be done on a Time & Materials basis, the hourly wage is important. BUT, what gets done in that hour is Far more important. If a builder charges twice the hourly rate, but also gets twice the ammount done correctly, then he really isn’t any more expensive, and would hopefully make you feel better about having highly skilled people working in your home or on your job.
This roof just brought to my attention again, that I hope people are really comparing Apples to Apples when shopping for a contractor.