Amethyst
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Dec 21, 2008
- Messages
- 12,714
Update on Roof Replacement at Chez Amethyst
We interviewed 6 contractors for the roof, and 1 contractor to clad the wooden roof trim with aluminum siding. (Only one of the roofers did both).
We immediately disqualified the 2 roofing contractors who gave estimates without bothering to go up on the roof. We disqualified one more guy whose personality did not, shall we say, click with Mr. Amethyst's. Of the 3 left, one spent almost an hour on the roof and produced a beautiful colored pencil drawing of it (which I wish he'd let us keep). He wanted $20,000 to rip off the old roof, install new shingles, and install a ventilating fan in the attic. Replacing old roof sheathing was "extra" but his estimate didn't say how much per sheet. We liked him, even though he was a bit of a blow-hard.
The second roofer worked for a big company who had replaced a neighbor's roof. The neighbor gave a strong reference.The roofer went up on the roof and spent some time inspecting it, and gave a very professional presentation using a laptop. At $15,500 to do the roof plus the siding, plus $75 per sheet to replace any rotted plywood, he was impressive and we thought we were going to go with him. But we had one more roofer to interview.
He was a fairly young man who owned his roofing business, and told us he had never done anything except roofing. He worked on roofs all through high school, starting at age 14 by picking up the junk roofers throw on the ground. He did not do siding, but gave us a reference for someone who did (who checked out OK when I called references - and we liked him when we met him). He did a very careful inspection of the roof and inside the attic. He said it was hard to tell if we'd need any plywood replaced, but he thought we might, since he could see some black spots (he showed them to us). He said the roof was well-ventilated through the soffits, so no ventilating fan was needed. His quote was $11,480 plus $65 per sheet of plywood replaced. The siding contractor, meanwhile, wanted $1400 to clad 100 linear feet of "rackboard" (wooden roof trim).
We liked this man, and his references checked out, but when we went out to look at some roofs he'd done, those homes were in no way comparable to ours. This put us off, but then the "expensive" guy called back to learn if we'd made our decision. Mr. A. told him frankly that we liked and respected him, but were leaning toward someone a bit less expensive. This man asked who we were thinking of going with, and then flabbergasted Mr. A. by saying, "He's OK. Some of those smaller guys will rip you off, but he'll do a good job for you." So, one contractor helped us decide on another one!
We ended up paying for 15 sheets of plywood, mostly at the back edge of the main roof, that were rotted or warped. That pushed the job up from $11,480 to $12,380, plus $1400 for the siding so our whole job cost $13,780. While we were unhappy about the large amount of plywood, it was very evident that our new roof lacked the "ripples" that we could see in the old one, so we think the roofer acted honestly.
We are very happy that we had the rackboard cladded. It looks much, much better, and we'll never have to hire someone to paint it. A funny thing is that the 5.8 earthquake happened on the day the siding was put on. At work, we felt the floor rippling under us, stuff was falling off shelves, etc. - we were quite shook up. Fifteen miles west, the siding installers, who were of course up on tall ladders, said they didn't feel a thing!
Oh, we also decided to have more insulation put up in our attic, since the roofer told us it is the best insurance against ice dams. ALL the contractors had "Not responsible for ice damming" written into their contracts.
So there's our story. Winter will tell if the job was truly good.
Amethyst
We interviewed 6 contractors for the roof, and 1 contractor to clad the wooden roof trim with aluminum siding. (Only one of the roofers did both).
We immediately disqualified the 2 roofing contractors who gave estimates without bothering to go up on the roof. We disqualified one more guy whose personality did not, shall we say, click with Mr. Amethyst's. Of the 3 left, one spent almost an hour on the roof and produced a beautiful colored pencil drawing of it (which I wish he'd let us keep). He wanted $20,000 to rip off the old roof, install new shingles, and install a ventilating fan in the attic. Replacing old roof sheathing was "extra" but his estimate didn't say how much per sheet. We liked him, even though he was a bit of a blow-hard.
The second roofer worked for a big company who had replaced a neighbor's roof. The neighbor gave a strong reference.The roofer went up on the roof and spent some time inspecting it, and gave a very professional presentation using a laptop. At $15,500 to do the roof plus the siding, plus $75 per sheet to replace any rotted plywood, he was impressive and we thought we were going to go with him. But we had one more roofer to interview.
He was a fairly young man who owned his roofing business, and told us he had never done anything except roofing. He worked on roofs all through high school, starting at age 14 by picking up the junk roofers throw on the ground. He did not do siding, but gave us a reference for someone who did (who checked out OK when I called references - and we liked him when we met him). He did a very careful inspection of the roof and inside the attic. He said it was hard to tell if we'd need any plywood replaced, but he thought we might, since he could see some black spots (he showed them to us). He said the roof was well-ventilated through the soffits, so no ventilating fan was needed. His quote was $11,480 plus $65 per sheet of plywood replaced. The siding contractor, meanwhile, wanted $1400 to clad 100 linear feet of "rackboard" (wooden roof trim).
We liked this man, and his references checked out, but when we went out to look at some roofs he'd done, those homes were in no way comparable to ours. This put us off, but then the "expensive" guy called back to learn if we'd made our decision. Mr. A. told him frankly that we liked and respected him, but were leaning toward someone a bit less expensive. This man asked who we were thinking of going with, and then flabbergasted Mr. A. by saying, "He's OK. Some of those smaller guys will rip you off, but he'll do a good job for you." So, one contractor helped us decide on another one!
We ended up paying for 15 sheets of plywood, mostly at the back edge of the main roof, that were rotted or warped. That pushed the job up from $11,480 to $12,380, plus $1400 for the siding so our whole job cost $13,780. While we were unhappy about the large amount of plywood, it was very evident that our new roof lacked the "ripples" that we could see in the old one, so we think the roofer acted honestly.
We are very happy that we had the rackboard cladded. It looks much, much better, and we'll never have to hire someone to paint it. A funny thing is that the 5.8 earthquake happened on the day the siding was put on. At work, we felt the floor rippling under us, stuff was falling off shelves, etc. - we were quite shook up. Fifteen miles west, the siding installers, who were of course up on tall ladders, said they didn't feel a thing!
Oh, we also decided to have more insulation put up in our attic, since the roofer told us it is the best insurance against ice dams. ALL the contractors had "Not responsible for ice damming" written into their contracts.
So there's our story. Winter will tell if the job was truly good.
Amethyst
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