There are so many potential roofers available these days. This makes it easy to accidentally choose the wrong one. Here are some examples of common pitfalls that people fall into when choosing someone to work on their roof. That way you can make better choices and end up with the roofer that you want.

Failing to Properly Research a Roofer

One of the first mistakes that people make when trying to find a roofer is failing to look up as much as they can about that roofer and their reputation. For example, you don’t want to just trust roofers who are just soliciting door to door if they don’t have a headquarters nearby. It’s also not a great idea to accept a roofer who isn’t operating out of the region. You are generally going to want to check out roofers and see if they are based in your general area.

If you don’t check to make sure they are local, you could end up with a roofer that doesn’t know the local laws well enough. When you are checking review sites it’s not just that you want to make sure that your roofer has a high rating. You are also going to want to make sure the people reviewing them had a positive experience that you can read about. It also means that you should be able to find a reviewer who had a similar situation to what you need from a roofer. That way you can more easily imagine what your experience will be if you can read about one that was similar to your own.

If you do your research you won’t be surprised by what’s coming.

Working with an Unlicensed or Uninsured Company

First off, depending on your area, your local laws may not allow companies that don’t have both of these things to even work in the first place. However, either way, it will be a mistake to not work with a roofer that has both of these things. Having the proper licenses will prove to you that the roofer knows what they are doing. Depending on exactly what you want the roofer to do, they could have licenses that cover specifics as well.

You don’t have much in the way of assurances of skill and competence unless you have things like licenses and certifications. Additionally, roofing has some risks associated with it. If someone from the roofer organization is hurt while attempting to fix your roof if they have insurance they can take care of any costs themselves. This isn’t even to mention the fact that accidents happen and something can damage your roof during the project. If the roofer you chose doesn’t have insurance, then any damage that occurs could be on you. On the other hand, if you can double-check that the roofer has insurance, then you’ll know that any damage they cause will be covered by their insurance instead of being something that you have to worry about.

Failing to Get Everything in Writing

Another big mistake that people can often make is just trusting “oral agreements” or some other honor pact. If you don’t get everything in writing, it essentially doesn’t exist. It will just be your word against theirs if everything goes wrong. Part of the reason for this relates to the estimate. If the roofer gives you more of a guess than a hard estimate then the costs could go up and up as they work. They could insist that they didn’t know how much it was going to be until after the fact. They could just keep adding bills they ‘forgot’ about until the last second. They could use bad materials that fall apart.

Instead, you need to get a detailed proper estimate of what everything will cost, exactly how much uncertainty there is, how long everything will likely take the exact price you are working with, and so on. You should be able to get a full detailed list from them about everything that’s involved with the repairs, how much it will all cost and so on. They shouldn’t be able to wriggle out of anything that they’ve written down. They should be forced to think carefully about everything and they should be able to stick to the agreement within reason. You will feel a lot safer about everything going forward if you have a written estimate in your hands.

Forgetting to Secure a Warranty

Many people have made the mistake of not making sure the work they are getting done is warranted. For people who don’t do that, then anything could go wrong after the roof is finished and you are completely out of luck. After all, a roof tends to be a large investment and a roof can last more than 30 years if you go with the right guy and maintain it properly.

It’s also important to make sure you don’t void the warranty of the roof by making sure that you have a licensed roofer doing everything since that can happen. You need a warranty in place to make sure you can get help from the roofer if it turns out that there’s some problem with the roof after the fact. This is particularly important because it’s not a small thing. It’s the roof of the entire house. You will likely not even be able to live there if something goes wrong. This is especially the case if you’re in a cold enough area.

Failure to Check References.

Beyond the reviews, you should have plenty of references for the roofer as well. It’s strong research you can use to see what kind of work they typically do. If you can, it might even help to drive down to the location of the reference. This will make it so you can see for yourself what kind of work the roofer actually did in different cases.

This can be considerably helpful if they needed work similar to yours. It pays to be cautious of any roofer that doesn’t have many or any references. You should also be wary if the references weren’t very good and they didn’t have many positive things to say about the roofers at all. Failing to catch warning signs that were right there in front of you is a major mistake when choosing a roofer.

Other Considerations

Other than these major tips, there are other things that might help you to keep in mind. For example, another mistake that people make is deciding purely based on the price of the roofer. This could lead you to go with only the lowest estimate that you can find. The problem with doing it this way is that you could end up with a roofer that has shoddy workmanship. In the end, you will care about the quality of the roofing more than anything else. After all, this is the roof of your house. This isn’t a minor thing and it will likely be a long-term investment. You want to make sure that it’s installed properly and that it won’t give you trouble down the road because if it does, it could be a major disruption to your life. That’s why it’s important to focus on that more than anything else. You won’t want any price reduction to distract you from that.

If you need other roofing services instead of the most obvious ones, it’s important to check for those as well. Essentially, it’s important to make sure that the roofer you choose can handle everything that you need them to do with your roof, not simply just installing it or doing the one repair. You will also want to make sure that you know exactly what the warranty covers and what it does not. Otherwise, you could be left out in the cold when something happens that is not covered under whatever warranty you got has. Reach out to us for a free estimate.