I was reminded the other day by a prospective customer from the past that one of the most important decisions a home owner can make is the contractor they hire to perform their home improvements. 5 years ago I met this prospect and gave them a price on replacing a roof. It was a complicated roof replacement that included a lot of extra work.
After meeting with the customer and discussing the shingle replacement and giving them the price I was fairly confident that we would be hired to do the project. Two weeks later I was called and they told me that they were going to hire another contractor who was less expensive.
I have heard this before whether vinyl siding replacement, window replacement or other types of home improvements there are always home owners who make a final decision on price and truthfully sometimes they should. If you have done a fair comparison of two or more competing companies based on a set criteria and have also done a careful comparisons to ensure you are really looking at a apples vs apples analysis them make the choice on price. The inherent problem in our industry is that many make choice due to the lowest price.
So last week I received a phone call similar to calls I have received over the nearly 9 years we have been helpingwith home improvement projects. Brian can you please help us out? That is what he asked. I said sure I was thinking they have another project for us to estimate, but that was not the case he told me they had hired wrong contractor when replacing their roof. Not only did he go out of business a couple of years ago, after replacing the roof they have had five different leaks since the installation of the roof. They also found out that he was uninsured and didn’t have a license. They have already spent hundreds of dollars to repair portions of the roof, but some of the older repairs are already failing and they have new areas that need repaired. Based on the conversation I told him the only way I could help most likely is if I replaced the whole roof and once I went on-site that statement was definitely confirmed. This was one of the worst roof installs I have ever seen.
They hired me to replace roof and I gave them a 10 year guarantee of the roof installation just to help ease their minds a little bit more when we replace there roof.