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Roofing a House

It finally looks like someone will come and fix my roof in the next couple of weeks. It is interesting to see the WIDE range of quotes I have gotten for this job. The most expensive more than 100% more than the cheapest, for the same roof. This is supposedly the same job! I cannot procrastinate on this job anymore since my roof is leaking.

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Important things to look for from your roofing contractor:

  1. If he makes a comment, “Give me a couple of weeks head start so I can get a team together for the job,.” Are you going down to “skid row” and finding bodies to work on the job? In Ottawa, it is tough to find people to work on roofs due to the ridiculous amount of new house construction, but still, I hope there is at least someone who knows which end of the nail gun is UP.
  2. How long has the company been in business? If they guarantee your roof for 5 years, will they be around in 5 years?
  3. Are they insured? If not, if and when someone falls off your roof, it is YOUR house insurance that is going to cover them.
  4. How long is the job going to take? One house I saw, the job took 5 days!
  5. Watch them put your roof on, and make sure they don’t take shortcuts. A lot of “slap and dash” jobs end up not doing the job correctly, or completely.

If you want to take a financial angle on this, if you are buying a house that is NEW, budget that it will need a new roof in 15 years, and if you put a little money away every year, it is not such a huge pain in the ass (as it is for me now).

Feel Free to Comment

  1. Awww, you’re a big cajun guy. Why aren’t you going to re-roof your house yourself? Seriously, 80% of the cost of re-roofing a house is labor. I did the roof on my house 4 years ago, and it cost me about US$700. It would have cost $4K – $6K to get someone there to do it. Sure, it was hard work, I just did it when I had time and tried not to kill myself any one day. It took a summer to complete and everyone says it now looks perfect. And this was for an average size home, not a small house.

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