8/10, Monday 8:30 a.m. Roofing supplies on a pallet along with longer trim pieces are dropped off behind the house on the side of the driveway, a bit on the lawn.
8/11, Tuesday 11:30 a.m. The roofing crew begins working after being delayed by rain. Roofing and cleanup completed and the last truck leaves at 6:58 p.m. Some sunflower disrespect pointed out when I got home from work, but mostly I let them work and checked in from my window views. Also received text from Julia, saying she was the backup project manager and secondary contact to Isaac, the project manager - not on site.
8/13 & 14, Thursday & Friday Gutter crew arrived late afternoon. My house gutters are six inch, but they arrived with 5 inch for the porch. They asked me, and I sighed and figured 5 inch was adequate for the porch and let them proceed. Not ideal, but whatever. When the porch gutters and gutter covers were completed they let me know they would be back the next day to put the gutter covers on the house since they only had 5 inch.
8/18, Tuesday Morning text to Isaac hoping to get a timeline on the work that needed to be addressed yet, more later, and when extra roofing supplies would be removed - 1 week after roof was done. I waited two days with no response.
8/20, Thursday I texted Tony the sales guy about the lack of response and he responded right away. Later that morning Isaac left a phone message. Tony texted to verify he got a hold of me. I called Isaac after work, we set up time on Tuesday at 3:30 for final fixes and walk-through.
8/23, Sunday Trimmed bushes out front. Collected my third pail of garbage, nails, shingles pieces, and other left by the roofers.
8/25, Tuesday Expecting to meet Isaac at 3:30, found out he arrived earlier, did some work, talked to Kate and tried to get her to sign off as complete. I really did not like this.
8/26, Wednesday 2:30 pm I texted backup project manager Julia, asked for Isaac's supervisor's name and number. 4:00 pm that day the leftover supplies got picked up, 15 days after roof completed.
8/27, Thursday Project manager Julia texted back with names and a number. When I called that afternoon that number never rang, so I looked up the Madison office number from their website. Eventually I was put in contact with supervisor Matt. We spoke that afternoon and I went through my whole complaint list, noting to him that in the grand scheme of things most of it was nothing, but it is the work that lasts. We have an appointment at my house after work on Monday so he can see my issues in person.
These are pretty much my timeline notes so far, with video to back up almost all of it. I should have written this in parts as it happened, but I was not expecting this to be so drawn out. My big issue is with the seam between the porch and the house. It has looked like shit since we bought the house so I expected it to look much cleaner after this, but it did not. They did not use a wide enough board to cover the old black caulk, so you could see the old caulk and the new, and it was ugly. Apparently Tony failed to measure this area too, beside my gutters.
Isaac's proposed fix was some paint. I was skeptical, but was willing to see what he would do. Then he was sure to get in and get out before I got home from work. He knocked on the door and my wife happened to be home, so he told her generally what he did and handed her a paper with some random numbers to pay and asked her to sign it off as complete. She wouldn't, of course.
He didn't paint, he attached a piece of flashing that creates a channel. Well, I've never seen anything like it on a house so it's hard to describe, but I don't like it one bit. Then I saw him on video strategically photograph it for their records, but not the view of the second picture below.
This is a very reputable company with great google reviews, an inspiring backstory, and an A+ Better Business Bureau rating, all reasons I chose this company. But yet, service has been terrible and this is yet incomplete. I require a better fix for this and we'll see what Matt says on Monday when he sees this work in person. I can't imagine anyone thinking this is okay.
9 comments:
As I said before, it seems your tradesmen are as bad as ours, even those that others rate and review highly. Your story is so similar to ours...
I think that we have come to conclude that we have higher standards than most people when it comes to what is acceptable and what isn't with building work - because when we pay a so-called expert we expect them to be able to do a job to at least the same standard as we could do it ourselves.
Most people these days have zero practical skills, so no way of judging the quality of work, and most people don't check up on what workmen do, or inspect the work afterwards.
You, like us, do have practical skills, and standards, and take pride in making your living areas nice. When you look at where many of these building labourers live, they are often not nice areas, so they are not used to looking after areas while they are working, because they have no concept of aesthetic.
And yes, that join is truly appalling.
Good luck with getting the job finished properly.
- BW
And yes, the playing one (male) member of a partnership against he other (female) member is also a standard builder trick. I guess it works for them most times. Good on Kate for not falling for it!
- BW
And, just to say, a join like that would be done with sheet lead in the UK - but it needs to be laid under the roof tiles, not slapped on top after. There are now synthetic materials, but lead is traditional and best. There may be different practices where you are.
Just thinking - do the insurers pay you or pay the tradesmen directly? If the latter, can you ensure they don't pay up until you are satisfied? In days of old they'd have had their own team who inspected work before paying out, but (here at least) that practice is long gone.
- BW
The insurance pays us, then we pay the contractor.
I waited until 3:45 then texted Matt. He said he had me on his calendar for Tuesday, though I'm sure we agreed on Monday. Found more issues while I waited, too. We'll see if he shows up tomorrow.
Bad to worse. Yes, we've had the 'pretend the customer got the date wrong' line too.
I trust you are going to leave appropriate feedback everywhere you can, once matters are (hopefully) eventually sorted?
- BW
After thought, I think that was actually my mistake, BW. We had a good meeting today and he agreed with my complaints, but the evidence was, well, evident. I'll type more soon, but this will be awhile before resolution.
Why is nothing that involves tradesmen ever easy?!
- BW
You can say that again.
*resists temptation* ;)
- BW
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