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When considering your options on a roof replacement project, it’s totally natural and wise to consider what the impact on your pocketbook will be. Exploring your options and weighing the pros and cons is absolutely pivotal to ensuring that you end up with a quality job at a price you can afford. However, be wary of taking the absolute cheapest contractor that comes along and offers to give you all kinds of discounts, rebates and free upgrades. Sometimes the cheapest contractor can end up costing you the most by giving you a subpar job and creating a situation where costly repairs or even another replacement needs to be done before it should.
Cutting Corners on Roofing Materials
One of the biggest “features” you will find in a cheap roof is cutting corners on materials. Using a cheaper shingle is often one of the predominant ways costs can be cut and you may find yourself getting a 3 tab shingle rather than an architectural which is not a spot you want to be in. Other ways to cut corners would be reusing drip edge and vents, cheap synthetic or felt paper, and not using ice and water shield where required.
Any roofing consultant should be able to give you a detailed rundown of all the materials they’re using, why they’re necessary and the differences in quality of various manufacturers. Do your own research on the materials being used and you can also rely on the feedback you get from a roofing consultant that you trust to give you further guidance on what an ideal roof looks like and avoid any shortcuts while working with your budget to get you the right roof that works for your needs.
Lack of Care During Install
I’ve seen it countless times where a disreputable roofing contractor lines up the job that they agreed to do for cheap and lacks attention to delivering a quality roof installation and oftentimes even spends very little time on the job at all. Due to this lack of attention you may find all kinds of issues that pop up. Rotted or soft decking that gets unnoticed and unreplaced, leading to a roof install that is built on a shoddy foundation, crooked rows in the shingles and low nails that get left exposed because nobody noticed them, a lack of job site protection and tarps or plywood laid around the house to properly manage debris, reusing drip edge and vents instead of replacing them.
The list goes on and on of ways they may cut corners that won’t be visible up front. Because of this, their work often has issues that crop up but because they are doing work for bottom of the barrel pricing, they often aren’t very well managed companies and frequently aren’t even around to honor their warranties and come back and fix any issues that crop up in the future due to their poor work.
Not Honoring Their Warranties
When you get a new roof put on, your expectation is that you will not have to think about it and things will work as you expect them to for years to come. That is what you should expect and what you will get from any roofing company worth hiring for the job. However if a roofing company is cutting corners to give you a cheap price, it is likely that issues will come up in the future but because they routinely do subpar work they will often either be flooded with service calls where they can’t help you in a timely manner before further leaks set in or often give you a full fledged “tail light warranty” meaning the warranty is only good until those tail lights leave your driveway after the check has been picked up.
Conclusion
When hiring a roofing contractor you should absolutely explore your best options and make a sound buying decision by comparing apples to apples when it comes to the materials being used, the reputation of the roofing company and your comfort level with the person you’re dealing with. The most expensive job doesn’t necessarily mean the job that will best fit your needs, but make sure that you don’t hire a company that seems like they’re cutting corners to do the job cheaper or it can end up costing a lot more in the future through having fixes done to a bad job!
If you need a consultation, quote or advice from a roofing company you can trust, call The Roofing Artist at 210-417-7728 or e-mail us at [email protected] and we would be happy to help steer you in the right direction any way we can!
