Hiring for Roofing Jobs

There are two systems in place to protect the consumer when they are hiring a service company to do work in their home or place of business. The first is to make sure that the roofing company is bonded. A bond certificate exists purely to protect the customer from anything that might affect the completion of the job. For example, if the roofing service does not finish, the bond will pay them back. If the roofing company does not finish the job to the satisfaction of the customer, then the bond will cover the costs. If the roofing company breaches the contract in any way, the bonding company will take care of the customer.

The second form of protection is liability insurance. The roofing service's liability policy will cover any possible damages that might occur due to their work. For example, if one of their tools falls and breaks a skylight, then their liability policy will pay to replace it. Liability insurance will also cover possible future problems with the roofing installation. If, unfortunately, your roofing service does not do a good job, the liability insurance will pay or any repairs that are necessary.

You also want to make sure that the roofing company has worker's compensation insurance. If one of the roofing servicers gets an injury while working on your home and they are not covered by their own worker's compensation policy, you could be held liable for his or her injuries. You want to ask each roofing service that has bid your roofing jobs for copies of their bond as well as a certificate of liability insurance. You can also ask for proof of worker's compensation coverage. If any roofing company argues with you about producing this documentation, then they should be crossed off the list immediately.

Your next step will be to check references. This step can give you great insight into how a future orkign relationship with the roofing service might be. You can find out how accurate their bids were, whether there were any problems with the staff and how they interacted with the family, the quality of the work, and how courteous and pleasant the roofing service was about all aspects of the job from bidding to billing. There are two ways to go about getting good references.

The first is to ask the roofing service to provide you with a few references. Of course, they are going to filter this list to only include people who are likely to give you favorable reviews, but there are ways to make sure you are hearing an accurate answer rather than just a practiced speech. When you ask questions, never ask yes or no questions. Encourage the reference to talk as much as possible by staying as silent as possible. Often times people will continue to talk after they finish saying what they originally intended just to fill dead air. Also, ask questions that are required to have negative answers like what was the worst part of your experience with this roofing company? No home improvement project goes completely smoothly and there have to be problems along the way. Knowing how a roofing service handles adversity is just as important as knowing about the quality of their work.

Another tactic to getting reviews about roofing services is to drive around your neighborhood and look for people who are having work done by the same company. Roofing service companies often put up signs in the yards of houses they are working on for advertisements. Stop and ask to speak with the homeowner about their experience with that particular roofing service. Explain that you are thinking of hiring then and wanted to know if they would recommend them. You are more likely to get honest answers this way because the roofing service does not have the opportunity to screen what the reference is saying and people are often more exasperated with a roofing job in the middle of it so they will be brutally honest with you. If they still have good things to say, then you can be relatively certain that the roofing service is a good company.

The last step is to compare the services being offered by each bidding roofing company. Some roofing companies only do roofing installations and not maintenance or repairs. It is nice to have the same company working on your roof throughout its lifetime because they are more familiar with it. Some roofing services will also offer other outdoor home maintenance services like gutter cleaning, power washing of siding, or installation of solar lighting and other outdoor lighting systems. Since it is uncomfortable to climb a ladder with your garden hose to clean out your gutters, it is often a relief to be able to pass the gutter cleaning responsibilities onto a third party. They are more experiences working on ladders, they have better equipment, and they can get the job done quickly. If one roofing company offers a wide variety of services, then it is probably better to choose them because you will have access to so much more.