I'll Refer Them to My Worst Enemy - Part 1

I want to do most of the work in our old house myself. But when the garage roof leaked, we thought we would hire a contractor as there are so many other things that needed to be done. The garage roof is what is called a shed roof, it only slants in one direction and has only a slight slope to it. It was time to take years of old roofing off. It is two stories high and is the main reason I didn't particularly want us to mess with it. It all started innocently enough way back in September of 2006......

• We called a well-known building contractor in the area that was referred to us by a happy customer. They were out in about a week to give us the estimate. They would use shingles with an ice and water shield. They said you can use shingles on an almost flat roof as long s you have that membrane down first. Ok, they're the experts so it must be OK. They said they would fit us in between larger jobs.
  
  


• Week one, two, three went by. No one showed up. Water was ruining the upstairs heart-pine floor of the garage. We had plastic layed down and the drips were so random that buckets couldn't begin to catch it all. Water was pretty much everywhere. We called again, they said they'd get to us.
  



• Week four and five. We were ready to call someone else but figured we'd have to start all over on the waiting list with the new guys.



• Week six, success!! But only after some more phone calls.


• The equipment they took down our little driveway to fix the roof, ruined the yard and took out the neighbors brick border. When they gave us the estimate they said they would come out first and measure the driveway to make sure they could get the equipment in. Obviously they didn't. They missed our house's brick support pillars by only a couple of inches and pushed the dirt up hard against the pillars. We won't know if any real damage was down under the dirt. Ruts 8 inches deep where they cut the corner into our driveway and cement was chipped off the curbing. But, anything was almost acceptible by then just to get the water out of the garage.
• They cleaned up pretty good. We found a few nails around. Aahh, it was finally done. But, yes, that is not the end of the story. I'll be posting part 2.