October 7, 2003

Sir,

We are writing regarding the recent work done by your company on our home. Pat Jordan managed the work on our home, and Greg Smith was the foreman. It has been, without a doubt, the worst work I have ever had done on my home, ranging from quality of service and work to professionalism of your staff. We are deeply dissatisfied with the work done by your company.

Third Layer of Shingles:

All told, we believe we had Pat and/or Greg out three times before work began on the house. In all of those cases, and on two separate sets of estimates, we were told there were two layers of shingles on the roof. So we were surprised to be told, after half of the roof had been removed, that there was a third layer of shingles. Greg informed Marnie that there was a third layer of shingles, and that there would be an additional charge. Marnie did not at that time approve further work, instead saying she would have to discuss the matter with me. From the contract: “No extras will apply unless prior authorization is acquired from the customer”. The roofers continued their work. By the time I got home, 50% of the work on the roof had been completed, with no approval from us. At no future point did Greg or Pat bring the issue up to me, nor at any time did they discuss the matter of cost until we were presented with the bill, increased $1100 by the price for having extra layers of shingles.

Water in the House:

Wednesday of the first week, the roofers stopped early because of the threat of impending rain, and theoretically covered the roof to prevent any damage. The following day, it didn’t begin raining until around 5pm, but one might suppose that had been a good choice as a preventative measure.

I came home that evening, noticed that work on the roof was not yet completed, and wandered upstairs. Later, I came back downstairs only to step in a puddle. As I stood there, I noticed it was raining … on me … and I was still inside. Looking up, there was a veritable rainstorm coming from the interior door frame. I called the main office for RRR, which was still open, only to find that Greg had left for the day. They said they’d call him, and call me back. Shortly thereafter they called back, to say that Greg would be 45 more minutes, as he’d have to return to the store to get a ladder. I quickly told them I had a ladder; she said she’d call him to let him know.

In the interim, I cleaned up as best I could inside. Next, I set up the ladder, and climbed up on the roof. It was no wonder there was water coming in! The roofers had only covered about 70% of the unshingled roof, and the 30% they hadn’t covered was the valley where two edges of the roof intersected, channeling all of that water straight into the house! I went back inside and cleaned up the spreading pool of water as best I could.

Greg arrived, in a state of panic. He apologized from the beginning, and continued to do so on a regular basis for his entire stay. By the time he was done, there was three times as much tarp up there as before he had arrived. He said that he had informed his crew that there needed to be a tarp there, but that he should have checked to be sure that work had been done, and it obviously hadn’t. He was really sorry (again), it was his fault, and he’d do whatever it took to make it right: money, pulling the wall apart, repainting, whatever. And off he went into the night.

The next day I noticed that the front door now required a linebacker-type shove to get it open. Great. I mentioned it to Greg the next time I saw him, and his response was that they couldn’t possibly be related. When I mentioned it to him again as work progressed on the skylight, he again commented with much skepticism that there was no way the two were related.

When I brought the issue to Pat’s attention, Greg again commented that he didn’t believe the two were related. However, Pat agreed with me that he didn’t remember having to force his way into the house on prior visits. I agreed that it was possible that it was only temporary swelling from the water into the house, and that I would wait 30 days to see if the situation improved. October 4th was a full 30 days, and it’s not better. Nor have we been contacted to follow up.

Skylights:

It’s really hard to find somewhere to begin describing all of the issues with the skylights.

One of our first concerns about the skylights was the cost and estimates for labor. Pat insisted that those numbers on the bid were there precisely to be conservative on his part, but that his true estimate was only 2 days (of the 3 on the contract). When we questioned again the number of hours, Pat promised to “stand over them with a stopwatch if need be”. Reassured, we (if foolishly in hindsight) agreed. At the conclusion of the work, Pat informed us that the carpenters had obviously over-billed RRR on hours (easy as neither Pat nor Greg was there keeping track of them), and that Pat had reduced what he was paying them to 18 hours, but was generously only billing us for 14. It was presented to us as a concession, completely disregarding the fact that we shouldn’t need to pay for work that wasn’t done, or for time the carpenters were late, or standing around not performing any work. Nor was it our problem that Pat had not adequately monitored the carpenters hours. At the same time, Pat tacked onto the bill some $392 for materials for the skylights. Materials were not included in the original estimate, and we were never consulted to that effect. From the contract: “No extras will apply unless prior authorization is acquired from the customer”.

We had the discussion with Pat and Greg multiple times over how many skylights we would have, and where they would go. So, when I went up onto the roof on the second morning, I was surprised to see a roughly skylight-sized hole in the shingled roof over the dining room, decidedly not where the skylights were to go. It took a concerted effort to convince the guy working on that section of roof that there was NOT to be a skylight there. Even more distressing was to see that yet another roofer had roofed approximately fifty percent across the area that the skylights were most definitely going. I made multiple efforts to convince him that he should not roof there, to no avail. When the carpenters arrived to install the skylights, one of the first tasks they had to undertake was to rip off that entire section of shingles from the roof.

The carpenters did a majority of the framing from the roof side instead of inside the house, as was indicated on the estimate. That was explained to us as more efficient, and we accept and understand that. However, we neither accept nor understand almost all of the work that followed that.

The three holes in the roof were cut and framed from the roof side. However, once the skylights were installed on the roof, they were decidedly not square/aligned with the holes that had been cut on the roof side (each one in a different way even). Greg’s comment was that the skylights had to be that way, in order to be square with the roof. However, since both the framing and the skylights were set up on the roof side, that is not a valid explanation. By the time the skylights were on the roof, all three were not square with the hole in the roof by up to an inch one way or the other, depending on the skylight.

I had hoped to be able to perform the internal finish work myself and the estimate had therefore been set up in such a way as to represent the internal work separately. I expressed my concerns that the skylights weren’t right on more than one occasion to both Greg and Pat. Neither was willing to accept it as a problem. However, with all three of them being not square in completely different ways, I had little choice but to have RRR complete the work. The final plan of how to finish them internally had to accommodate the fact that they couldn’t be completed as they normally would, because they weren’t square.

On discussion of how the final finish work would be performed, Greg expressed concerns that the way we desired them to be faced would look rough. Pat responded “I have a plan”. Well, that plan was to cut the veneer along the edges and cover the cut edge, a process that used probably 2-3 times as much veneer. We hadn’t worried about it, as we figured that cost was covered in the original estimate, which hadn’t mentioned materials. So we were shocked to see the additional $392 tacked on to the final bill.

As another part of that discussion with Pat and Greg, it was observed that with the way the skylights would be finished, the Serial # tags on the skylights would be obscured. Pat assured us that they would carefully remove each tag and label it with specific indication of which skylight the tag had been removed from. As they were doing the final finish work on the last skylight, Marnie asked if they had remembered to remove the tags, which they had not. Greg said that at that point the only way to get to the tags would be to (obviously) remove all of the interior finish work. Greg said that he would provide a warranty for the skylights personally, and that he would get the warranty for the skylights written in as part of the roof warranty, and would that be okay? Marnie agreed that if they could set it up in such a way that the warranty adequately covered the skylights, that that would be acceptable. We also discussed the issue with Pat and with Greg at the time that we received the warranty for the roof.

The skylights had not been included. We agreed that a separate warranty was preferred over the possibility of inadvertently invalidating the existing warranty paper for the roof and Pat promised that he would bring a separate warranty by the next day, and leave it at the front door. At this point we still have not received that additional warranty.

Marnie was home as they were doing the flashing work for the skylights. So she was here to observe that the first attempt at flashing was done incorrectly, and get to see and watch them have to reflash the skylights a second time. In the closing discussion with Pat, he had the temerity to suggest that the skylights were double-flashed as a benefit to us.

As the sheetrock was being removed for the holes for the skylights, Marnie realized that we could use that sheetrock (unusual in that it’s 1” thick) to repair other parts of the house, and she asked that it been kept intact, and was assured that it would be. That would, of course, be before other construction materials were piled on top, rendering it only so much more debris.

Finally, after explicitly saying that we would do the spackling work ourselves, we found the ceiling spackled, and the joints of the framing of the skylights caulked, with the caulk crudely smeared on with fingers. When we mentioned this sloppy caulk work to Pat, he agreed that that was not how it should have been done.

Rotten Wood:

In the original discussions with Pat and Greg, we commented more than once that the decking over the front door was rotten, and would need to be replaced. So I was disappointed to come home from work and find that the front of the house had been roofed, and yet that rotten decking had not been replaced. It took Marnie pointing it out to Greg to get it replaced.

The decking should have been repaired before the roof was redone. So I was MORE disappointed to come home again and find that they had only replaced the decking directly over the door. The decking around the corner from the front door was ALSO rotted out. So I asked Marnie to point that out to Greg as well. When she pointed that out to Greg, Greg argued that the rotten wood was not decking, and therefore not covered under the contract. Marnie insisted it was indeed decking (as she know I had been on the roof), and Greg continued to insist that it was not. It was not until Marnie requested that we would therefore need an estimate for that work as well, that Greg climbed up only to realize that it was indeed decking in definite need of repair.

Given my overall faith in the quality of work being performed at that point, I climbed back up onto the roof to check the rest of the decking around the edges of the roof, only to find another 15’ or so of rotten decking around the corner. You would think that, after two instances, that they might have checked to be sure they hadn’t missed anything, but apparently not.

That wood has also been replaced. Pat insists that the rest of it is fine on visual inspection, but the rear of the house is too high for me to be safe on, and, to be honest, after all of the rest, I don’t believe him.

Flashing: One of the things we were promised on the original discussions of the bid was that all of the flashing for the entire house would be replaced as part of the work. Well, when I was up on the roof discovering the rotten wood that they had missed, I also found flashing that was obviously the original flashing, which had not been replaced. We spoke with Pat, who had it replaced. Once that was done, I decided that I should go ahead and check all of the flashing around the house. On doing so, I found three separate spots in the flashing (one in the just replaced flashing) where the flashing had not been correctly sealed, which would have permitted water to gradually seep into the house, causing untold damage.

And then there’s the flashing that was intended as a rain diverter. Pat and Greg convinced us that, for one section of the roof, we would be better off with a rain diverter than a gutter. Trusting in their knowledge, we agreed.

When I came home that evening, I noticed that the rain diverter extended across one of the valleys in the roof, which would catch every piece of debris as it washed down the roof. Obviously not right, I asked Marnie to bring the matter to their attention. When she pointed the matter out to Greg, Greg insisted it was supposed to be that way. Unhappy with that as an answer, I pointed it out to Pat, who confirmed that it was indeed not supposed to be that way, and had it cut back to the proper dimensions.

Fascia behind gutters:

As is not to be unexpected, there was damage to the fascia wood behind the gutter. We asked to have all of the areas with damage to be marked, and for an estimate on what repairing that damage would cost. We have asked on multiple instances, yet we still have not received that estimate.

Once the wood has been replaced, it’s been understood that we would then paint it in preparation for the installation of the gutters. That’s hard to do when the estimate has not been received, much less the work been completed. Right now that water continues to fall from the roof, slowly seeping into the foundation.

Staff Professionalism:

Marnie awoke one morning to the sound of one of the roofers retching over the edge of the roof. Separately, I leave it to your imagination why one of the roofers would need to wander into the wooded area of our back yard for an extended period of time.We also had food, food wrappers, and cigarette butts left in the front yard.

One of Marnie’s original concerns was for her cultivated flowerbeds around the house. We were assured that care would be taken, and that any damage would be repaired. Indeed, Greg specifically pointed out that he had a landscaping business, and that there would be zero problems with landscaping. At the completion of the work, Marnie carefully walked Pat around the house, pointing out damage that was done. None of that damage has been repaired as we were assured it would be.

More than once we were told that Greg, or the carpenters, or the roofers, would arrive at a specified time, only to not have them arrive at all that day or to arrive two or more hours later. Even after a request for a telephone call if they were not to be able to come on time, we did not receive prior notice. As Marnie was home recovering from surgery during this time, this particular lack of respect was very distressful. There were several days where she could have slept in, but was prevented by the expectation of non-existent arrival. This lack of respect for our time would have perhaps been less distressing (though no less disruptive) should she not have been home recovering, as we had determined that someone should be here while the work was being done. Were that the case, they would have unnecessarily missed several hours of work time waiting for workers.

From the beginning we hired your company based on wanting work done by qualified experienced professionals. We have been promised on multiple occasions that what was most important was that we be satisfied. At the same time, Pat repeatedly used phrases like “I understand, and I’d have the same concerns if it were my house.” Indicating exactly that he also saw that the work was not of the quality he would have expected. Yet that’s what we got.

Warranty:

We were promised by both Pat and Greg the warranty paperwork for the skylights the next day, first thing in the morning. It’s now been over three weeks. We were promised an estimate on having the fascia replaced at the same time. We still don’t have it.

At the same time, we have a warranty which claims it will be void should we have any work done to any part of the roof at any point during the warranty period. Given our current level of satisfaction, that makes the current warranty worthless, as we’re unlikely to choose to have any potential future work done by RRR.

We would have brought all of this up to Pat and Greg, had they shown up again as expected. They have not.

Pat had told us that the goal was to perform the work to our satisfaction, and that what was important is that we be happy. Indeed, we were carefully asked if we would be references. We told Pat at the time he could, but we didn’t think it would be a good idea.

So here’s what we expect:

• First, we expect professionals to come, and make our front door close correctly within the next two weeks. It worked before, we had water pour into the house due to 100% negligence on the part of your company, and it doesn’t work now. I expect that visit to be scheduled in advance, and for your staff to arrive in a timely manner.
• Second, we expect the warranty to be rewritten to only void should the work done by someone else directly or indirectly to have caused the problem. If, for example we choose to have additional skylights installed by a different company, it should not void the warranty on unrelated areas of the roof.
• Third, we expect that we should be refunded the money for the third layer of shingles ($1108). We weren’t consulted; we weren’t told how much it would cost. For that matter, I don’t know that there was a third layer of shingles.
• Fourth, we expect that we will be refunded the entirety of the materials cost for the skylights ($392). That cost was not on either of the original contracts, and we had explicitly said how we wanted those finished at the time of those discussions. On top of that, Pat chose a manner that was undoubtedly more expensive, without discussing that there could be any increased cost.
• Fifth, we expect to have the issues with the landscaping corrected.

That brings it to a total of $1500. We paid the bill originally as a good faith effort on our part. We expect to hear from you within one week of receipt of this letter.

Rick Steeves

Marnie Garrity

PS: All work was completed and paid for one week prior to the hurricane.