Elements of a Well Done Roofing Project

I want to go through the elements of a well done roofing project and the methods and approaches used by many to appear to be providing the a quality job but are in fact not doing so.

It is much like a leather sofa – you can buy a leather sofa for $1000.00 or you can spend $5,000. Both sofas are supposed to be leather how could one cost more than 5 times more than the other. Of course there are hidden aspects of the sofas – the frame on the lower cost sofa will be inferior as will the grade of leather. Cowhide can be split into many different fractions, colours can be added, surface texture impressed on the hide – the leather can even be bonded to cloth. The more expensive sofa will have a hardwood frame that is securely assembled, the foam will be more dense, the sewing will be done with high quality threads and the leather will be the whole hide, not a fraction or split. Both can look similar on Day 1 – but where and when do the differences show up – in the performance, of course.

With use, the lower cost and quality sofa will sag in the middle as the frame deforms, the centre of the seating areas will fall in, the foam will compress and not recover. The leather will not be comfortable to sit on because it does not breathe and adjust to temperature the same way a full, quality leather breathes and sits. The service life of the lower cost sofa will not be the same as the more costly sofa because the materials and qualities of assembly are not as good. The appearance of the lower cost/quality sofa will soon deteriorate and look old and dated. And finally the lower cost/quality sofa will cease to function for its purpose – comfortable, reliable seating. The more expensive sofa will keep on looking good, sitting well and performing well – the frame will be sound, the leather soft and shape retained. The lower cost sofa will become a disposal problem, the higher cost will just keep going for the long term.

I am a roofing consultant with 30 years’ experience and I have seen pretty much everything. One project – a house was reroofed by a very good friend of the homeowners. He and they maintained that he was an expert roofing contractor who had done many projects over many years and he would do a great job on their house. The shingles were installed on the house, the shingles were of good quality. But the shingles kept falling off the roof – even if the winds were not particularly strong – pretty much every day a few shingles fell off.