There are hundreds of contractor websites that offer the homeowner great advice on selecting a contractor.
However not one, mention the most important question of all. It is the one question that your contractor doesn’t want you to ask.
Who will be supervising my job and how long will they be here??
You see most roofing companies don’t have a specific plan for supervising your project. It’s usually handled in one of three ways. Most homeowners don’t realize the importance of supervision on the job site. Show me a story of a job gone wrong and I’ll show you a job with no supervision. Roofing is not rocket science but there are a lot of things that can go wrong,
more than the homeowner will ever realize because they don’t go through the process that often. Most contractors want to put on a quality roof, however they just don’t have the financial resources or can’t make money with a supervisor on your job the whole time. Supervision is the most expensive Component in the roofing process, and most homeowners sign contracts with no idea of how much, or who will be supervising their job. You can bet your bottom dollar the contractor is not going to bring it up. The less supervision the more money everybody makes.
The salesman is supposed to supervise the crew.
They have an inspector that inspects the roof.
The crew chief is supposed to do it.
After over 40 years in the roofing business, let me offer my observations,
A salesman (estimator) is paid a commission on the roofs he sells. If he spent all day watching the roof jobs he sold he wouldn’t have time to sell the next roof. Some of the good ones will at least show up on the job from time to time to see how everything is going. These are the good ones, way less than 10% of those out there. If you can find this guy it may well be the best you can do.
Companies that are large enough to employ an inspector have many jobs going on any given day. He may get to come by once durning the roofing process and then come by to do a final inspection. Only the poorest quality roofs will show problems at a final inspection, the biggest most costly problems happen during the roofing process and they show up later.
The most common way most contractors operate. They will go to great links to tell you about their crew and how good they are and there are some very good ones out there. However they are way way less than the majority.Crews get paid by the square, more squares more money. So if they can take some short cuts that save time they can install more squares, thus making more money. The problem is the crew chief that is supposed to be watching the job is the crew owner. It’s the fox watching the hen house.
Call us today and let us answer the question,
Who will be supervising my job and how long will they be here??
