Home Improvement

I've discovered the hard way that it does NOT pay to go budget on a roof.

Noodleface said:

Having a contractor coming out to fix our roof tomorrow. Insurance believes it to be below the deductible so I'm out of pocket most likely. Since it's just a bunch of shingles I didn't go with a big name roofing company but a local contractor just getting started (but a LOT of good reviews). I kind of wanted a brand new roof but what can you do. No water leaking so that's fine I guess.

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I'm surprised your insurance would even consider covering it. With my recent issue, they basically told me that unless it's sudden and emergency damage, home owners insurance won't cover it. So since you have no water leaking, you won't get anything covered

Here's our quote. I know area to area is going to change quite a bit, but if anyone has any experience, I'd appreciate it. Those prices sound ok?

Well it was sudden and emergency. We had a wind/Rain storm (85 mph) and it ripped a bunch off my roof

Yeah, I would have thought they would cover it.

But if it's just shingles and none of the plywood came up I guess that's their threshold.

Crone said:

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Here's our quote. I know area to area is going to change quite a bit, but if anyone has any experience, I'd appreciate it. Those prices sound ok?

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That's not an especially well-itemized estimate (an idea of materials/labor split would be good) but it doesn't look insane on its face. Welcome to home ownership. =(

Lanx said:

aren't you still covered for a year with the home buyer warranty? i'd check to see if that applies to anything.

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Checked our home warranty, but it doesn't cover anything like this. It basically only covers "things" that break. Funny enough, Sump Pumps are one of them, but won't have any until after this is all done. Our Home Insurance won't cover anything, as it wasn't sudden and an emergency. The restoration guy also said in his 13 years of doing this, he's never seen a home insurance cover anything related to ground water.

Captain Suave said:

That's not an especially well-itemized estimate (an idea of materials/labor split would be good) but it doesn't look insane on its face. Welcome to home ownership. =(

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Yea, I've owned a home before so I'm familiar. I just wish that we had a more thorough inspector when we bought it, or it didn't rear it's ugly head like this at this moment. Stings more because the $12k we had in savings was gonna re-do the backyard, and start in on a new kitchen! That's gonna have to wait another year it looks like!

One thing to note about this is your inspector might not look for ground water around your foundation, I don't think ours did. And that kind of goes beyond that job, I would think unless it was really obvious. We had a really thorough home inspector that pointed out a lot of stuff, crawled in our eaves, spent a long time in the basement too and I never saw him look for ground water deposits.It's tough to think insurance would cover that, even though you'd want it to, because it's an environmental effect encroaching on your dwelling. Of course, if your previous homeowner knew about it, that's pretty shitty.

This contractor we have is ultra-fucking weird. He keeps texting me (never had this before) about the job. Told me if he owns the shingles already he'll just give me them for free (???). He called me last night to discuss the job and spent 20 minutes talking to me about random shit like he wanted to be friends. Very strange guy and I'm kind of regretting using him.

He also has a pencil thin lined up beard and I DO NOT trust people with those.

I think one of his facebook pics has him in a doo-rag.

Yea, basically got told that insurance is never gonna cover something caused by ground water.

However! Update!

All the water is pumped out, and apparently there are a ton of supports that should be there, but are not, and instead much of the house is being supported by loose cinder blocks and 5 gallon buckets. This contractor is now thinking I should be going to my insurance company because my house is in danger of collapsing. That might be dramatic. Getting things 3rd hand.

Also have gotten referrals for a real estate attorney.

I'll post pictures as soon as I have them.

Woah man, that's some impressive DIYing. He dug out the foundations?

Sounds like the inspector miffed it bad. I think that's on the bank, not the state.

Do you have no basement ?

That's insane. I might sue the builder

Lanx said:

yea, how old is this house? and also the other houses on the block, said that neighbor had waterproofed their basement too, so it might be an entire block issue if it's a recent home and shitty builder(which is happening more and more, always buy old house now!!!)

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Or one that you supervise the building of yourself.

You don't have to be an expert in construction or be famililar with local building codes to see when some shit just ain't right.

Lanx The contractor that I'm using to fix the damage had just water proofed our neighbors basement. We do not have a basement. We have just a crawl space, that apparently is supposed to be 18" per code, and gets down to as little as 8-10" in some spots under the house. It's in this crawl space that he found other problems after the water had been pumped out.

House was built in 1949, and it's had a TON of addons. Previous owners lived there 8 years and did most of these addons.

My own little update

Had the contractor come out today and he told me $500 to redo the missing shingles. Insurance quoted us 900 so figured that was good. He came out today, did the quote and finished before I was even home. Can't complain about that.

He also gave me some bad news. Not crone news, but bad enough. Basically guy that did our roof originally "new" 5 years ago before we bought it just slammed the shingles right on the plywood, rather than putting down the tar sheets. Also there's not any ventilation on the roof. Just one single vent on the side of our house. I assumed inspector would've seen that, but here we are.

He offered to put this new vent on the peak in, the kind that's this 4 foot plastic thing that bends to shape to the roof.

VentSure® Rigid Roll Ridge Vent - Owens Corning Roofing

Like that but different model.

Originally he said $1000 but then said $500 because he's trying to make a name for himself.

All In all weird dude but did a great job. He also resealed my chimney and another vent for free.

Picasso3 said:

Does this guy have a contractor's license Crone?

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He's licensed, insured, bonded, yes. I had no idea it was the same guy that had just done our neighbors basement. However my neighbor, unprompted has said good things about the guy that did it. Then when this guy showed up he's like oh, yea, I just did your neighbors basement. He's been pretty straight with us this far.

Noodleface said:

My own little update

Had the contractor come out today and he told me $500 to redo the missing shingles. Insurance quoted us 900 so figured that was good. He came out today, did the quote and finished before I was even home. Can't complain about that.

He also gave me some bad news. Not crone news, but bad enough. Basically guy that did our roof originally "new" 5 years ago before we bought it just slammed the shingles right on the plywood, rather than putting down the tar sheets. Also there's not any ventilation on the roof. Just one single vent on the side of our house. I assumed inspector would've seen that, but here we are.

He offered to put this new vent on the peak in, the kind that's this 4 foot plastic thing that bends to shape to the roof.

VentSure® Rigid Roll Ridge Vent - Owens Corning Roofing

Like that but different model.

Originally he said $1000 but then said $500 because he's trying to make a name for himself.

All In all weird dude but did a great job. He also resealed my chimney and another vent for free.

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Nice!! and then not so nice. So what does this mean for your roof. That your whole roof is gonna rot out eventually, much sooner than it should, and you'll have to get a new roof?