Housely
Your roof is one of the most important parts of your home. Mainly this is because it keeps out the elements which can inflict enormous amounts of damage on your possessions within a short period of time. However, it should also be noted that your roof has a direct impact on your insulation, which in turn, has a direct impact on the size of your power bill and thus the amount of your greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, whether you are concerned about your finances, your environment, or both of them at the same time, you want to make sure that you have the most appropriate roof for your home.
Unless you are a roofer with the right expertise and experience, this means that you should entrust your roofing to a roofing contractor, who will have to be interviewed before you choose to hire them. After all, an interview is a powerful means of collecting useful information, without which you cannot hope to make a fully-informed decision in your best interests.
Here are ten questions that you should ask your potential roofer:
Are You Fully Licensed, Bonded, and Insured?
You should always ask this question whenever you choose a contractor, with roofing contractors being no exception to this rule. This is important because it ensures that your potential roofer has the expertise and experience that they need to get the job done, but also has preparations in place to protect your financial interests in case something goes wrong, which is always a possibility. If your potential roofer is lacking any one of these three things, you should consider someone else.
What Is Your Roofing Company’s Physical Address?
Being cheated by their contractors is a common problem for homeowners. As a result, you want reassurance that your potential roofer won’t just pocket your money and run away. A physical address does not guarantee that a roofing contractor will do a good job, but it does increase the chance that you will be able to track them down to seek redress if they fail to fulfill their end of the contract.
Do You Use Roofing Subcontractors?
Some roofing contractors use roofing subcontractors, which is a serious problem because you will need to research them as well if you want to build the complete picture needed to make a fully-informed decision. Furthermore, this is important for knowing who will be on your premises at what times, which is important if you want to keep a close eye on the roofing.
What Are You Planning to Do and How Will You Do It?
You should never sign a roofing contract without knowing your potential roofer’s solution for your roofing problem as well as how they plan to implement said solution. This is particularly useful if you want to shop around for the best prices since it will enable you to make direct comparisons between the different offers of different roofing contractors.
What Will Cost What?
Once again, knowing what your potential roofer plans to charge you for what products and services enables you to make direct comparisons when you are shopping around for a potential roofer. However, it is also useful for making sure that your roofing contractor will not overcharge you by inflating their prices partway through the roofing process, which is something that happens all too often when overly trusting homeowners hire unscrupulous individuals who think nothing about cheating them.
What Will You Do If There Is Bad Weather?
Weather forecasts are never perfect, meaning that your potential roofer should have a plan in place to protect your home from the elements in case the weather turns bad. Furthermore, this is useful as a way of gauging how well your potential roofer can react to unexpected contingencies, which is important because a foolish reaction can cause just as much damage as no reaction at all.
Who Can I Communicate With That Is On-site?
Two-way communication between the client and the contractor ensures the best results, so make sure that there is someone with whom you can speak if you are concerned about something in regards to your roofing project. Said individual should be someone with authority on the actual site since that means they will know what is happening and they will be able to address your concerns in a meaningful manner.
What Other Projects Are You Working On At the Moment?
This is important because a busy roofing contractor will be able to spare less time and attention for your home, which can mean less desirable results than what can be achieved by someone that is more attentive. However, it should be noted that a roofing contractor with no workload is not a good thing since it suggests that they are having problems finding clients, which can mean all sorts of problems with them.
Do You Have References?
A roofing contractor that claims to have the expertise and experience to help you should also have the work history to back up that claim. Ideally, you will be able to verify this work history by speaking with their references, who should be homeowners with similar problems and similar situations to yours since they will have the most meaningful information for your decision-making.
Do You Offer Warranties?
Even the best roofing contractors can make mistakes from time to time, which can lead to serious consequences for their clients. As a result, you need to make sure that you are insulated from the impact of such occurrences by a warranty from your potential roofer. If your potential roofer either provides no warranty or provides an inadequate warranty, you should reconsider your choice of candidates because you absolutely do not want to be caught flat-footed by a roofing problem after you have just paid for roofing work.
Further Considerations
These are but some of the questions that you can ask your potential roofer, meaning that you should not hesitate to come up with more on your own if you feel that they are insufficient for your purposes. Furthermore, you need to confirm your potential roofer’s claims by consulting the appropriate resources because trust but verify is one of the best policies when it comes to hiring a roofing contractor.
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