Advice needed for possible legal action against contractor

[Raymond Fries]

We had a room addition added to our home in summer of 2011. We have a 50 warranty roof on our home which was installed I thing in 2005; this also had ice dam material installed. Because the room addition contractor could not seperate the shingles to install the valleys for the room addition, he chose to tear off the entire back of the house and replace the shingles. This was at his cost and he never asked us to help pay for it. In the winter of 2012 we had water damage in our living room. This leak was where he tore the roof off and replaced it and not the room addition. I called Alan and he had is guy come in the spring. We were told that there was a problem with a nail and it was fixed. OK - simple fix. We had no reason not to believe him. Last winter, in 2013, the same spot leaked even more. I called Alan again and he his guy looked at it and there was nothing he could do. Then he went on to say that maybe he could run the ice dam material up 6 feet instead of the standard 3 feet.

I reported this to him in March and he said he was waiting for the weather to break. Yesterday he was supposed to come and it was a no call and no show.

I am getting concerned that he is going to stick us with this and it will get messy. There was a 1 year warranty on the room which has long passed. The problem was reported on the phone before the warranty expired but I have no written proof that this happened.

All I have is an email thread started in March of this year stating the history of the problem. He said he has not forgotten us in one email but he seems to be ignoring us.

Any thoughts on if I can get another contractor to repair it and force him to pay the charges. Any thoughts or direction would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks

[Sean Troy]

We had a room addition added to our home in summer of 2011. We have a 50 warranty roof on our home which was installed I thing in 2005; this also had ice dam material installed. Because the room addition contractor could not seperate the shingles to install the valleys for the room addition, he chose to tear off the entire back of the house and replace the shingles. This was at his cost and he never asked us to help pay for it. In the winter of 2012 we had water damage in our living room. This leak was where he tore the roof off and replaced it and not the room addition. I called Alan and he had is guy come in the spring. We were told that there was a problem with a nail and it was fixed. OK - simple fix. We had no reason not to believe him. Last winter, in 2013, the same spot leaked even more. I called Alan again and he his guy looked at it and there was nothing he could do. Then he went on to say that maybe he could run the ice dam material up 6 feet instead of the standard 3 feet.

I reported this to him in March and he said he was waiting for the weather to break. Yesterday he was supposed to come and it was a no call and no show.

I am getting concerned that he is going to stick us with this and it will get messy. There was a 1 year warranty on the room which has long passed. The problem was reported on the phone before the warranty expired but I have no written proof that this happened.

All I have is an email thread started in March of this year stating the history of the problem. He said he has not forgotten us in one email but he seems to be ignoring us.

Any thoughts on if I can get another contractor to repair it and force him to pay the charges. Any thoughts or direction would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks
No other contractor with any brains would touch it. As soon as he does, he is liable.

[Raymond Fries]

Sean,

I would call the contractor that installed the 50 year roof. They might just redo that entire section of the roof. We had ice dam damage before they did the install and zero problems until the room addition guy worked on it. I am sure they have no problem standing behind their work.

[Shawn Pixley]

Sean,

I would call the contractor that installed the 50 year roof. They might just redo ththat entire section of the roof. We had ice dam damage before they did the install and zero problems until the room addition guy worked on it. I am sure they have no problem standing behind their work.

I am sure that that could fix the roof and solve the real problem. However, I think that you would have little to no chance of getting the addition contractor to pay for it. I think the original roofer would want a disclaimer or release from you to avoid his being in the middle of a legal dispute.

Unfortunately Raymond, I think the problem occurred when the scope was expanded to the replacement of half of the original roof. The liability should have been defined then. I am assuming of course that this wasn't addressed then. Your paths to recourse are expensive now for all. If the cost wasn't too extraordinary, the best path may be to eat the cost and handle it yourself. Otherwise this could drag on for a long time and chew it up the expense with lawyers' fees. I am sure you don't want to go through another winter with it.

People tend to think that I am over-obsessive in situations around roofing. I made myself a pain when working with my Solar installers by insisting that my roofer do the boots for the stanchions for the panels over the single ply membrane roof. I know who to go after if a problem were to happen. However, I am sure it won't. While I paid more, I know I don't have incompatable materials and I am not using old technologies pitch pots and counting on sealant to keep water out.