How to Hire an Honest Roofing Contractor

A few days ago I got a great suggestion from a friend about one of the issues they noticed emerging throughout many builders and roofing contractors forums online was the trust factor and how many people were very concerned about a simple but important question: how to hire an honest roofing contractor?. 

This particular question has raised many interesting questions when it comes to trying to find the best solution to finding an honest roofing contractor that you can trust to perform a repair or a roof replacement on your home or on your business. Many people in the forum wrote under the comment sections their opinions on how to best hire a roofing contractor and there were many opinions offered that have a lot of reasons to be true. 

For example many people offered the opinion that once you call a roofing contractor if they communicate with you relatively quickly and are in contact about setting up a time to come and perform an estimate under roof this is typically a good sign. Also always checking their Google reviews to make sure that they are ranking highly enough. 

Aside from those things there are other people's opinions that were voiced throughout this roofing builders online form. Many people were of the opinion that when you meet a roofer face to face that if you have a good impression of that person that they will typically give that person an opportunity for business. I feel the same way often when I meet someone I decide from a gut feeling if I believe this person has the ability to do the job or the service that I'm considering hiring them for. 

In this case many people enjoy having that contact from the roofing company that eye to eye with the customer which there is a lot of value that comes with that. Aside from that some of the other opinions were it's important to find a roofer that you're paying correctly. By finding roofers that are in a bidding war to the bottom for their profit margins that it makes it very difficult for roofers to do the quality work.  

For example having the correct license and having the correct permits in place while the work is happening is just one small example where other small fly-by-night companies will come in and try to do work yet not be properly organizationally organized. 

This is where many times you will run into problems not today but tomorrow and then they're gone. So if this is damage for insurance purposes or even just damage you don't want to turn in and would like to get a roof repair done it's very important to pay what the market should be paying otherwise you risk perhaps having people that are unlicensed incorrectly in your house and someone falling off or hurting themselves would then in turn potentially sue your homeowners insurance. 

Another sign of how do you hire someone good typically the price they pay there is a price that is built in for the cost of doing business for example insurance companies typically charge for every $100 a roofing company makes $20 goes back into properly ensuring your roofing company from any exemptions and protecting you as a homeowner. Understanding that heavy cost on the front end of that $100 makes you then understand that a proper roofer with the proper insurances and protections for you should cost more than what some people are offering that you see on perhaps a craigslist or an ad that's flashed on Facebook for a few weeks and then goes away. To be clear there are great people that use both of those facebook and craigslist to advertise but both have had to recover from some checkered past history in regards to privacy and advocacy for the person buying that service or product, that means you and me.

You're looking for people that I would suggest have a combination of all of the suggestions that have been mentioned here in that online roofing forum I people again mentioned it's important to look at the background look at their reviews do they have a Facebook account are they active do they have other people that you can get names and numbers of that you can call and ask about the work that they have done? How many years have they been in business and are they properly licensed? All of these things are fair questions when it comes to getting an honest roofing contractor. So the secret I believe to hiring an honest roofing contractor starts at you wanting to honestly hire the right person for the job.

Consistently throughout my research into how to hire an honest roofing contractor I found many stories of how not to hire a roofing contractor. I myself and the type of person that likes to meet people face to face especially when you have a personal investment like your home. I get the psychology of protecting your very family and the things that you have collected from the special memories under that roof that are completely irreplaceable if they're lost to water damage or subject to fire. so we have a very personal investment in our homes. Meeting someone face-to-face always does feel good but if this good feeling you get from just meeting them face-to-face is only one of the check marks that you accomplish you're leaving yourself open to more risk than you would want. 

Many of the most well-intentioned people that have been mentioned in some of these stories about how to hire the wrong roofing contractor are filled with stories about roofing contractors that drove in with the right size truck had a great joke and really connected with them on the personal level. Although that in my experience is something I prefer to have, it is just one of the hurdles I believe you need to understand you need to clear before you can have the best possible experience in hiring an honest roofing contractor.

Some of the other danger zones when it comes to yellow and red flags popping up are contractors that don't have the correct credentials. These can come in the way of being registered with the state, the city, the municipality in which the working in. It could also include being on a vendor's list for a specific property. There are many other credentials that honest roofing contractors are happy to probably display in order to set them aside from fly by night or shady business people that are there to be there today and gone tomorrow.

Adhering to some of these try and true processes will no doubt lower your risk in running into a shady roofing contractor that's there today and gone tomorrow. These stories online are filled with warnings and great advice to those that are willing to read.

Of course doing due diligence things like reviews making sure that others have had good experiences with them asking your neighbors questions about the company that they may be using are always good things when it comes to making a decision. Knowing what the fair market value is for the quality of workmanship you're getting.

The other part of the forum that I have learned so much about is how to hire an honest roofing contractor to ask questions about not just quality of work but the quality of the materials that they are going to specifically be using for your house. In many cases with insurance claims you're entitled to a specific amount of money and if you run into over cost you could be the one that has to pay out of pocket potentially thousands of dollars if it's not accepted by your insurance company. finding out ahead of time that your insurance materials are going to be covered by the amount of money allotted for your roofing repair or replacement is always a smart move.

So to recap how do you hire an honest roofing contractor your best success in hiring the right roofer will come from following some of these tried and true stories of people that have hired contractors and made poor decisions. in the cases where people have made poor decisions they have been honest about some of the things that they wish they would have done before hiring them. 

A good feeling about the person that you're working with is definitely a check in the box for me. However making sure that the person is properly insured and certified and has the ability to do this job legally with limiting my risk to anything that could potentially go wrong is very important to me. Making sure you verify some of those details and credentials specifically are going to be your best and safest bet. 

I would say one of the big and third final checks in the box is doMake sure that they have good reviews. Looking at them online at Google always makes sense but potentially thinking about asking them for jobs that they have done in the area that you might be able to drive by and take a look at. driving by and taking a look at a property that they've already done is a great way to judge the potential that they will have in accomplishing your roofing project. 

If they don't have anything that they're doing locally that could be a good sign that maybe you might want to reevaluate and call a few more people. 

It's important to give due diligence to the purchase of this product even if it's being covered by insurance. think about going out and paying for a car a cash but you don't have to pay for it someone else does You're probably in most cases not going to be as picky as if it were that you got up every single day worked very hard made this money set it aside made certain choices about things that you weren't going to eat places that you weren't going to go because you were going to set aside so much money to buy that car. You would be more financially and emotionally connected and when it came time for that purchase of that car you were going to make sure that you got exactly what you wanted. 

Well you're talking about an investment that although is not maybe as cool as a brand new car it is an investment of in many cases equal or in many many cases greater value than most average vehicles here. So when it comes to making a great decision it requires having some great questions. 

With these questions in mind you're going to be ready to make a great decision. If you're looking for more information about one roofer that I suggest in the San Antonio area that has a lot of experience and integrity check these guys out at www.tileroofingsanantonio.com 

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