ComplaintsforCentral Roofing

• Initial Complaint

  06/04/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  2022 - Central roofing repaired 2/3 of our roof in Halifax. He wrote and signed a 10 year workmanship guarantee for the sections of the roof he would be working on. I have attached it to the complaint. . 2023-Throughout the following year multiple leaks surfaced. We contacted ***** ***** from Central roofing to fix the leaks, as they were coming from sections of the roof he had re-done. He agreed. The same process continues two more times, by summer 2023 we still had a leak and ***** is no longer replying to our messages or phonecalls. I am not sure we trust him to do the work properly a third time, however I will withdraw the complaint if we are able to come to any sort of agreement

  

  Business response

  07/04/2024

  Good day.  I feel that you are going about this very inappropriately.  This is published for the public to see and you are misleading the truth.  You should get your facts straight before you publicly try to embarrass me and make me look like a bad person.   This does not make me happy as I have worked very hard for 25 years to build a reliable,  honest reputation.   As well,  you are disputing the full cost of the job over 1 leak that you think is my fault.
  I have no choice but to defend myself by clearly stating the facts :
  -before we started any work there were some leaks noted.
  -job was completed in April ,  2022
  -approx 2-3 months after completion **** asked me to come back to address a leak around a brick chimney where we had completed roofing installation.  I came back and completed some additional work around the chimney but overall I was satisfied with the work we completed.  The existing lead was in good condition and It didn’t seem possible for it to leak at the base of the brick chimney.  **** did call me again because it continued to leak.  Knowing that brick chimneys are sometimes difficult I suggested that the leak may be coming from the chimney itself.  I did want to go back but felt that I did everything right so I didn’t think there was anything else I could do at my expense.
  -You are suggesting that throughout the following year multiple leaks surfaced.  I feel that this is the first time I am being made aware of this ?  I have no emails,  don’t recall any phone conversations or any kind of exchanges re: several leaks ?  I know I spoke to **** about the chimney leak.  Other than that I am completely surprised about “several leaks”. 
  -you are suggesting that by summer of 2023 you still had a leak ?  Previously you had mentioned  “several leaks”?  Two years after we completed the work several leaks is now one leak ?  These several leaks somehow managed to stop on their own and it is now one leak ?  You are misleading the public with your inaccuracies.  
  A workmanship warranty means that we will take responsibility for work not completed satisfactorily.  It doesn’t mean that we are responsible for leaks outside of the scope of work.  I recall being told that the chimney had a notorious leak before we completed any work.  This somewhat confirmed to me that the leak could very well have been outside our scope of work.
  This is the oldest building in Halifax and was a very challenging job as it is right on ****** ****** in downtown Halifax.  There were other leaks and issues that we resolved as I feel that the project was an overall success.  With all the high winds in this region you have never lost a shingle from the work we completed.  We treated you fairly and fulfilled our obligation by completing the work in a good workmanlike manner.
  As I feel that the work at the chimney is properly done I would be willing to come back for a small fee to redo the base of the chimney.  I would need this fee paid in advance as I struggled to collect payment from you on original work.   We will make a good effort to go above and beyond the typical installation procedures.  If at this point it is still leaking we will assume no further responsibility.
  Regards,
  ***** *****
  Central Roofing Services Ltd

  Customer response

  10/04/2024

  
  
  Hello *****,
  Thank you for the quick reply.
  
  I can appreciate the sentiment around the complaint. The complaint does not become public until it has been closed. As I said I am happy to withdraw it if we can come to an agreement. Apologies I am not disputing the entire job in fact I personally have been happy with my dryer vent and the work you did on the south side of the building. I am disputing the guarantee and the work on the northern section of the roof.
  
  I wrote the complaint on behalf of our condo board. I have photographs of the two spots on the north-western section of the roof that you came back to re-do at least 3 times in November, April and May 2022. There may have been other re-visits, this is just going based on our text message history. Both of these are now leaking again. You are right we have not discussed this third spot, as it was noticed around October 2023. I feel if we are still experiencing leaks from the original two places (chimney and center section of northern roof) that we raised with you after two re-visits, we should be within our rights to question the guarantee you wrote us.
  
  I am not aware of any leaks on that section of the roof before your crew did their work- including the chimney. We called you to fix a leak on the south side of the roof (my dormer).
  We opted to have you do the front and back sections on the northern part of the building as a preventative measure. The attached original quote you provided confirms this.
  
  We as a ***** **** are not willing to pay any further funds to Central Roofing for this job. I will peruse this complaint with BBB until the original scope of the work is properly completed. We seem to agree on what the scope is. I do not understand your point about the chimney as it is part of the section that we chose to have re-done as a preventative measure and is within the scope of the project. If it was leaking before or was a challenging job, I can sympathize with that but it does not change what we are asking
  
  I cannot accept your response as you are proposing this be at our expense. Since the original Job, we have been asking you to make good on the guarantee you provided- for a section of the roof that had no leaks before you were there and has been progressively worsening since.
  
  Even to someone like myself with no experience in roofing, it is clear that at least one member of your crew did not quite know what they were doing. It is also clear from the pictures (ill attach) that the work you did when coming back to fix it was fraught with cost saving and corner cutting measures. Examples would include the spacing of shingles being too far apart to make a seal, lack of woven / overlapping flashing around dormers and chimney & re-application of old lead around chimney. We are willing to entertain one final job where all three leaks are addressed (center pitch, chimney, dormer flashing) at your expense. We will have the work inspected by a third party company at our expense and we will no longer peruse any workmanship guarantees by you or your company. Alternatively, we would be willing to except reimbursement for 25% of the cost of the job as it is roughly 25% of the work that has not held up per the guarantee.
  
  It is not my intention to damage you or your business’s reputation if you are willing to be proactive and stand by your guarantee. I would be willing replace the complaint with a good review if we can get a repair that lasts through a shoulder season.
  
  ********
  

  

  Business response

  30/04/2024

  Good day.  I have been talking with Mr ******* ****** .  We have made progress through positive communication and are working to rectify the situation.   *****.  Central Roofing 

• Initial Complaint

  08/12/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Complete roof replacement from Oct 20 to Nov 05, 2022. Invoice #3036. The delivery truck left a rut in our new driveway. Lots of disagreement witnessed between the owner and his foreman. The owner ordered a wrong size skylight and falsely blamed it on my specifications. It had been agreed the skylight should be a vinyl one but without communicating, a wooden one was installed. Interior trim work was not completed. I asked for a short written statement saying that the skylight was installed according to the instructions,. I asked for having the gutter guard straightened out and photos from the top of the roof. The whole job took 17 days. Roofers kept ripping off shingles that had been poorly installed. Nov 8: The owner collected the cheque ($19,314.25). He appeared worked up, stating everything was ‘too much for him’. I explained that I previously had several instances of water damage and that’s why I was looking into details. The owner signaled agreement to all the requests outlined above but never completed them. Nov 12: A rainstorm caused water damage in my office, almost ruining all my certificates. The ceiling has a hole appr. 5 sqft in size. The foreman stated the work around the chimney was done by someone who had already been fired. Nov 13: The owner completed some work but didn’t offer any apologies. His workers had failed to fill gaps in the mortar, allowing rain to get in. He said he had tasked the foreman with this. He offered to fix the damage but I declared I was going to have his insurance assess the damage. He agreed to call his insurance. This was witnessed by my wife. Nov 25: New water damage was spotted in another closet. I emailed the owner, wondering if he called his insurance. Nov 29: I emailed again, indicating that my patience was wearing thin. Nov 30: Defiant response from the owner, indicating my requests were ‘over the top’. Owner said he didn’t have any intention to inform his insurance. He referred me to his lawyer.

  

  Business response

  19/12/2022

  This guy is going on and on about anything and everything that happened on the job unnecessarily.  He mentions the driveway.  The delivery truck left no mark.  He talks about the skylight.  I made an error and ordered the wrong size skylight.  I got the proper one and we installed it.  No issues.  He refers to the gutter.  We did not damage it.  He wanted us to fix this for free.  Normally we are happy to do whatever we can for people but not in this case.  The only issues are the ones he is making up in his head.  I have had enough of this guy.  I told him to talk to my lawyer because he has been driving me crazy.  In 25 years I have never ran into a person like this.  He has had issues with every trade that he has ever dealt with.  He told me this.

  The job has been completed. The warranty has been registered with the shingle manufacturer.  We do this for the homeowner as part of our service.
  I am quite happy with the outcome.    It is a quality installation completed in good conscience with very good quality materials. We used tarps to protect the property and patio etc.  Kind of strange that he has nothing good to say.  Most people think we are nice and pleasant and very easy to do business with. Good cleanup,  thorough etc.

  The ONLY issue is related to the chimney.  My foreman overlooked installing some mortar in a brick joint.  This is a repair that we completed for free as we did not cause this mortar joint to fail.    It caused a minor leak for a few hrs on a Saturday evening. I said to homeowner the following day that when I visited the house that we would put in a commercial dehumidifier to encourage it to dry faster and more thoroughly and that we could easily complete the minor repairs. drywall ,  insulation. The carpet wasn't wet,  there was really very little damage and because there was no vapour barrier in the ceiling the issue was really isolated to a very small area in closet right beside brick chimney.    Homeowner wanted me to call my insurance.  I told him this is not an insurance matter.    He said he would rather wait for the insurance which I suggested could take up to 2-3 weeks for them to arrive just to assess it.  This took place shortly after hurricane Fiona so insurance companies were overwhelmed at the time.  He said no problem he would rather wait for insurance.   So it baffles me that he was willing to wait for insurance and allow the issue to be unattended for possibly 4 weeks or more.  He knew there was no real issue or he would have accepted our offer.    We were willing to take action immediately. After all this I again suggested that we would be happy to do the repairs anytime it was convenient for him.

  No thank you.  No appreciation for the effort.  Claims the job took 3 weeks. Complaining about the cost even though we were the lowest price quote they received.  Part of which was HST .  And yes I do submit and pay this quarterly.  Constantly seeking to find issues and making issues where they do not or do not have to exist.  No Thank you !!

  Customer response

  22/12/2022

   I am rejecting this response because:
  
  Unfortunately, this business owner turns out to be very unprofessional. 

  RE driveway: 
  There is clearly a mark in the driveway which is evident from the pictures I submitted. There might even be a crack. The foreman stated the delivery truck had never been on the right side of the driveway but I could prove him wrong using a photo my wife took. I’m still awaiting assessment by the paving company as they’ve been very busy lately. Unfortunately this business owner turns out to be very unprofessional.
  
  RE skylight:  
  When the wrong size of the skylight became apparent, the business owner got defensive and stated I had given him wrong dimensions which is false. It was a careless mistake on his end. Furthermore, it had been agreed that the skylight should be made from vinyl because our previous skylight from the same company was wooden and the frame always got soaked during the cold season, causing mold. This had been clearly communicated between me and the business owner. The roofers installed a wooden one because this was what the owner provided. I called the Velux company and my concerns cold be mitigated which I immediately communicated to the business owner. However, communication on his end was always falling short. The foreman stated he’d be doing the interior trims and we stayed home on at least two consecutive days in order to let him in but he didn’t show up. We even turned down another company who wanted do do work on the shower in that bathroom because we were expecting the foreman. No communication until we learned that the owner didn’t want the foreman to finish the interior trims. The philosophy of the company states ‘To educate our customers’ – none of this happened. With cold weather arriving and the area underneath the skylight left unfinished, we again ran into significant condensation and moisture problems. Knowing that handymen are hard to get these days he should have given us a heads up early about him not doing interior trims so we could have made arrangements.

  RE gutter:
  Nobody ever stated that Central Roofing caused the damage. I told the business owner that this probably had been caused by a different roofing company that replaced shingles in years past. I only made a request and on several occasions the business owner promised he was going to have somebody fix it. This would have taken several minutes. He could have said no. Instead he said yes and didn’t end up doing it.

  
  Quotation form the business owner's statement: 'The only issues are the ones he is making up in his head.  I have had enough of this guy.  I told him to talk to my lawyer because he has been driving me crazy.  In 25 years I have never ran into a person like this.'

  
  The business owner’s disrespectful remarks speak for themselves. During a conversation we had he even had the nerve to tell me I should be sleeping at 11:30PM instead of writing him emails. On our first encounter since the job started I noted he was burned out and not enjoying his job. I signaled my understanding, knowing what hardship many business owner were going through. This occurred after I spotted the rut and a possible crack in my driveway. I told him it wasn’t my intention to blame his company but would instead ask him to reach out to the company that had delivered the shingles. They should have used a plank for under that heavy truck. Even that seemed to much for him. Of course, it’s not his new driveway. It’s somebody else's which makes it convenient to downplay.

  
  RE Quotation: 'He has had issues with every trade that he has ever dealt with.  He told me this.'

  
  I had a lot of decent work done by companies but I gave him four examples of bad experiences I made to make him understand why I was having concerns. A bathroom company installed a shower with a dysfunctional pivot door that didn’t close properly and kept leaking. The issue is currently getting resolved based on a BBB complaint. We were left with a damaged car engine and I worked to get the engine replaced. This was a Canadian class action on ******* / ***. A leaky windshield in a ********* my wife owns left us with engine breakdown and interior mold. A car glass company confirmed this was a manufacturing fault. This is currently going through arbitration. During a countertop installation a plumber noted that there were old copper pipes in the kitchen wall; however, this was not addressed by suggesting these old pipes should be changed. Not too long after that we had severe water damage in the kitchen from exactly these old pipes. We suffered through six weeks of having incredibly noisy industrial dehumidifiers in the kitchen to get the moisture out. This was an insurance case.

  
  I used these examples to explain how I was burned from previous water damage and I repeatedly asked for his understanding while referring to the wooden skylight and my concerns around water leakage. It turned out the business owner didn’t know, or care, much about skylights. I learned that in case of a warranty claim the skylight company will always try to challenge the mode of installation; therefore I politely asked for a brief note confirming that the skylight was installed properly by someone experienced in the field and according to the instructions. I wanted to be safe in case I ran into new moisture problems with the skylight. The owner promised to provide this. He signaled that he was fine with my reasoning. He collected the cheque, and we shook hands. This was before the water damage happened from around the chimney. He did not fulfil his promises.

  
  RE 'The job has been completed' etc.:
  The job was initially delayed, first because of hurricane Fiona and then because the business owner chose to start other jobs first. Although he had said it would be better to start the job in September rather than October because the shingles would settle down better with warmer temperatures, he only started on October 20 and the work dragged out until Nov 05. He admitted they had to remove lots of shingles because they were not properly installed by his workers which cost him an extra $400. In fact, he seemed very frustrated with this but this is not the customer’s fault.

  RE cleanup: 
  
  All that I can say is that after almost every cleanup we found two handfuls of nails on our deck and in the area surrounding the house.

  
  RE chimney:
  There was no previous leak on the chimney. If there was anything to fix outside of what the roofing company had caused or was overseeing, it would have been appropriate to suggest I get a masonry company to fix this. I am interested to be on top of things to avoid unnecessary damage. I heard nothing from the business owner. How can he say he repaired the chimney for free? He showed me his own photos demonstrating not one but several mortar joints that were completely unfilled. His company is responsible for the blank mortar joints and the consecutive water damage. That damage is complex. I knew he was getting unnerved and he wanted to get rid of me quick. This was when I identified his conflict of interest. On a Sunday when he came to repair the chimney, while initially reluctant, he finally agreed to get his insurance involved. But he was lying. Almost two weeks later, nothing had happened because he was stubborn. His lie and failure to get his insurance informed caused a significant lag in the repair of the water damage. And if I weren’t being present at the time the water started dripping from the ceiling, this would have damaged all my professional certificates that were stored on a shelf just underneath the ceiling.

  
  Quotation from business: 'It caused a minor leak for a few hrs on a Saturday evening. I said to homeowner the following day that when I visited the house that we would put in a commercial dehumidifier to encourage it to dry faster and more thoroughly and that we could easily complete the minor repairs. drywall ,  insulation. The carpet wasn't wet,  there was really very little damage and because there was no vapour barrier in the ceiling the issue was really isolated to a very small area in closet right beside brick chimney.'

  
  The business owner is apparently trying to downplay the damage, because he’s not the one suffering from it. There is water damage in two difficult to access closets. For the skylight, his communication suggested he didn’t feel confident about doing the interior trims. Doing drywall work is not within the core competence of his business. And I was not interested in having someone fix the issues who was getting frustrated with their own workers and had an intention to quickly leave this job behind them.

  
  Quotation: 'Homeowner wanted me to call my insurance.  I told him this is not an insurance matter.'

  
  It’s not on the business owner to decide that on behalf of his customer. I left an avenue open for somebody independent to assess and not put in an insurance claim if it turned out to be less complicated. But he chose to remain stubborn after he collected the pay cheque.

   

  Quotation: 'He said he would rather wait for the insurance which I suggested could take up to 2-3 weeks for them to arrive just to assess it.  This took place shortly after hurricane Fiona so insurance companies were overwhelmed at the time.  He said no problem he would rather wait for insurance. So it baffles me that he was willing to wait for insurance and allow the issue to be unattended for possibly 4 weeks or more.  He knew there was no real issue or he would have accepted our offer. We were willing to take action immediately. After all this I again suggested that we would be happy to do the repairs anytime it was convenient for him.'

  
  It doesn’t matter that it baffles him. It’s not his house. Of course he wanted to patch this up and get rid of me quickly. I was being an uncomfortable customer for him because I uncovered his own weaknesses. Almost six weeks have now passed with the issue unfixed because of the business owner’s stubbornness.

  Quotation: 'No thank you.  No appreciation for the effort.  Claims the job took 3 weeks.'

  
  I claimed the job took 17 days which we know for a fact. My neighbor was perplexed at how often they came back to correct issues. I paid the workers almost $300 in tips. I tried to positively interact with them whenever I was around. The foreman, too, was easy to deal with and repeatedly said the tips were ‘going a long way’. But he also seemed to be very much at odds with the business owner. On several occasions I got the impression that their relationship was frayed and about to end soon. For example, I heard him say ‘I hate this guy’. That didn’t make me feel comfortable as a customer.

  Quotation: 'Complaining about the cost even though we were the lowest price quote they received. '

  
  This statement is completely made up. I never complained about the cost. The business owner instead said he could understand that his customers were expecting flawless work for their hard-earned money. And he admitted that $20,000 for the job was a lot of money which I agreed to.

  
  

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