New roof on a full house refurbishment or is it War & Peace?

[frslam]

7 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

What I can say is that over the last 40 years I've met some customers that are demanding, hard to work with and at times we just don't gell. We are not going to go to the pub at the end of the job, but you need to be professional and suck it up. 

 

The trust issue is a major thing, once that is lost it's hard / impossible to recover. 

 

@frslam Looking at the quality of work in your photos, the way you have presented on BH,  I think you are justified in losing trust in the roofer. My gut feeling is that it's got nothing to do with your personality and much more to do with the fact that the work is shite and the roofer has tried to pull the wool over your eyes. 

 

I am a customer and a self builder. I have worked with many 'Tradies', usually I do all the designs and plans myself and once I hand the design plans off to any Tradie, it gets done. I think the Roofer blurs the lines when it comes to treating customers versus other trades/builders.

 

He assured me that he would work Sundays if need be, just as long as the weather was suitable. I sent him the photo of the membrane to verge detail after lunchtime last Sunday. His response (in writing) was "...why the f&%k are you sending me this s&^t on a Sunday morning anyway get a grip" 

 

I am certainly not easily offended, but if his work ethic and quality of workmanship was even nearly as good as his cursing, abusive behaviour, the roof would have been completed ages ago. 

 

For the record, all messages between the roofer and I have been backed up via software or screen captures. 

[frslam]

8 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

It's messy the situation you are in. But at the end of the day from what I've seen the roofer does not have a leg to stand on at times, but what we need to show is if this a material detriment. In design terms we need to go back and check that the slates, laps are suitable for the exposure conditions. That the flashings and Velux are ok for this roof pitch and so on. 

 

Ok the legal stuff. 

This is good. You are forensic. It seems you are due money to the roofer. 

 

Your starting point here is to say, what if this ends up in court! Everything you do from now on has to be structured on that premise. You have to be able to show that you have sought resolution at all times. Let the roofer throw their toys out the pram. 

 

Ignore the threat of legal action from the roofer for now.  Just ask them to demonstrate and evidence that all the work they have done is compliant with the manufacture's recomendations and the building regulations. Explain that at some point you are going to have to get a completion certificate from the council and when doing so  someone (probaly you)  is going to have to certify that the work has been carried out to the Scottish Building Standards. Express some concern that Building Standards may ask for record photographs. At this stage do not contact Buildings Standards, PM me first!

 

If that is not forthcoming then they (roofer) are on a shoogly peg.

 

 

Okay, here goes. 1. I wasn't happy with the way the slates were installed ungraded. When the slates were fitted the (much) thicker slates were going on too high up the roof. Some of these slates were domed, quite a bit thicker in the middle than nearer the edges, more unsuitable for higher up the roof slope. They were just asking for trouble due to the gaps left when the next courses were laid. Example photo included. The first 4 or 5 courses looked great but the slates used here were more even. After that they looked terrible. 2. I was being charged the money for Roof Shield but a far less expensive membrane was being used. I didn't like the fitment at verge. 3. I did look for a resolution with emails to prove. The roofer sent me an email where he asked if we could meet, each of us bring a witness and see if we could sort this out going forward (paraphrasing). I replied, telling him that we  need to sort this out, my extra losses due to the damaged windows, VELUX Flashings, extra costs for installing new membrane etc comes to £4,900.00. I offered, by email, to split all of this cost 50:50 with him (email is saved), so that neither of us is too much out of pocket. He would still receive about £9k for 3 weeks work. In the same email, I offered to grade the slates myself, for him. His responded to my email telling me that I had 'crossed my wires', that he would not be coming back to work for me, the meeting was for only putting the past behind us.