Roof repair warranty

8/12/2019 at 12:11:25 PM

Hi Maya,

There is no legal requirement to provide a warranty on this type of work. It is up to the company in question to decide whether or not they want to provide a warranty on repair work and what that warranty would be.

That being said, if they made a repair and the new shingles they installed fell off, that's a very poor job. I would expect a respectable contractor to fix that at no extra cost.

Can you be sure it was the new shingles they put on that fell off, or is it just some more of the old shingles falling off? If you are sure that it is the repair they completed that failed then I would suggest they did not successfully complete the repair in the first place. I would argue then that you paid for a service that you did not receive. In this case you could tell them that your original payment should be considered payment for the second visit out.

Best of luck,

Ethan

8/12/2019 at 1:01:30 PM

Hi Maya,

Each Contractor/ Business Entity is responsible for their own Warranty Conditions. There is no standardized warranty requirements. Often Roofing Contractors will only provide a Warranty on a full roof replacement since it can be difficult to determine where water is finding an ingress point if there is a problem on a roof. Water can migrate from one point to another easily inside a roof system running on rafters etc. For my own business I look at it on a roof by roof basis. Sometimes I am comfortable to issue a three year warranty on repairs, but in other instances I will not be prepared to provide any warranty.

However in your situation it is regarding shingles that have blown off - and this is a different situation. A responsible contractor would recognize their own fault in this matter. Unfortunately if you didn't address the warranty situation up front then my advice would be to speak with a lawyer. I am not a contract lawyer - but I think that if you have no warranty provided with the first repair you may be responsible for payment - but you should ask a lawyer. If you do end up paying twice I would recommend posting your experience online to warn others to address the warranty issue up front.

8/12/2019 at 6:38:56 PM

Maya, the short answer is no to the warranty. It was a repair job and they may have come off due to strong winds, which has been an issue this year. The contractor installed them in good faith and ... in my opinion, returned to see the issue and do a second repair. As to the cost, it is a judgement call. As it wasn't intentional, and it's his/her time. Perhaps a revised invoice would be sufficient?