subject: Getting The Most From Your Roofing Consultation [print this page] Mario Williams is a partner at Lone Star Roofing, a third-generation family-owned and operated roofing company located in Texas. A graduate from the University of Texas, Williams is known throughout the state as an expert in commercial and industrial roofing techniques. In this article, he tells us what to ask when meeting a roofing contractor for the first time.
When it comes to choosing a new roof for your home or commercial office building, a lot of decisions need to be made. However, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people making time and time again is that they go into the process of getting a new roof put on their home or commercial building without taking the time to understand the roofing problem they are having in the first place. Or, in addition, they go into it without understanding what course of action is needed to fix it.
So the first thingand the main thingthat many people do wrong when it comes to having a new roof installed is to not look at all of the decisions that are going to need to be made right up front. Here at Lone Star Roofing, we do commercial industrial roofing exclusively. But even with that, people need be going into a situation like this having already been aware of all the decisions that are going to have to be made.
One reason this is so important has to do with comparing cost estimates. When a roofing contractor goes into a general-type job, there could be dozens of various ways he could handle it. When I go out to start a project on a new roof, I could really do any roof 20 or 25 different ways. So if a person doesnt know what he or she is specifically looking for, then this person could end up getting 20 different estimates from various contractors, and none of those estimates would be the same.
Unless you have two contractors giving estimates on the exact same roofing projectin terms of materials and all of those types of thingsthen you will not be comparing apples to apples when looking at estimates from different companies. So then, if someone just picks one of those estimates out of a pileand this would be because he has not done research ahead of timethen they could just be choosing what looks like the cheapest estimate, even though that specific project could end up costing them more money in the long run. What I tell people is that it is really important to compare apples to apples when looking at estimates for a roofing job.
Instead of doing that, though, what too many people do is they do not take the time to look at all the various materials and construction decisions ahead of time. And if they are not spending the time looking over those things before the project begins, then that is going to hurt them in the long run.
I encourage people to get on their roofs and see what is going on. Some people, though, might not be experts in roofing. So they might not know which roofing system are going to be right for their needs before calling various contractors for estimates. In situations like this, and actually in most cases, I encourage customers to first call a roofing consultant to have a look at the potential job.
Not only can a roofing consultant give you good information and let you know what kind of condition the roof is in, but he can also educate you on what kind of roof your currently have and what some good solutions could be. Based on your answers to a few questions, this consultant should be able to pinpoint exactly what kind of roofing construction you need done, which will help you get more exact estimates from the contractors themselves.
So by the time you schedule a consultation with a roofing contractor, you should already understand your roofing problems and have decided which course of action youre going to go withoften with the help of a roofing consultant. And once youve made these decisions, and let the contractors themselves know, then youll have a better chance of comparing apples to apples in terms of what the estimates really are.
