I wanted to wait for the work to be done before writing a review so I could review everything including the finished product. We hired Bowk Construction to replace our roof primarily because they had an agent soliciting door to door (though, for the record, I might add that there is a no soliciting sign posted clearly in view at the end of our street). We were in the market for a roof so it was convenient enough to go with them.
Well, I should have expected as much since this is how they originally got our business, but they had the same gentleman (who was a nice enough guy) come to our door at least four or five times after that when he couldn't reach us by telephone.
We were in the middle of home renovations as well as typical family life so I guess we didn't call them back fast enough. I've got to say that it's bad manners in my opinion to harass someone at home so at that point I was already suggesting we pull out of the contract, but my significant other didn't want the hassle of having to start over with another company so we stayed with them.
It took them a couple of months to begin doing our roof, which I guess is pretty normal for the industry. They told us that it would be a two day job, tops. Let me tell you, the people who own the house across from ours had another company doing their roof and started the exact same day as our company. Their roof was completed in just 2 days, and at no point did I see the ground littered in debris. It took WAY too long, in opinion, for Bowk Construction from start to finish to complete our room. It was no two days, let me tell you that. Very disappointing.
They had guys out who spoke not a lick of English (although I have to say they were extremely nice guys) - and we found that these guys were subcontracted through Bowk. The ground was covered in debris for two days. I stepped on a roofing tack AFTER the job was complete. Better me, than my kids I guess ! (This was after they were done - it had been missed during cleanup along with about a half dozen others). That sucked but I guess the debris might be a common side effect of roofing. Again, though, I didn't see this kind of mess of the house across from ours.
Have you ever heard of a roofing company removing the roof before they even got the order of shingles in?? Unprofessional.
As a sidenote, we told this company at least five or six different times that we wanted the sunroom roof addressed at the same time as the roof but although they kept confirming they will do so, they never informed the guys who they hired to do the actual roof. By the end of it we decided to just do the damn thing ourselves. Let me stress here that communication is the biggest fault of this company, in my opinion. From what I could see, they didn't translate anything to the roofing guys that they hired so I think perhaps it might have been a better move to just find a way to translate and hire those guys independently of Bowk for any additional work you want done while they are here.
While they were waiting for the shingles to put on our roofless house, they left pieces of shingle, tubs of who knows what, and their large ladder all in front of our house. At one point someone pulled up in the middle of the night and tried to steal their ladder.
At the end of the whole thing, the roof does look good. But I'll stress, that so does our neighbors and it looks like they went through a lot less hassle.
Furthermore, we had freshly landscaped our front and they managed to crush two of our five lavender plants with their stuff (not even flying debris - literally saw them putting stuff on top of my plants) - which sounds trivial unless you have landscaped your own home and then you know how much money and time you are wasting when someone comes and thoughtlessly destroys it. In addition to the lavender, they chopped one of our large cactuses in HALF & knocked tons of large branches out of our magnolia tree into the succulents below. We addressed this with the company directly & it went something like this;
Us: "We aren't really pleased your guys destroyed some of our landscaping."
Them: "Uh, what did we mess up?"
Us: *points to damage*
Them: "Oh." *walks away*
This isn't even to mention the numerous times upward of at least a half dozen where they said they would come and didn't show up and didn't bother calling to let us know.
In my humble opinion, I would NEVER recommend Bowk Construction to ANYONE after this experience. There have been dozens of re-roofing done in our neighborhood - just on our street - and I don't see them going through half of what we did!
In the aftermath of this review, I received a very threatening letter from their attorney stating that they wanted me to remove my review from yelp. Bunch of bullies !!! This alone should steer you clear of this company. read more
