Forrest hired a group of guys in 2 vans who drove up from Greenville, SC, and finished our 1000 sq. ft. house in 1 day, even with a bad thunderstorm that afternoon that forced them to seek shelter for a while. They were amiable and hard working, although only one seemed to speak good English. Plus, he had the best price, too. That's the good part. But,
He never supervised the crew closely - just sat in his truck, mostly. He also left to supervise another job site, came back and sat in the truck some more, then left them to finish up the job on their own. Then, they finished nailing it down and left. He returned and wanted full payment, which I stupidly paid him right then. Then, there were two problems that popped up.
1. Part of the contract said they would 'sweep' the property with a magnet to pick up all the roofing nails they had launched from the roof. It turns out they did not even do that at all. When I started finding roofing nails in the yard, I got out a weak magnet and picked up a couple dozen. I called him and asked him to come and complete the work. He hemmed and hawed and never did it. I ended up hiring someone to search, using my weak magnet, and they found dozens more all throughout the grass, driveway and flowers. I called again and emailed too, but he went silent and refused to answer. I ended up buying a stronger magnet and found several hundred nails in the yard. I sent him pictures of them, dozens stuck on to one magnet. Still no answer.
2. Then, the first rain came, and we noticed they had not put back the flashing over our doorway, and the rain ran off in sheets. They had evidently thrown away our flashing, and we didn't miss it until it rained.
And so, no way to deny it wasn't done- we had before and after pictures of the roof- with and without the flashing. Still no contact, but he came while we were away and put up a flashing. It never worked nearly as well as our old one, and I just figured out why today, almost a year later. He just nailed it on top of the shingles, so there's a little crack under each one where the water under them. Some flashing job. So that's why I'm finally writing this all down - hopefully it will help someone else:
A. Before and after pics of entire roof
B. Do not pay until 30 days after job 'finished'
C. Learn what you can about what makes a good roof job and maybe you can avoid some of my mistakes read more