In August of 2013, I bought John Day's $99 roof tune-up on Living Social. He showed up with his son, John Jr., and they had a look. He informed me I needed some additional work done to avoid potential leaks. As a rather trusting soul (and a fairly handy guy, but no roofing expert), I took his advice and paid him an additional $800 (having already spent $99 on the "tune-up" deal). The cost seemed a little excessive, but, again, I'm no roofing expert.
Then, in late 2014, we had a very heavy storm and I incurred some damage to my bathroom ceiling due to a leak in the roof. After unsuccessfully attempting to seal the leak once myself, I called John and he came out in December to have a look. He took measures rather similar to what I had done, as well as applying some sort of silver hot seal material along a couple roof/wall junctions, and charged me $650. I wondered what sort of voodoo he had performed that would be successful where I hadn't, but I figured he was the expert. He also addressed another concern I had about a different area of the roof, that seemed as if the underlying plywood was soggy and sagging, by heating it with a blowtorch and applying some sort of waterproof spray.
Each time John came out, it felt like I was getting an upsell. He's a charming, friendly guy (as is his son), and he always offers to give me a "good deal" if I'll have him do the work right then, checking with John Jr. to see if they have enough of the necessary materials there in the truck, which they always do. I've always had an underlying suspicion that I was being taken advantage of, but I also want to take proper care of my roof, and I don't like to assume someone is being less than completely honest with me.
I had a recollection that John had said he'd come back out in a year to respray the sagging area, so I attempted to contact him in March of 2016 (a little more than a year later). We emailed back and forth with him saying they normally don't respray unless there is a problem, but he'd be happy to come by and have a look anyway. He never did, however, and after nudging him repeatedly, I finally gave up.
Finally, six months later (last September), he and John Jr. just showed up at my house one afternoon out of the blue, saying he was there for my "annual inspection" or something like that. He proceeded to tell me about how he'd fallen off a ladder straight onto his head and almost died, showing me pictures on his iPhone of his injuries. I was sympathetic and thankful for his rather miraculous recovery. He climbed up on the roof to have a look and declared that there was a serious problem with the sagging area that needed to be addressed, which basically consisted of gluing the shingles onto each successive layer below. For this service he charged me $375. Thankfully, as always, he had the required materials with him.
Since his initial "fixing" of my leak problem, I hadn't seen water coming through my bathroom ceiling, but we hadn't had a heavy rainfall since that time (we've been in a serious drought, remember?). When a heavy, sustained rainfall finally did occur last month (January, 2017), I found the leak still there in the exact same place (I climbed into the attic again to confirm this). Had he ever actually fixed it? We may never know. Thankfully I hadn't repaired the damage to my bathroom ceiling, or it would have been damaged all over again. I climbed onto the roof in the rain and slathered a bunch of Henry 208 on the area where the leak seemed to originate, which seemed to quell the problem, at least temporarily.
On Jan 21, while it was still raining, I think, I called John and left messages at both his office number and on his cell phone, and also sent him an email for good measure. I wasn't pushy or angry, acknowledging that he must be very busy with all the rain, but asked him to give me a timeframe for when he might be able to come address the problem. I have yet to hear a word from him. My roof is now leaking worse than ever with this big February storm, so I think I'm going to have to call someone else since John is MIA.
John is a nice guy and has certainly worked on my roof, but I've paid him almost $2000 to date, and the one problem I actually know I had may never have been properly repaired. I know fixing a leaky roof isn't an exact science, but with John I always feel I'm being sold things I don't need and/or overcharged. Responding to phone calls and emails goes a long way to earning my trust; that should be the number one rule of business. John simply is not reliable and possibly not even honest. I think it's time for me to find a roofer I trust. read more