Tamko Shingles and their lack of Customer care
January 1, 2008
Did a major roof over a flat roofed home addition with a re-roof on the rest of the home at the same time. Now, I have been in construction for a long time and I have never seen this before but it is called Tobacco juicing. Basically the roof reacts with the air, contaminates in the air, a bird looks at it funny, who knows what, but then it leaves brown streaks down the front of your fascia after it rains. This is something the roofing companies know about and have published reports so when you have a job that gets this problem they can point you to it and say not our problem. BS, the roof on before did not streak or the tar paper did not streak. As soon as your “Tamko” roof shingles went on, the roof streaked. I called and had a rep come out but they did nothing. Now keep in mind I’m not talking about just one or two spots but the whole way around the roof. I put in another roof 3 months later a half a mile away but did not use Tamko and got 3 streaks on the whole project, that is a problem I can deal with. I will say that the home owners have been great and understanding and realize it was not an installation issue but a product issue. I have finally come up with a solution of adding an additional metal drip to make sure no water touches the fascia and that seems to have cured it but I will never buy, use, or tolerate the name Tamko again. They just pawned it off as not their problem. Tamko has poor customer care in my books and never even answered my request placed on the main company website. Tamko if you read this, you have an unsatisfied customer for your lack of caring in my case and I will do everything I can to see your shingles are gathering dust in warehouses across the south. Tobacco juicing is caused by your product and you need to figure out a solution and not tell me to water the roof during droughts and wait a year to see if it lessens. It did not lessen in 9 months and it rained the whole time, leaving streaks every time after I cleaned it off. It is not water soluble either; you have to use mineral spirits to clean it off. According to them you just spray it with a hose to clean it off but as I learned,Tamko was wrong on everything else so that does not surprise me either.
Would you accept that on your house?
Small Kitchen Remodels
January 1, 2008
I think most people are shocked at the cost of a kitchen remodel when they start looking for bids. They need to realize that the cheap two man crews that will do it for nothing close to a contractor’s price are cutting a few corners and breaking a few laws. The second you touch the sink you need to be a licensed plumber and as soon as you move that light fixture you need an electrician. Here are the rules for the City of Tampa on what needs a permit, Click Here , basically if you are thinking of hiring a contractor you need a permit. So I, as a contractor, get plans if needed $, pull the permit $, hire a licensed plumber and electrician who both pull the needed permits too $$$, and pay for insurance and bonds $$. Is it any wonder why they are cheaper? It takes a lot of work and experience to become a licensed contractor and you have to really decide if you are getting a better deal. When I built my first home, for myself, I did everything, except the drywall and A/C, I don’t mean I hired subs I mean I personal ran all the wires and hung the fixtures, all the pipes and placed the fixtures, put up the insulation, dug the foundation and poured the slab, framed it all, put on the metal roof, heck I even built the kitchen cabinets from scratch. I truly did it all so yes I can do all the work needed remodel your kitchen in my sleep if I were allowed. Would it be cheaper, heck yea but I can’t take the time to get every single license I need to do that and I would still need all the permits and insurance so the cost would go up compared to Joebob’s. The city raised their permit fee’s the other day too, they just about doubled them on the work that I have done lately, got to thank the building dept. for making a tough time as a contractor suck even more. Somebody leave a comment and remind me why I do this?
Roof Repairs on a New Home?
January 1, 2008
So I’m looking at a tile roof job built by another builder* because the home owner is trying to get everything fixed before the one year warranty expires. There are numerous cracked and some just missing tiles in the roof and in one spot the underlayment is questionable. The roofing company who did the job is out of business now, that’s not a good sign, and the original contractor is complaining because my bid to fix it is high. Few points here:
1. The original contractor hired a now defunct roofer who did a slap it on and run job.
2. The original contactor has had plenty of time to fix it if they wanted to but has stalled and said it is fine.
3. Yes my bid is higher than they would like because my roofer does a great job and the second I touch the roof it’s my fault for sure on anything else that goes wrong. So I’m going to be left holding the bag for their roofer’s crappy job and I’m suppose to do it for free?
Now in this same house they are touching up and re-calking half the crown on the second story because, in my opinion, the roofer miss stacked the tiles when he preloaded the roof and after setting the tiles about 7 trusses rose up about 1/8” to 1/2” in the worst stops. It’s ashamed to see small faults like this in a multi-million dollar home on the water but it’s even worst to not stand behind your own work.
* As much as I would love to name names to lessen my competition, Tampa is a small place and I’m a better person then that so I’m going to leave names out of all these “Contractor Thoughts” posts.
