3 Costly Mistakes That 98% of People Make When
Getting a New Roof and How to Avoid Them

Mistake #1: Hiring the wrong company

Hiring the wrong company is the most expensive mistake you can make. The wrong company will take shortcuts (like not caulking the nails in the flashing… causing your roof leak water every time it rains which will create expensive problems that won’t reveal themselves until you are outside of warranty) and when someone gets hurt at your place you will be stuck paying their hospital bill…

Here’s a list of questions you should ask each roofing contractor to make sure you don’t hire the wrong one:

1. What is your state license number? (you can confirm it is active at https://www2.cslb.ca.gov/OnlineServices/CheckLicenseII/checklicense.aspx)
2. What types of insurance do you carry? (they should have current insurance certificates for personal liability, worker’s compensation, and property damage coverage)
3. May I have a list of references? (you should get 3 and ask the references about on-time completion, job-site clean-up, whether there were any extra costs and if they have had any leaks)
   

Mistake #2: Not knowing all of your options

A big mistake a lot of people make is that they don’t know all of their options. There are multiple different roof types and selecting the right roof type for your house is more than just picking what looks good. Your first (and probably easiest) choice is selecting between asphalt, composite, tile, metal, flat, and wood shake. Then, there are a variety of color and style options you will have to decide between in order to determine what fits.

Most people make their decision based purely on looks, but the savvy person also considers a few other factors that most people overlook:

1. Manufacturer’s warranty (if you plan on owning your place more than a couple years this definitely matters)
2. Maintenance costs (certain roof types are easier to clean, repair, or replace than others)
3. Energy efficiency (not only will certain color shades reflect light better than others, you can even have solar powered ventilation to actively remove hot air from your attic space)
   

Mistake #3: Ignoring or not understanding your warranty

A costly mistake a lot of people make is that they don’t have or don’t understand the warranty. Most people mistakenly assume the warranty is worthless. If you feel like the warranty is worthless, then you are probably about to work with the wrong company. The right company is a company you can trust to fix a mistake, that you can trust will be around several years from now and that you trust isn’t trying to hide something in the fine print.

As a general rule…
The stronger the warranty, the better service you will receive on your roof installation.

Installing a roof is more complicated than it appears and there are a lot of shortcuts that the wrong company will take to reduce costs. The problem is, those shortcuts take a few years before they start causing issues. So, when your roof starts leaking a few years from now the wrong company is out-of-business or outside of warranty and you are stuck spending a bunch of money to get things fixed again.