It’s just too bad

I have a client whose Mother’s house I have repaired and sister’s house I have re-roofed. He’s a good guy. He’s always well intentioned. He has a revenue property off Commercial Drive in Vancouver and called me to look at a leak today on a 4 year old torch on roof. He thinks it was leaking near a drain. I asked why he wasn’t calling the company who installed it. Surely it was still under warranty. Unfortunately, I never knew Ray 4 years ago when this project was up for grabs. Yesterday he learned the company who installed it is now bankrupt and out of business. Affiliated Roofers was the company he chose. Ray was shocked. He thought he did all the right things. Ray checked them out with the BBB whom they had been members with for over 20 years. He thought he was covered. Unfortunately he didn’t have the whole picture though. Firstly he didn’t know the company had recently changed ownership, and although nobody knew it at the time, the current owners were not equipped to be around, unfortunately for all parties involved, long enough to honor any warranty they promised. Affiliated was also responsible for a large scale fire about two or three years ago. They made the evening news for all the wrong reasons. Clearly Affiliated Roofers were lacking in quality control of their workers. Secondly, Ray didn’t learn enough about interpreting roofing quotes. The quality of the roof system he purchased was only mid-grade and thus reliant on high quality installation to maintain integrity. His roof was flat and held water constantly. He needed nothing but the best quality of roof installed with superior workmanship. Affiliated also had an industry reputation of leading “The race to the bottom”. When the price is going down, others must also follow. In this case it was quality of system and quality of installation. So, sorry for Ray, but the workmanship is where this roof failed and why I was called to fix it today. The attached picture shows how easily I was able to slide a 4” blade in a critical seam around the drain.  Drains are best with redundancies. This one had none so the integrity was easily breached. I think I might see Ray again sooner then he would like.