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We are happy that our customer is happy with the work and result! They do have a beautiful, impact resistant roof and the best warranty ever (a true fifteen-year workmanship warranty against leaks which includes interior repair). Although the delays were unavoidable due to the necessary wrangling with their insurance company, our full production schedule and the weather, we do apologize for allowing a perception that the project could be worked through on a more rapid timeline. It is our policy to inform our customers on what to expect, as best we can given that roofing is an outdoor construction project, and we drill this policy into our excellent sales team on a regular basis. However, the lament over delays comes up fairly often and is worth addressing here.

We face stiff competition from roofing companies that are here today and gone tomorrow and who can take a project from sales to final walk-through fairly quickly. Yet, these are companies that are not local, usually, often fail to honor any warranty they might promise. They hire big crews that all live in hotel rooms together and who are not held to the standards of quality to which we hold our crews. We are all too familiar with the problems homeowners face down the road when they prefer a quick execution to a solid, thorough, long-lasting partnership.

Insurance adjustment prices are often lower than what a high-quality company can accept and still expect to be in business next year. The process of working out the details with the insurance company to make sure the homeowner is allowed the funds to hire a good company can take a great deal of time, especially if there has been a recent disaster which has the field representatives tied up with huge reconstruction projects. Next, the details of the contract must be worked out so that we all know what the expectations are for the project. We would rather have and provide clear expectations than have a legal battle after-the-fact. This attention to detail also requires time, but is well worth it.

Then comes production, the actual build. We test our crews hard and keep only the best. The best isn't necessarily the biggest or the fastest. But they all have homes in the area, have families here and will be around to hold them to our warranty expectations. They are the reason we can offer such terrific warranties. This means that what might take a big, travelling crew one day to build may take our guys 2 or 3. But, if our crew runs short on underlayment, they won't just shingle to the bare deck to get the job done immediately (as one example of what often happens). They'll go get what they need or wait for it to be delivered by our production team, because they want your roof to perform every bit as much as you do. As we all know, "good help is hard find." A pool of talented labor is a small pool, indeed.

All of these things are important elements of doing business right, of earning and keeping our A+ BBB rating, but can contribute to the perception that the project is suffering from unnecessary delays. Any long-time local roofing company worth hiring will have a lot of work in the queue and can seem to be taking too long. While we would love to be able to move projects along at lightning speed for our customers, too, we prefer exceptional quality above all else.

Western Roofing Specialists commented on 01/30/2014