Certified Roofing

A friend of TINA.org forwarded this story about a roofing job gone wrong. The reader hired a roofing company she found advertised in the phonebook:

Here’s what happened when the roofers came:

They came to do the work, fell through the skylight in the master bedroom, and replaced it with Plexiglass. They promised they would order new glass and they should be back in about two weeks to replace the window. The work initially took about two days and they said it was complete and we should have no problems and if we did to call them back and they would take care of it. At that time, they asked that we make the check out to a specific person instead of the actual company.

The first heavy rain we had, which was about two weeks later, the roof started leaking in other places, the dining room, kitchen, my son’s room and bedroom. The ceiling in the garage fell and the ceiling in my sons room filled with water and dropped. I stuck a pin in it to let the water out.

After numerous attempts to contact them I got no response. My husband spoke to a woman in the office and she said she would have someone call back and nothing. They tend to change their number for a few days once you become persistent and within a few days the phone is back on an working.

Something is rotten in all this.

The company claimed it was licensed and insured, but we weren’t able to find any record of the company being licensed for anything, either under the Certified Roofing name or at the Branford, CT, address listed on the forms they gave our reader. We were, however, able to find a Certified Roofing operating in Fairfield, CT, also associated with their listed phone number. A Proline Roofing is also operating at the same address in Fairfield. Both companies have F ratings from the BBB, and there is no record we could find of a license at that address. So something seems amiss.

Consumers looking to have work done by a licensed contractor can check whether a company is licensed in the state online. For example in Connecticut consumers can check here to see whether a company or person is licensed. If you can’t find a record, think carefully before working with that company. Phone book advertisements aren’t always truthful.