My Roof Restoration Quote Experience
Its often said the roof could sometimes be one of the most expensive items to repair on a home. I think because of this though, most of us homeowners hope and pray that the house we buy will never need one.
It's unfortunate though as some people, once they find out the roof us up for majors works, they will offload the house to some poor soul. In my family's scenario, that poor soul was me.
Oh no, Hueston, we have a leaking roof...
Below is photo of the only roof leak I found once we moved into our home back in 2016. We even had a building inspector got through the home the inspection report highlighted this one leak and it was from a screw missing in the tin roof which was a relief to us. My father in law replaced them with new screws that had a rubber washer. I was hoping that was the last of the roof leaks we would ever see.
Remember the winter of 2018 when Melbourne had a massive downpour? I remember watching on the news that trees had fallen on roofs and really wreaked havoc.
In case you forgot, its when the Hume Freeway was flooded and ABC did a story on it: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-13/melbourne-rain-and-severe-weather-weather-forecast/10613542
I was over at a friends house for dinner in Brighton when the storm happened. I remember wanting to get home asap to see what impact the storm had caused on our home. My wife insisted we wait until the storm died down before leaving, she was worried we could have a car accident in the weather.
I pulled in the driveway and looked at the yard, a few tipped pot plants and some soil had ran from the rain. Opened the door to my surprise, most of our home was fine. That was until I walked into the back lounge and looked up at the ceiling. There was very heavy stains and I knew that we were in for some fairly big repairs to our roof.
After seeing the amount of roof leaks, I knew this was not as simple as a missing screw.
Let's talk about the roof, and the factors we need to consider and, getting quotes from a roofing company.
The roof, it protects the home from the elements such as high temperatures, wind and rain. The whole four seasons we get in one day in Melbourne yada yada yada.
Having a home with tin roof is excellent although there are some very mixed options on which is better, tile or tin. I don't care too much. For me, a roof is a roof and as long as its intact and not leaking I am a happy chappy.
Like every person who has to find a roof repairer, the most concerning factor that we had was the cost. I was about to go out and get a few different quotes and see what the difference was. When I get quotes I don't always go for the cheapest at that has bit us in the bum before. And at the same time I don't want to get shafted by a sales person with sky high commissions. Sometimes the cheapest is the most experienced they can stuff the job up. Don't ever ask why we have to renovate out bathroom twice on our old home!
So, at this point, all I wanted was someone to come out, inspect the roof and pinpoint what was causing the leak. And then we can see what our options for repair are.
The first company we have come out was Roof Seal, it's the first company that comes to mind due to there annoying commercials.
The sales rep who came out said the leak was coming from the tin capping and that due to the level of rust and the age of the roof the entire roof needed to be replaced. I asked if we could just do the capping but he explained the tin might break from walking on the roof to replace the capping. He then quoted the replacement on the spot at 30 thousand dollars with a 7 year warranty and was trying to get us to sign on the spot.
This actually really put me off, if he thinks that someone will sign of a 30 grand quote without getting a second opinion you have to be dreaming.
The second roofing company we had come out was a small local guy in south east Melbourne that we found in the local paper, Sam from XYZ roofing. He said it was only one section of capping that needed to be replaced. Sam said that the roof sheets were fine and did not need to be replaced. He did reccoment replacing all of the screws and washers as the old ones were deteriorated. The capping replacement would cost $1500 and to replace thee screws would be $500.
I had two quotes, one for $2,000 and another for $30,000. There is a really large price difference here and I wanted a few more quotes.
The third roof restoration company who we had come out was Vivify Roofing. The rep who came out, Brett was actually the owner of the business and spent a fair bit of time going over the roof. He said the main reason for the leak is that the capping on the back corner was installed crooked. I got up on the roof with him and checked it out, he was right!
It was quite a relief knowing what the cause was. Brett said that the capping was rusted in a few sections and if one piece was deteriorated the rest are not too far behind as most roof components have the same lifespan, makes sense. He said we would be better replacing all the capping now as opposed to doing half now and having to do the other half later on.
Potentially Changing The Roof Colour
If you look at our roof you can see its actually quite discolored. Its just plain corrugated tin, not Colorbond. Brett said that the condition of the roof sheets were not to bad and and there was no serious rust, it was mostly just surface. After the inspection he said we also have the option of painting the whole tin roof in a Colorbond color once the capping is replaced. He gave us an estimate of 10,000 to replace the capping and repaint the whole roof.
After a lengthy discussion with the wife and getting a few more quotes we decided to proceed with Vivify. The deposit was paid and now we are waiting 2 weeks until the start date.
