On May 16, 11:18*am, Evan wrote:
On May 16, 11:08*am, RicodJour wrote:

Several things:
- how come the roofer didn't know? *You can see an additional layer
from the edge of the roof, and a roofer can spot that from the ground.
- what does the contract say? *Does it say removal of existing
shingles, or removal of two layers of existing shingles? *If it says
removal of existing shingles the OP doesn't owe the roofer anything
and the roofer will have learned a valuable lesson in not making
assumptions and estimates without doing his homework.
- if you want to be paranoid and assume the worst, it's possible that
the contractor did know about the additional layer and decided to
'discover' it after the job was underway.
- removing three layers is definitely more work and expense for the
roofer than removing two. *If you believe the roofer is shooting
straight, and the contract/estimate simply says removal, then split
the difference with him. *You will both have learned a valuable
lesson.

R

@Rico:

Contract law 101 huh...

No. Contracts 30 Years Experience. On both sides.

Its opinions like yours that cause contracts to become short novels...
The longer the contract the less likely the average homeowner
seeking a repair or improvement is to agree to it...

Curious. You didn't even mention a contract in your earlier posts.
You just mocked the OP and told him to pay up. Now you're saying the
roofer's contract omitted mentioning the number of existing layers of
shingles to be removed so he wouldn't have the homeowner fall asleep
while reading it.

As far as the additional contract length required to deal with this
sort of situation...I don't know...three extra words? An additional
sentence?

"removal of existing roof shingles."
or
"removal of existing two layers of roof shingles."

Additional sentence:
"The project cost includes removal of up to two layers of existing
roof shingles, and removal of any additional layers will cost an
additional $1000. each."

It's not asking a lot to have someone reading a contract worth
thousands of dollars to read and understand that.

It just isn't possible to cover every foreseeable circumstance that might
arise on a construction site during a project on a few pages of contract....

This was entirely foreseeable...by the roofer. Entirely.

Either the roofer messed up honestly, or messed up dishonestly. Your
position is quite clear - the homeowner is at fault for the roofer's
lack of smarts or ethics and should just pay up for the roofer's
mistake. I disagree.

R