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





On May 16, 8:59*am, Home Guy wrote:

Unless you multi-posted your question to alt.home.repair (which would be
bad because multi-posting is bad) I'm going to cross-post this to
alt.home.repair because the group you posted this to
(misc.consumers.house) gets very little traffic.

pontiusj wrote:
I got a bid to put in a new roof, and it included removal of
2 layers of shingles.

Was it your decision to not remove the original shingles when the job
was done the last time?

They got to work, and it turns out there were three layers of
shingles. We got the bill, and they now want to charge us an extra
$1100 for the removal of the third layer (32 square additional tear
off at $35/square)

Is this normal? Is it really so much more work than 2 layers?

It's bad enough to shingle over the existing roof, but to do it twice is
absolutely nuts.

Based on a typical 3-bundle per square, and a weight of 80 lbs per
bundle, you've got a weight of about 2500 lbs per layer.

That means there is 5000 lbs of extra weight on your roof (more than a
full-size pickup truck).

I'd say that yes, if the roofers were going to remove your top layer and
what they though was the bottom layer as part of the original quote, and
now they want to charge you an extra $1000 to remove a third layer, then
that's not really out of line.

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...

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... *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...

~~ Evan- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Yeah, I guess it's just too much to expect a competent roofing
contractor to have some standard contract terms that spell
out the VERY COMMON contingencies. Like discovering
that there are 3 layers, rather than 2. I'm 100% with Rico
on this one. Any competent roofer should have been able
to easily figure out how many layers of shingles there were.
And if he did the job, then sent me a bill for an extra $1100,
at the very least, I'd negotiate it down before just writing
a check.

An example of a similar situation was when I had my patio
removed and a new stamped concrete one poured. The
guy quoted it and we had a signed contract. Upon going
to remove the old one, it turned out the concrete was a
lot thicker and harder to demo than he expected. He
told me about it and I saw it, but he didn;t try to hit me
up for additonal $$$. That's part of what contractors
are supposed to expect and factor in. Or else spell
out in their contracts. And in the case of our OP,
it would be interesting to know exactly what the
contract says. If it said specifically to remove
TWO layers, then you have a situation where he's
entitled to a reasonable amount for the difference.
IF it just says remove exisiting shingles, then he
should eat it.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more Rico is
right. What a great way to screw customers out
of an additional $1100. Go check it out, see that
it's 3 layers, quote 2, then charge $$$ after the
fact.