welcome to the consumer's corner show the only show of its kind where we fight for consumers who've been wronged by bad businesses we answer questions solve problems and listen to complaints while also recognizing great companies that operate professionally with honesty and integrity today's show is sponsored by trustpatrick.com ready to get started on that next home improvement project looking for contractors you can trust at trustpatrick.com we've gathered the best companies in

business companies that have a proven track record of honesty integrity and experience don't let just any company in your home get connected with honest and reliable companies at trustpatrick.com and now your host of consumer's corner consumer advocate patrick mattingly hey welcome to the show thanks so much for joining us today um today's gonna be a really kind of a cool show for me because uh i've been wanting to sit across from chris kane for quite a while in this studio who is that

why is that because it's been a goal of mine yeah i'm all right everyone has to have goals yeah it really has it's been a goal of mine which is really cool so i'm a little nervous because you know obviously you've been on tv and here i am a youtuber right right so i'm a little i've never been on youtube oh okay well there you go i got one up on you there you go well hey listen before we get too far into the show here uh i want to let everyone know that today's show

is sponsored by 303 roofer chris is obviously the owner of 303 roofer 303 roofer provides residential and commercial roofing they do free roof inspections for those that are concerned whether their roof needs to be replaced and they work with all insurance companies so for all your roofing needs go to 303 roofer dot com or call them at 303-390-1382 now we're going to talk about something that i know everybody wants to hear about and that's roofing well i'm just kidding riveting information yeah riveting

information but it is important yeah it is important although i wanna i do wanna say for those of you that are watching you know uh we're not gonna talk about boring roofing stuff we're gonna talk about stuff that's super important as you know this is a show about consumer advocacy our goal is to help you know people avoid unethical companies and companies that are inexperienced and don't do to do you know jobs correctly contractors professionals um so what we're going to talk about um

are some very important things regarding i would say i mean there's we could do a whole we could probably do five shows on roofing really i mean because i think it's or more or a couple less the bottom line is is that we want to do a show we wanted we talked a little bit about a few things we can expand on things but this show is going to be about really protecting yourself in in several different ways [Music] number one obviously we want to make sure that people you know hire a good company companies that are

you know that have all their ducks in a row that are good companies that have their insurance they have their experience they have they do the job right things of that nature but we also are going to talk about i think insurance is one of the things we talked about right insurance from a roofing perspective not as an insurance agent you know we're not agents um but i can tell stories of what we've seen when people have not had good insurance when you have good insurance things are so much better

so it's super important to find out what you have and i think it's important to explain to people too what what we were talking about in the beginning with with me being on tv so my background is on tv and radio i got into being a contractor because of nightmare stories from consumers that got ripped off by contractors and that's how we started a construction company to help those people that got ripped off you know whether they paid five thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars up front to a contractor

only for the contractor to not return or there was problems maybe when the job was halfway done or maybe even fully completed but you couldn't find that contractor so we would raise money from the community we would go in we would finish projects for people and that's how we started getting into construction that started in 2009 so and that was coinciding with the television and radio program so i've been on tv and radio for 20 years and in contracting since 2009 so you know just over 10 years now

there are so many horror stories so many nightmare stories there's a ton of great contractors out there sure but it's you know we we hear about the ones that are bad you know when the homeowner gets ripped off yeah it's too bad that you know you don't hear more about all these great contractors but it that it's almost like it should go without saying you should be a good contractor we're just gonna you know contact people and talk about the bad ones so yeah just know that there's a lot of

good ones but do your due diligence don't don't end up with a bad one because it's very easy to yeah yeah for sure here's my viewpoint of this obviously i know a lot about driveways i don't know a ton about roofing only the things that i do know and i'm sure probably a lot of homeowners know um so we're going to talk about insurance but i think insurance is kind of tied to storms right it is especially in colorado yeah and there are other states that get hammered by hail right i mean oh

absolutely there's a ton of them they get hammered absolutely and so wind hail you know hurricanes tornadoes yeah so a good question is is obviously there's a storm you know and it's crazy i actually saw one here just a couple weeks ago there was a hail storm and i just happened to drive over to the neighborhood the very next morning because i i wanted i want to learn about roofing i want to learn about you know how to help people and it was amazing to me that i pulled into this neighborhood and i go down the

street and there's a guy walking down the street with a clipboard and a roofer shirt on and then there's like another guy walking on this side of the street different company and then i see another truck with and i'm like oh yeah there's like already a couple companies here and then i drove down a few more streets by the time i got finished driving through this neighborhood in less than five minutes i probably saw at least 20 companies yep that happens yeah and so they're called storm chasers right

well they can be sure and i guess i'd like to talk about that as well because you know colorado roofing association says that you know when someone comes to your home and they're a door knocker don't answer the door don't trust them don't work with them you know i disagree with that a little bit i don't think that that every company that that knocks on doors is a bad company you know i just think that the advice we would give to a homeowner is don't hire someone right on the spot you know

if they want to give you information you can get information you know you may or may not want to let them up on your roof that's up to you don't sign something because a lot of times the bad companies they'll give you a piece of paper saying i just need your approval sign this piece of paper let us up on your roof next thing you know you're into a contract so before you sign anything ever always read it it's binding but do know in home sales you know there there is a three day it's 72 hour

right of rescission so that's important to know colorado so again i'm not i'm not an attorney i'm just telling you what what we have to go by with our contracts um and what the uh colorado roofing association says it's a great site gives great information the only thing i disagree with is the is the door knocking stuff you know we don't door knock but there's good companies that do sure i don't i don't see a problem with it personally i just think don't don't get pressured into signing

anything yeah for sure there's nothing wrong with getting more you know more estimates there's nothing wrong with asking questions there's nothing wrong with waiting until you're comfortable making a decision don't ever feel pressured and that's what the door knockers are good at you know the good ones are good at getting you to sign and and and now you're under contract with them you know what's interesting is is uh i've been helping you a little with a little bit of your marketing

and what's interesting is all of a sudden now i get all of these uh and i think this is a good thing for homeowners to hear i get all of these guys that are coming out going hey i made a million dollars in roofing let me show you how i did as well and so you're right these these people are very seasoned they're very good at disarming people and making them feel comfortable and you know hey do you mind if i if i you know just take a look at your roof you know just go ahead and sign this right here oh all it is is just

something saying that you know if i get hurt you're not responsible and those people can be signing something that can be binding that they have to do their roof through these companies right so absolutely so you're signing a contract yeah so i say i mean look i i'm i'm not really a big door knocking guy i don't really care much for people knocking on my door partially because i can be suckered so you have to learn this if you're going to answer your door you have to learn to say no if you're not good at

saying no don't answer your door that's exactly right yeah so i just i think it's weird too right that now when you when someone knocks on your door you're like what the heck yeah when we were growing up it was it was a common occurrence now it's really weird when someone knocks on your door unless you're getting packages delivered and now with everything going on it's ring the doorbell and run right yeah just leave it behind yeah for sure i kind of made it a rule for me that it's like i put a nose

listening son on my door not that they follow it and there's been guys that literally will still knock on my door um i had a solar company come and knock on my door and he saw it it was plain as day right there and i was like did you not see that sign and he was like oh yeah man i didn't see that and i'm like he's like but anyway i just wanted to ask you about everything yeah yeah if you're not good at saying no just don't even answer the door for sure that's the best advice i could give yeah

and then the second thing would be is is if you are good at saying no but they you know somebody once you get to get you to sign something you know what's funny is i i will tell you that my experience with all the complaints i get is is there's always what people say versus what's on that piece of paper oh absolutely what does that mean you gotta read it yeah you gotta read if you're gon if you're going to put your signature on it you've got to read it yeah i mean it it's it's amazing to me how i

mean look i'm guilty but i hear a lot of people that do it as well and then they'll say verbally oh yeah it's nothing it just says that if i fall off your roof i'm you know you're not i'm not i can't sue you when in reality if they read that thing it probably binds them and uh most people and these guys are good seasoned pros and they're good at going oh yeah don't yeah don't worry about it and the the funny thing is is when i get complaints i hear all the time the one

thing i hear the most is he was such a nice guy right you know what i mean um oh by the way if there's anybody that wants to call into the show uh gosh we we encourage that uh and that is 866-966-2287 if you want to call in and join the show you can ask chris questions or you know if you want to chime in and maybe help us educate consumers as good as we can you can certainly do that as well so 866-966-2287 so anyway so talking about about going back to that you know making sure that people don't sign anything i think that's

really super important yeah and a lot of people get super upset with people that knock on their doors and and they you know we get a lot of comments on our facebook page saying ah these roofers are a bunch of scammers you know they're all from out of town and you know again there's a lot that are sure there's a lot of storm chasers coming from other states when the storm hits here but there's also there's some good companies you know there's some that there's good companies

that do not do it like us there's uh good companies that do it doesn't make them a bad company just because they're being aggressive with their sales sure you know again if you're not comfortable to say you know and saying no don't answer the door yeah one of the things i i like to tell people too is that if somebody knocks on your door like particularly for roofing or or say a driveway you know i always say you know just just take a quick peek at their license plates on their truck

you know if you can see them if you can see um and you know that that right there is a good indicator if they're from out of state that doesn't mean that they're not because i do know out-of-state companies that register their vehicles here and then uh you know you can see colorado plates but that doesn't you know that doesn't it's just one thing to look for so it is yeah it is so you know we always we get calls all the time you know should i replace my roof you know i was you know the but when's

the best time to replace your roof right when's the best time to replace your water heater it's that it's the day before it's going to start to leak it's the day before it stops working so that is the time that you want to replace your roof right no one wants to do it too soon and if you wait too long then you could have internal damage so it's it's uh it's it's you know that when is the best time you know i tell people all the time also rarely do people replace their roof

when it hasn't been hit by hail when it's not an insurance claim or insurance is going to pay for it yeah there's not a lot of people that are paying cash in colorado to replace the roof because they can wait because the storm will come eventually right it's a matter of you know when you know it's not if when you know it depends you know it could be years though before it hits your area if you have water coming into your home you know you need to at least get it repaired a lot of people just band-aid

it until until the hail storm comes you know just let's do this repair this repair you know eventually if it never hell never comes you know they may have to just suck it up and and pay cash and then hope that you know you don't get hit by a hill the next year you have to replace it again exactly but yeah it's uh that what that's what we see mostly in colorado just people waiting you know waiting for that storm you know one of the things that i i've always wondered too is is when it comes to you know i saw a

commercial of a guy i won't mention his name but i saw a commercial of a guy who was like you know you gotta understand these these insurance companies you know uh we're here to battle for you what's your thoughts on that i mean to me it's almost like we're gonna twist the your arm of your insurance company is that something even really somebody can do well sure um you know we like working with insurance companies we get referrals from insurance companies um we want to make sure that

that we're working on behalf of the homeowner and we want to make sure that if if there's not a claim if there's not hail damage but the homeowner calls the insurance company and files a claim now they're going to get hit with an increase in their policy even if they don't have even if they do not have any hail damage because they put a claim in so what they what they lose actually is they lose their no claim discount now everyone complains that insurance rates continue to go up

because of everyone's claims you know so you're you're always going to get stuck with that you know so whether you put in a claim or not you're still a part of a group that's insured by the same company and if there's a lot of claims you know from your group your rate will go up if you file a claim you lose that no claim discount and then you get hit with a surcharge so you know if you're only filing a claim once every five years you know that's nothing to worry about

but if you're filing a claim you know once every couple years you know or let's say if there's multiple claims within a five year period you know insurance is against going to hit you they could potentially drop you there's a lot of things that can happen with insurance so we want to make sure that we give our best assessment to the homeowner so they can make an educated decision so a lot of times you know what it could go 50 50. i mean i've seen well it could be even worse than that

but i've seen roofs that should get bought and insurance denies it and you do have rights by the way if that's the case you can continue to pursue it ask them to send someone else out there's actually people out there attorneys included that will take on the insurance companies if they fully believe that there is hail damage and the insurance company's not paying for it um if if uh there's homes that we've said you know what you just don't have enough hell damage and then

you know they'll get another company out and and the roof will get bought so that that's that's a hard part too so a lot of times these adjusters from the insurance companies they'll come out you know they may or may not even get on the roof you know good ones will but you know some guys you know some adjusters get paid you know by the roofs that get bought so you know they might just look up say well you know i want to make a little bit of money today so yeah i'm gonna buy that

roof so it's it's a tough call because you know we may say you know what we don't think that you have damage and we don't think your insurance company is going to you know buy it that's what we you know pay for your roof so we don't think you should put a claim in well they might find another company that that pursues it and then you know it makes us look bad to to the homeowner saying well you said we didn't have hail damage well you didn't you just you found an adjunct you got

lucky with an adjuster that said they would buy it um and then the company that that that again fought for that homeowner um you know they got the roof bot for him so you know there's there's always that that back and forth you know we just all we can do is be honest and tell you what we think and we we just don't believe in in telling you something that's not true sure so here's our opinion but it is an opinion so then it sounds like it's kind of a very fine balancing act for a roofing company i

mean i guess i look at it like there are you've got say you come in and you honestly say it doesn't need to be replaced it doesn't have really any hail damage well this other company comes in and they may be the type of company that gambles right and they're like they're gambling with the homeowner's money because they you know if if it doesn't get replaced then the homeowner gets gets dinged for that right and so you know we like to give the homeowners you know a uh you know what would you

like to do do you want to put a claim in or not and we let them think about it but you know i i just i i don't believe in telling someone that they have hail damage when in fact they don't you know that's just our policy um you know i don't wanna i just don't wanna subject them to a potential rate increase or or a loss of their claim-free discount unless they want to if everyone's on the same page and that's what they want to do okay then then we'll do it and we'll come out

and we'll show you know the adjuster what we've seen um a lot of times though they don't the adjusters don't even want you on the roof with them now with you know with the covet and staying apart it's it's just been it's it's it's been more challenging you know meeting with homeowners in person has been more challenging now we can do everything uh you know just through email uh and through a portal that we have um for our for our homeowners that uh you know we don't have to meet with you in

person if you don't want to that's cool some people really still like to meet in person others don't want to have anything you know they don't want to get around you so you know we're set up where we can do both we can you know give virtual estimates um you know we can give them in person it's really up to to the homeowner that's very cool yeah and i mean that's something that i think that everybody really is trying to i'm sure adjust to because i know i don't want somebody knocking on

my tour really really well even but even you know let's say that you know you don't meet with anyone they come out because you really don't have to unless unless the homeowner chooses to but you know we can come out we can get on your roof we can take a look we don't have to meet with you we can get back down we can leave we can you know do all of our estimates we can email you the estimate and then you can make a decision from there and then let's say you choose to work with us we still don't ever have to

meet in person unless you want to so it's completely up to the homeowner what they want to do very cool yeah so let's talk about insurance okay um i think some people find out that they don't have the right insurance when it's too late right yeah and it's not it's not the right insurance it's there's just different kinds of policies so you know the the the best policy that we see is is uh a policy that will pay for your a full replacement of your roof unless you're deductible

um you know and now deductibles change right so a deductible could be 500 it could be a thousand dollars could be 2500 5000 it could be based on a percentage of the value of your home you know there's there's a lot of different uh deductibles that are out there and a lot of different policies that are out there from our cv which is the replacement cost value or acv which is the actual cost value and and how that we can get into how that process works but what i would let everyone know is check

with your insurance company and find out what you have call your agent just ask them you know what what did i what did i agree to what what did we sign up for most people have no idea what they have and it just being a smart consumer you should know um you know hopefully you did it on the front end but then you may not remember so it's just a good idea just to find out and make sure you're comfortable with the policy that you have and i'm just talking about your roof specifically because a lot of

companies will make an exception you know with you know for wind and hail damage to your roof you know it's going to cost you know your deductible now is one percent you know if you have one of those policies you could still have a flat rate policy or flat deductible again like we mentioned the 500 of the thousand or maybe 5000 whatever the number is but it's important to know and then it's important to know do you have the rcv the replacement coverage or do you have the actual cash value the

acv and what's the difference between the two okay well so rcb is is full replacement less deductible that's what they're going to give you so if if at the end of the day you know what what they do is they send someone out they'll take a look at the roof if they feel like it's uh there is hail damage and they will buy it right they will they will pay for your replacement they'll put together a spreadsheet of what they're willing to pay and then they they take out the

deductible and whatever that number is and that's what they will ultimately pay you the first check you get is is for the actual cash value and there's some policies that that's all you'll get in the rcv one you'll still get the actual cost value get that check first so again they'll come out they'll put together their numbers and how they come up with the actual cash value is they say based on how old your roof is and they base it on a 30-year life if it's a 15-year-old roof they're

going to have depreciation of 50 percent so at the end of the day let's say it's ten thousand dollars to replace your roof um less the fifty percent depreciation so now they're only going to pay you five thousand dollars for actual cash value then you take out your deductible let's say it's a thousand dollars that's four thousand dollars they will give you a check for four thousand dollars they will that's the first check they're going to send you if you have an acv policy actual cash

value policy that's all you're going to get you're not going to get any more and so a lot of people just put that money in their pocket and then they don't do anything with their roof even if it's an rcv a replacement cost value a lot of people might put that money in their pocket and they never replace a roof that's their right they can do that if they choose to go forward and replace their roof if it's an acv policy they're going to have to pay the difference you have whatever the cost is so again

if the cost is ten thousand dollars an insurance is going to give you four the homeowner's gonna have to write a check for six thousand dollars when it when when the roof is done on an rcv policy replacement cost once the roof is done and they show proof that the roof has been done with an invoice from a roofing company then they'll send you the balance so again if it's a ten thousand dollars is what they're going to pay for they sent you out for they've already taken out the deductible

right so you're gonna get another five thousand dollars you're not going to get another another six you're gonna get five thousand you're gonna get ultimately nine thousand it's a ten thousand dollar roof less your deductible of a thousand dollars you know they're gonna pay you nine thousand dollars those are important things to know a lot of times what will happen is that there is an insurance claim but the homeowner does not want to share their claim with the roofing company they they just

don't whether they don't trust the roofing company or they just don't want to share that information i think that's a bad idea i think it's always best to share the claim that way the roofing company knows exactly what the insurance company is going to pay for and in a lot of cases let's just say if if the homeowner's not willing to share that that that claim with the roofing company again the insurance company is willing to pay ten thousand dollars they have an rcv policy so ultimately

they're gonna get nine thousand dollars from the insurance company unless we come in and we say okay well we can do this roof for nine thousand dollars you know so we then submit an invoice at the end for nine thousand dollars well the roofing company now just saved a thousand dollars of what they were going to pay and so on the nine thousand dollars they're only actually gonna pay eight it's nine thousand dollars is what the total invoice is unless you're deductible of a thousand

we're only going to pay the insurance company's only gonna pay eight thousand dollars gotcha so the roofing company was still fine with it but the homeowner you know there was real no would really no advantage to not share that information so it's really it's just a decision what they want to make do they want do they want a cash price or do they want us to work with them in the scope of of what insurance is willing to pay for so that's why it's important i mean to to know

and to trust and to feel confident in the roofing company that you hire if you're not willing to share that information why are you even working with that roofing company right yeah why should you work with the roofing company if they're if you're not even willing to share that claim with them and a lot of people say well this is my money you know this is my money well it is and we can give you a cash price and we will absolutely do that i'm not going to argue with anyone over what they want to

do i'm just trying to explain that it's it's to no advantage you know to to not share that information because there's a lot of things that insurance may have paid for that you know in a cash bid we're just going to say well you know we're just going to remove and replace the roof unless you tell us exactly what you want this is what you know we're gonna we're just gonna remove and replace it you know give us some more guidance and we can do more because a lot of times

there's you know decks get damaged fences get damaged screens get damaged skylights get damaged there's a paint in general siding there's a lot that can go into it so it's always important to work in conjunction with the contractor you're willing to hire again if you're not if you don't want to do that why are you even hiring that company to begin with you know if there's a trust issue you should you should find someone else yeah but it's their it's their right you

know absolutely if that's if they just want a cash bid we'll do it gotcha yeah interesting let's talk about uh the deductible i've heard a lot of talk of companies that try to you know uh discount uh their roofs for the deductible what's what's legal and what's not legal do we want to go into that yeah no it's uh there's a lot of companies out there that say you know we'll we'll cover your deductible we'll pay for your deductible you know that is um not allowed

it's uh it's insurance fraud um you can't you know you can't hide that you can't pay for that part of it there are things that you can do and a lot of people do i mean they'll you know up front they'll say they'll give you a discount um a lot of people will pay for um referrals like you know say i can put you in touch with my neighbor and and that is that's worth something absolutely um you know google reviews you know better business bureau reviews um just any kind of reviews positive

reviews right that i mean that takes time from the homeowner they should be compensated for that there's a lot of ways around it but you can't just come right out and say we're going to pay for your deductible i mean that's that's uh insurance fraud it's not allowed um again go to you know the colorado roofing association and they can they can tell you all of that so the companies that are doing that i mean it's it's unfortunately standard practice for for a lot of companies

and it's uh it's it's it's a hard one to compete against a lot of times um you know when the homeowners say well this company said that they would pay for my deductible and he said well you know what we don't operate like that um you know there's there's there's things that we can do you know after the fact but we can't you know we can't pay for your deductible but if you're willing to to work more or less work for us we're paying you to work for us

sure but yeah that's that's that's a tough one um and a lot of companies will say it and they don't even know what the deductible is you know they don't know if it's what if the deductible is five thousand dollars i guarantee you they're not paying for that you know uh the the smaller ones you know i think most people have gotten so used to the fact that you know oh everyone's deductible is a thousand dollars but that's not the case and there's there's so many different

ranges interesting so that's what those are the guys that are asking what do you know what your deductible is right yeah but it's it's an important question you know so that the homeowner knows you know what they have to come out of pocket for so you know we like to tell them i mean the only thing you have to pay for is your deductible you know make sure you understand your policy you know we had a a homeowner that um you know had a claim from you know a long time ago um and luckily it was with state farms it

was within two years and that's the nice part about state farm they gave you two years i'm not um i don't know how many other companies do that and uh but i know that state farm does um and so two years ago they had the claim um they got their first check they spent their first check um then they had us do the uh the roof state firm said we have to have it done by you know it was july 7th i believe so we got we got the work done we we gave them you know the invoice um they sent it off um

they got the second check um but they had kind of forgot they they hadn't spent the first one so they had to come out of pocket for that um and those those things they stink right um you know people that have acv policies that's again the actual cash failure that that's all they're going to get um they got that first check they thought they were going to get a second check they didn't tell us that it was an insurance claim they just said we're paying cash so we did the work um we gave them the

invoice they sent the invoice over to the insurance company and insurance said you know what you that's not included in your policy you know had they shared that with us we could have told them that you're not going to get any more money just so you know if you still want to do your roof well we want to do it for you right but just because you have hell damage doesn't mean your roof needs to be replaced you know oh really yeah i mean it's it's uh it could still help you know

it could still be fine you know so if you're only getting you know i see when you get that first check put it away you know because eventually you're going to need to replace your roof you know so put it away and let make it maybe you can earn a little bit of interest it can go towards the roof if you're not going to do it right away it's you just you know it's a business decision you know when you spend the money to go on vacation you know that's not a good business decision

you know so no not a good one you know it's funny we were talking you're talking about that i i don't remember the exact details but i had american family insurance certainly not knocking them but you know whatever for whatever reason i don't maybe i was past the time but i remember calling my insurance agent and saying hey i'm ready to get my roof replaced oh you're way too late some past due can't do it now yeah and you called your agent correct yeah you didn't call american family

directly right okay and so agents don't like claims and again i i'm not an insurance agent i just know that you know a very if there's if they get claims they get judged on how many claims they have and if there's too many claims that they have something happens i don't know what it is exactly but it's not good right so they would prefer to never have claims and if he he may have you know i would hope not but he it sounds like he kind of detoured you from he did putting in a claim because it's

not good for his book of business yeah that was like 20 years ago before i actually started learning about all this stuff yeah and a lot of people i mean you don't even have to check with your agent you know when you have a claim you can call directly into the company okay and you don't have to deal with your agent at all and in fact you know most agents just will say well here's the number call it in you know some of them will do it for you really but most of them would be like just call it indirectly well i think

that was probably the mistake i made because i kind of thought that he would advocate for me you would think that you would and you would hope for that and that's why it's important to know and now you know we all used to know our insurance agent 20 years ago but now with all the online stuff right no one has you know if you have a progressive or geico or um you know you don't really know an agent you're just calling a number anyway right um but yeah there's there's uh i mean there's a lot of well there's

there's a lot of good companies and and there's you know and again you can do a whole few shows on insurance itself but you know there's there's brokers out there that can work with all companies that aren't captive the big ones are captive so the people that work for state farm that's all they sell um you know american families probably the same farmers is probably the same just the big ones are uh you know that's all they sell they work you know for that company and then the brokers can work for

everyone and sell all the other policies outside of um you know state farm and the captive company state farm all state farmers and some others so you know some people want to work and and be with state farm and you'll work with a state farm agent other people want to shop and see what a broker can do you know with other companies you know i was i was talking with my agent coincidentally on the way over here and uh he was telling me that state farm in colorado has like 20 28 market share wow and

you know that's that's pretty cool that they have so much but when a hail storm comes in you know in a certain area and let's just assume that you know wherever it gets hit if it's you know just call it denver right so of all of their claims they're going to have 28 of the market share you know of all claims in denver well now you're paying for that increase right yeah so if there's a lot of money that they have to dish out you know everyone in denver and well in colorado for that part

they're going to pay for that higher rate too and again i love state farms so i'm not knocking safe arm and good for them for 28 but he was saying a lot of times you might want to look at companies you really never heard of that have a very small footprint in the market that you live in because you might never get hit with an increase in your in your insurance from an annual on an annual basis like you will for sure on the big companies it seems like every year the rates are going up again if you have claims then you your

no claim discount goes away um you know if uh if if you file a claim you get hit with a surcharge for that so there's a lot of different things again i'm not i'm not an insurance agent i'm just kind of talking on a higher level here on just conversations i've had and things that i've seen over the years and working with homeowners and working with insurance companies i mean they're they are a necessary evil um you know again we love them because they do give us referrals but it's

frustrating to watch how how they they take money from consumers every single month and you know a lot of them it's it's sometimes it's a little bit of a fight to get money back yeah you know and it's it's a you know other things we've dealt with with insurance that last check right so if you have the rcv policy right that's the replacement cost value at the end of the job you're going to get everything less your deductible for what the insurance company is willing to pay

the last check they send out to you though sometimes it's made out to you and your mortgage company so then you have to get that endorsed by your mortgage company in order to cash it and put it in the bank to pay your roofer or you can always then you'll get the the mortgage company to endorse it and you can endorse it and then just hand that check over to the roofing company it's it's a process kind of a pain in the butt why do they make it so difficult do you think well because the mortgage company

they have you know they're tight absolutely so if if you actually didn't do the replacement the value is lower and it's you know the mortgage company has the right to know that so i understand why but we ran into a situation where the homeowner sold their home in between when they got when they put the claim in versus when they got the roof done so the check comes in for the uh rcv policy and it's made out to the homeowner and the mortgage company but they don't have an account with the

mortgage company anymore oh man so it was with wells fargo and and they have no accounts with wells fargo wells fargo just happened to be their mortgage company at the time they sold the house nine months ago went to wells fargo and so this is you know and then let's make it even one one step more complicated it was a deaf client so i'm trying to help the client so i'm working on behalf of the client so because it's easier for me to communicate with the bank call the bank they say

okay well if we can you know have the client come down show proof that there that they no longer um own the home you know bring your driver's license you know all this and it just wasn't enough for the bank to say okay they now we had to go back to the insurance company and send the same information back to them and it's we still don't have the final check and this has now been three months so the roofing company us has to wait you know for for final payment which will eventually happen

it's just it's just not a fun process for anybody yeah no doubt so other times they'll just send you a check and they'll just be in your name so that's crazy yeah i wonder if it has anything to do with the ltv well no because are you talking about loan to value yeah maybe they've got 50 equity in the house and at that point they don't care right well no this is the insurance company um okay i was talking about the mortgage well i guess it wouldn't matter i guess you're right they didn't even they

didn't even have a lien against the property anymore because the property's been sold okay it's now just getting the insurance company to reissue a check so first we were trying to get wells fargo just to endorse it but being that she no longer had an account with wells fargo they didn't they weren't they're like no we're not gonna endorse us you know so now we had to go back to the insurance company interesting yeah so it's it was uh and it's still frustrating because you

know we're you know financing basically the roof sure you know and having to wait you know when normally you know we should just get paid when the job is done and the homeowner should you know then be the one that has to fight for themselves yeah right but then we leave them all alone and we're not advocating for them so we want to help them through the process and you know make you know let them know hey look we're in this together when you get paid we'll get paid so to to add some perspective to what

you're talking about and why you are a part of trustpatrick.com is these are the things that you go over and above to help consumers i haven't heard you once say well we sit down and we make sure this is all the dies are dotted and t's are across because we want to make sure we get paid and the exact opposite of that to give some perfect perspective are companies that will actually get the homeowner to write them a check for the materials or whatever the case may be up front and then they take and they go in a

storm area and collect 100 yeah there was a guy on the news just like a few weeks ago maybe a month ago that collected over 150 000 in checks and bolted to like michigan or something with people's money yep yep it wouldn't be the first time and it's uh there's a statistic from the better business bureau and i i can't remember if it's 2018 but let's just you know for argument's sake say was in 2018 14 of homeowners when needing to get their contractor to come back

couldn't find the contractor and i think that was specific to roofing in general but it could have been all it could have been all contractors but 14 percent can't even find them yeah you know that that's that shows a do do a little due diligence on the front end to make sure you're not falling into that category where you can't find your contractor when you need something done because i'll tell you what when you put a roof on at first it's not going to leak the next day sure

yeah and it probably looks good from the street yeah absolutely it's going to take a little while for the the areas of corners that they may have cut for them to rear its ugly head to show damage on the inside of your home you know and that's well and shoot with with what you do with asphalt you know same thing it looks beautiful when it's done they could just put us you know a small coating on top and i don't know what industry averages you've told me before what what is it a couple inches

yeah the i think it's national asphalt pavement association says the minimum should be two inches okay absolutely so a lot of people compacted yeah a lot of people do one right yeah owners i've seen these guys are like skilled artists at putting it down at a half of an inch though okay and how how is it how is a homeowner supposed to know anything don't they don't right it just looks good but then it fails but it's not going to fail the next day it takes time for it to fail this is

where i have kind of an issue with online reviews you know i i'm not going to single any company out but i i don't think that people should rely 100 on online reviews especially the younger a company is because people you know hey can you do me a favor maybe i'll give you a 100 visa gift card if you go and write a good review about us and then a year down the road or two years down the road like you said it starts to rear its ugly head and they forget they even put that good review out on them and they've got all

these great reviews that's the one issue about just relying on online views that i think that people really need to pay attention to yeah it's it's just it's just part of society now people do yeah they do and i i factor it in on everything i do yeah we i have to be better at it as a company to get these good reviews um and so that because it's a new way of doing business for us i mean i'm i'm older so yeah for us i have to uh you know i you know we have a whole checklist of things that we make

sure gets done throughout the process so that at the end of the job you know if every one of these milestones gets accomplished then then we we know we've done our job to the best of our ability and we know that that everything you know t's crossed eyes dotted like you were saying so we make sure that happens on our end you know we're a very technologically advanced company um uh and now a part of the checklist is to ask for that google review you know right or that wasn't you know a

few years ago that wasn't you know as big of a deal to us but now it is an important part of doing business um but yeah that's just one of the many things that we go through throughout the process so that again the the homeowner knows that that at the end of the day they've they've gotten the best job from us that they could get well that's the thing about you too everything everything you're talking about you're focused more on customer service than you are about filling your bank account

with money well yeah and i mean customer service is so important you know there's a lot of good roofing companies out there it's not very difficult to put on a roof right so there's just a lot of there's a lot of good roofers that are maybe horrible business people you know there's a lot of good business people that they might not have great crews you know and we you know there's we can get into that as well like what should you look for in a good roofing company and what questions should you ask are we

done talking about insurance you know there's other things i can mention a couple things with insurance you know just stories that we've come up with you know i'm dealing with a roof right now um homeowner bought a home in may um they're they called us just this week they they had some gutter issues we went out and took a look at it that the roof has got significant hail damage you know so what do you do at that point you know they should have they should have had you know a good inspector when they bought the roof

yeah i'm sorry when they bought the house to tell them you know that the roof had hail damage um but maybe they just bought the house as is i'm gonna get more detail as i talk to them i just found this out this morning so one thing they can do is go back to the seller and they can ask the seller hey would you be willing to file a claim because the damage happened when the seller still owned the home and then again i was when i was talking with my agent that was one of the reasons um he was saying that there's two types

of claims on top of you know acv and rcv there's also an occurrence based policy so whenever if as long as the policy was in place when the occurrence happened you know insurance will cover it and then other times it's you know like i think it called a claims base policy so it's when you put the claim in if you if you don't have coverage they're not going to cover it most consumer policies are occurrence based well they'll go back but that's one option but what you don't

know yet is did that homeowner already take that acv check that first check and never do the roof and there is a database that all insurance companies can look at that will show if a claim was made now they don't know if he actually finished the roof or not they haven't gone that far they could do more research if they wanted to but it's not they don't typically is my understanding so that's another type of a policy that's out there there's just a lot of interesting um you know things that you

should know just just make a call to your insurance agent and just ask and if you don't have a specific agent you know it's all online just ask you know figure out how to go online and and get those questions answered it's important to know so that you're not surprised when you it's time for you to make a claim and it's not you don't have to do it for just roofs you can do it for other things also but it seems like roofing is a is highly dependent on insurance coverage

for most people most people like we talked about earlier are not replacing their roof for cash yeah they usually will wait for a storm unless it's so bad that they have to well and i do want to mention too for those that may be watching this or listening you know um if they're not sure and they're they're looking for a good insurance company that's what i do at trustpatrick.com is i pre-screen and background check companies and i only work with the best companies out there i work with

insurance agents that are consumer oriented they're not you know they're not money driven i mean i'm sure they are at some degree but you know they're consumer oriented they want to build their business the right way so anyway if anybody wants to go to trustpatrick.com to find a company they could certainly do that so um um okay so roofing wise and the other thing i want to mention too is if somebody wants to call in and maybe ask a question about roofing you seem to excuse me about the insurance part of

you seem to be really knowledgeable about the insurance yeah but i'm not an agent so know all i can do is is talk about what i've seen sure you know just conversations i've had with other agents um you know really the question is what do you have you know and if you like your agent you know stay with them just you they can you know maybe work a policy uh to to how you want it again what my buddies that are in insurance what they see is that most people like yeah yeah yeah yeah okay fine good

you know they just kind of trust the agent um but at the end of the day and not that you shouldn't but just understand like what what are you agreeing to so for an example in my home i have a concrete tile roof right so i put my deductible at five thousand dollars because i don't think i'm going to have a storm big enough that's going to affect my roof um you know if i had an asphalt shingled roof i would make sure that my deductible was a lot lower um because i wouldn't you know more than

likely at some point in time it i'm going to get hit with hale and i would hate to have to write a five thousand dollar check instead of a one thousand dollar check yeah for sure for sure let's talk let's go into the things that we were just going to mention let's talk about what are the things that people should look for in a roofing company i mean you know i mean first of all you got the storm chasers or the storms if they were going to work with a company that knocked on their door what

would you say would be the first thing that they should look for in a company well again i i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend signing anything with anyone that knocks on your door yeah and and and i'll tell you what though if if we were to knock on your door if that was part of our practice and we were to knock on our door i'll tell you what i would have my guys trained to make sure you sign that contract you know right because i mean that that's that would be the goal of knocking on a door right right so

because i don't want to do that i don't want to put that kind of pressure on i don't i don't want to you know i don't want to have that practice right but um i would just tell the again the homeowner if you answered the door just say okay let me think about it let me get back to you they're there's all kind of tricks that that they'll throw at you because you can't do the due diligence you need to do in the time that they're giving you exactly so you you need to at that point

say okay i just need to go through a few things um and and again you're hoping that the company you're talking to is telling you the truth with the answers that they give but the main thing that i think is is to make sure that you have a contact that you can call whenever there's an issue now most roofs there you're you're in and out in the day all right so it's not a huge inconvenience to your life the biggest issue is if something happens during that day right someone falls

through the decking into your you know into your living room right that's a huge problem you know who are you going to call you know who's your content ghostbusters here right but who's your contact at the roofing company because i'll tell you what the guys on the roof probably don't speak english and if they fall through the decking i can guarantee you they no longer speak english you know so they will not be talking to you and i'm not trying you know this is just the truth

that that you know they're not going to want to talk to you because they don't know what to do right they don't want to hold themselves out there you need to get a hold of someone that you can communicate with um that could be this deal if as an example with our company right you you more likely have a sales person and you have a project manager and you have an owner all of which that you can reach um at any point in time um you know being for me you know i'm not a roofer by trade right

what i'm a business person and i know the most important thing for a consumer is to make sure they can reach somebody you know i make sure i'm always available i can give back to someone so i and again there's a lot of good companies out there that will that will operate the exact same way so that's just a question too how do i make sure i can reach someone i need cell numbers i need office numbers i want to know when i call do you answer the phone or do you always get voicemail right that's

a pretty big thing yeah that's a really yeah and a lot of times right if if you're working out of your truck as and you don't have an office with with uh a receptionist um is that bad to say that what everyone's called now reception or office manager so if there's not someone there answering the phones right because because someone's actually on the roof yeah you know and they're difficult to get a hold of you know again there's i'm not saying they're a bad company i'm just saying

it's going to be a lot harder to get a hold of someone so you know for me i would say you know who are my contacts do i have office numbers and cell numbers when i call does someone you know can i always reach someone at some point in time is there a physical location or is the person working out of their truck yeah um you know we have we have an office and a showroom i don't think anyone's ever seen our showroom though people just don't come to the office but we have it anytime you want to you can come by and

see when you have a physical office you can actually go to youtube you can knock on the door there's a reception desk you can see our showroom reception desk is pc you can say that okay reception tasks you have a reception desk uh so so here's two things number one i always tell people this is something i think is extremely important especially when it comes to the storms and even i talk about asphalt driveways the same way if somebody knocks on your door there's something that in sales i

learned years ago and i'm kind of letting people in on a little secret and there is something that i was taught and that is is is called getting in into people's emotions and these guys are trained very well to get into you and tap into your emotions and one of the things that i've always said is is that don't buy into any urgency that's where people really get stuck because and i don't know how much it happens with roofs but i can imagine a roofing guy saying man you've got to get this thing fixed

now or it's going to leak everywhere and you're going to damage your house you sign this thing that urgency in my opinion you don't fall for it you just yeah if there's a hole in your roof obviously you've got some emergency you've got to get it taken care of a lot of times though it's just you have hail damage yeah you know if you don't have any water intrusion right now and again companies when the storms come you know they could stay busy for a year from one storm it could be longer than a

year yeah so so it's the ones that have the biggest damage have to get taken care of first yeah um you know if you have right now everyone's pretty slow um but it used to be you know if you could get a roofer to come and do your job you know within a week you'd be like you gotta be well you gotta put a big question mark is do why why are you not busy oh sure are you new into town you know do you have a bad reputation you know why can you get out here so quickly you know when other people are telling you six

months and and you as a homeowner say in six months you know do i really want to wait that long yeah um you know so for us we want to make sure that that we're able to stay in a reasonable time period so we have employees but we also do work with subcontractors some people only work with subcontractors um i don't know of any companies i'm not saying there's not i don't know of any though that only work with employees because it's hard because right now as a good example there was very few storms

last year there hasn't been a big storm yet this year can you imagine if you're you know paying you know 10 crews you know to wait around now you can do that for a period of time but can you do it for a year and a half yeah how long do you want to how long do you want to have to do that so you know that that's my opinion on it however we make sure that our crews are properly our subcontractors are insured so that's a huge thing because a lot of times you're you're working

some people work with subcontractors that aren't insured properly which goes in going back to insurance making sure that the business has proper insurance proper liability insurance proper excess insurance and you know auto insurance and uh workers comp insurance yes you know you have to have if you have employees for people that don't have employees they don't carry it they're able to wave out of it and that means that they're subbing everything out again i don't you know i i personally

don't agree with that um but there's a lot of companies that do and there's you know there's some good you know good companies that that just sub work sure it's up to you yeah um as a business owner what you want to choose you know we choose to have our own guys and um and then sub some out when needed so what's able to keep us busy um on a on an annual on a you know day in day out basis we do a lot of new home building um or we're not doing the building we're putting the roofs on the new homes for

developers right so we're able to stay busy year-round and keep people employed um now there's you know smaller margins in that business versus on the re-roofing business um and so companies that that only do the reroof stuff um you know that they they'll focus on where they can make the most profit um you know we've got guys that just focus on on the home building and then we've got guys that just focus on the reroof so that's our model and i'm not saying it's perfect but that's how we operate right

and and just this is one thing also that i've found in the roofing industry is that and and not all and you know but could be some is that just because it's going to be subcontracted doesn't necessarily mean they're going to get any less quality of work you you you have subcontractor agreements and you you do quality control with yourself yeah again i i try not to use subcontractors if i don't have to um and here's here's why because you have a subcontracted crew and let's say it takes them six hours to

do a roof but they get it done in five because they know they've got another roof they can go do and they can get two roofs done in one day if they start cutting corners if you don't have a project manager out there that's going to manage it that's just that's the writing on the wall for a bad job where if you have employees right they're getting paid regardless now i don't want them taken all day and but typically you know if they're on a job for six hours there's not much that you can do for the

next two unless there's maybe a repair job here or there right um but you know that that six hour day for them is a full day you know because i don't have anywhere else to send them to maybe um you know so i like that part of it because i know that that they're going to you know i don't want them taking like lollygagging around right but but i know that they're they're not they're not rushing through anything they're staying focused um you know there's there's enough

profitability in a roof for us that they can be there the full day or whether it's six hours or eight hours or even if it's four you know that that we don't need to to get them off and get them on to another job you know again that's just how we operate um but we also have a project manager there to make sure that the job is getting done right and to make sure you know that that uh you know you know there's you know it's not unheard of that there's theft not from the homeowner from the roofing

company so all of a sudden you have a bundle of shingles missing you've got a box of nails that are missing you got you know some metal edging that's missing um you know because i mean that's that can be resold sure um you know so you got to make sure you've got good trustworthy people you know we don't we don't stand for that we see people you know and it's not unheard of you know people have you know stolen from companies yeah the history of companies you know we're not exempt from that but

you know that's why i like to have someone out there that can make sure that that's not happening um you know that's just money out of our pocket and i don't wanna i don't wanna i don't i don't wanna stand for that um we've never had an issue because we're not inside anyone's home where people are stealing things you know that's never been an issue thankfully and nor will i can i see it ever happening that way because again we've got someone out there that's watching it

and making sure again i think the main issue then once the roof is done um is the cleanup right because i think for the most part homeowners you know they see it as long as it looks nice they don't they don't really know but there could be a thousand nails in the gutters that if unless they get up there you know they're not going to see you know i send one of my guys up there to make sure my guys are actually doing a good job and they're not leaving nails behind on the roof and they're not leaving debris

on the roof and then on the ground it's also critically important especially if you have pets you know you don't want nails that that a pet could step on yeah or in your car tires for that matter yeah for sure um you know that doesn't usually happen it can you know on a homeowner happens you know often sometimes on commercial jobs because they're so big you got to be careful yeah but uh yeah anyway it's it's uh that that's the main thing i think for homeowners is the cleanliness how how does it look

you know when they're done visually and then how's the cleanup and this is still part of the process of looking at companies we're not necessarily talking about the this person's roof we're talking about if your neighbors having theirs done and you know you're you're going to get yours done take a look at that right see how they leave the the cleanups absolutely you know maybe ask the homeowner hey what was your experience with these guys from the very beginning yeah no that that's

you know great great questions to ask your neighbors and and why you don't and shouldn't necessarily rush into making a decision unless you have unless you have water intrusion yeah i'd say just you know take your time you know choose the right company yeah it's going to save you a lot of headache for the day that it's happening and then you know years down the road and again going back to what we were talking about i said the first thing is is there's nothing that has to be done today unless

of course your roof is leaking right so there's this if you get pressured from a roofing company that oh my gosh you got to do it today and you can see clearly with your own two eyes that you don't have any leaks there's no need to make any decisions today now let me ask you a question you're not an insurance agent but let's just say that some guy said there was a leak and i said i don't feel comfortable signing anything today i'm going to get another roofing company out here or i'm

gonna get my insurance adjuster if that roof happened to leak between that moment and whatever they'd cover that right insurance yeah yeah yeah so it's not like they're gonna not have that covered no they just insurance wants you to mitigate the damages so if you have a hole in your roof um they want you to put a tarp on it you know they want you they don't want you to leave it open so that continues to make a bunch of damage on the inside correct so that that's really all they're they're looking for so

you can get and we've done this plenty of times so someone's called up and said look i just need a tarp that's put on here now for us if we do a good job putting the tarp in we think hey we got a pretty good shot of getting hired to actually do the replacement but but there's been times that they've chosen because they've got you know a neighbor or you know a relative or something that will actually do it or you know there could be other factors that are at play but you know we've come out and

and done the tarp and not done the roof normally it doesn't happen but it but it can sure um you know and so for me i'm like well that's a bummer but they made the decision for whatever you know reason it was i don't think it was ever because they didn't like us but i hope not right we didn't get a bad review yeah um but yeah but that that can happen so yeah just mitigate um your damages you don't you just don't have to feel so rushed i mean it's it's a little bit

different than because the rain will stop right right versus like a a main line that's broke and your basement is flooding or backed up and your basement is flooding and it's going to continue i guess you can shut the water off but then you've got mold issues potentially and um you know just just that's just gross anyway right out in the basement yeah um so that that's that again a different situation um you know colorado is so dry that you know you need to still check but it doesn't

happen often that we find you know mold you know you cut the water source off um which is in this case rain right um you know things are damp get it dried out and then we'll get the roof back on so the first step would be don't fall for the urgent stuff i think the second thing is is that i always say watch what people write on their contract versus what they say yes you know for sure and read the contract yeah read the contract so if if you're going to sign it read it well what's

interesting too that when we talk about that is that i i at me being in in sales or estimating out with driveways you know people will say do you mind if i read this no not at all and and it's funny because they'll go so this what is this does this mean that i you know i have to and and i could easily oh yeah i know that means nothing you know so if you're not comfortable signing a contract because you don't understand something don't sign it you know right there's no point

yeah and don't ask the salesperson to explain it to you right because they're going to explain it to you well i mean again you know it's you don't know how they're going to explain it to you so you know just understand it and if you don't understand it cross it out initially i say i don't agree with this you know you've got every right to do that wow they don't you know the roofing company doesn't have to accept it but you if you don't agree with it you

can cross it out well and the other thing would be very important for them to get a copy a carbon copy of it absolutely because if they don't have a carbon copy they can go write whatever they want on it yeah contracts to my understanding um because we're we're redoing our contract so i've met with our attorney um that it has to state on the contract that that you have a 72-hour right of rescission um you know those are for in-home sales so just know that and it should be on all

all that's specific to colorado or is that nationwide you know i only do roofs in colorado so i i don't know okay um you know but it's uh be good knowledge for me to find out for people calling in but it's uh you know and i would make sure too that you know again there's guidelines that you need to follow when you present an estimate there's guidelines that you need to follow when you present a contract um you know the colorado roofing association is a great resource for

people if you want to spend the time and take a look at it but you know contracts and estimates need to include like what materials you're going to use they can't just say you know what we're going to do it for the price of what insurance is willing to pay although people do that all the time i've seen it all the time you know it needs to be specific um you know and that's why it's it's it's nice sometimes to get that content now you can change it you know just because i i present like

here's my cash price contract because they don't they might not have their insurance claim yet if they want a cash price before they get their claim back okay i have no problem presenting them with here's our cash price here's you know without knowing what insurance is willing to pay for this is what we see this is what we know that we'll do and here you go um but that doesn't mean that we can't change it if everyone's agreeable to it right but if the homeowner says nope i

want you to do exactly what you put on the contract well okay you know we stand behind our contract i'm not looking to change it however if the claim comes in and you may say well wow you're and rarely are we more than what i've never seen a case actually where we've been more than what insurance is willing to pay but so sometimes they'll say well insurance is willing to give me 12 000 but your price is only 10. and then i can explain to them well okay do you want us to do everything that's on the claim

if so we'll do it for that price i just need to see it you know i just need to see what it is that they want us to do and again if they're you know willing to to listen and and understand that you know you're not going to get that money from insurance that was my next question that would be the first thing i think i would think is hmm right bids for 10 right they're going to give me 12. i get to pocket two you don't it doesn't work like that it does not work like that they will only pay you for the work that

you paid out if this is not a profit deal all right this is they're going to pay my ten thousand dollar bill interesting less you're deductible still yeah they're not going to give you 12 and you're walking away with money i can imagine a an unethical roofing company saying oh yeah you'll get that difference i could imagine them saying that you know just sign with me i'll make sure you get it you know i don't know i'm assuming yeah i don't know as much about roofing

you know and and for me i would like i would like the homeowner to give us referrals you know so when they have someone i know you just got your roof done you know who did it for you you know i want them to refer their family and their friends and their neighbors you know because it you know it's it never happens that one home in a neighborhood gets hit right you know it's it's maldives sometimes it's weird that you you may have the only home in the neighborhood that didn't get hit

but there's going to be multiple homes that get hit yeah yeah well the analogy i guess i can draw like again i say i've been out doing estimating for driveways for forever for 25 years and uh you know i i run across situations where they say you know hey my neighbor wants to get a quote too and what i find is a second neighbor really lets their guard down and they don't do any due diligence on the company and i've lost jobs to companies that were unethical horrible companies and

just because this neighbor said oh i'm using this company the other neighbor did too and next thing you know now there's two driveways that weren't installed right right yeah i'm sure the same thing happens with roofing yep absolutely you know and that's the guy that that took the 150 000 that you mentioned oh yeah that's how he did it absolutely yeah there's some companies that are very good at canvassing and they hit homes hard and they put signs out and and nothing that there's

nothing wrong with that you know with any of it yeah it's as long as they're honest companies there's some companies that do this that are they're they're good roofing companies and part of their their sales is door knocking that's a big part of it and and they're very successful at it they're also a good company i'm not knocking them right um but there's more bad than there are good and i think that's why the roofing association says don't work with door knockers because there are far

more bad companies than there are good companies yeah and and i think now today too just especially with with covid and and social distancing that people don't want you in their home they just don't yeah you know so you know that's why we can do everything virtually if we need to yeah that's very cool what are some other things people should look for you know in a good company how do they know you know i i know me i'm busy i live a busy life there's times that i just don't you know i don't i just i got a

company here he seems like a nice guy i just want to just get it done which obviously a lot of times those are the people that end up getting you know the short end of the stick what are other things they can do to help avoid getting wrapped up in the with the wrong company really just it comes down to the homeowner actually doing the due diligence which requires time and phone calls or internet searches you know you you just just don't blindly believe what the contractor is telling you do a

little bit of research and find out and and it and really you should be able to do it in an hour you should be able to get all the information you need in about an hour's time now it might not be an hour straight might take you 15 minutes one day and 15 minutes the next because you have to either wait for a return phone call or you know just i think that's really the only thing i can think is if you have to wait for a return phone call but i would you know i would make sure that you do it you know too many people

don't again you know with the television show you know we are on cbs channel 4 here in denver you know we broadcast you know across the entire front range there's a lot of people that were watching and we would tell them every day you know here's what you need to do and people just don't do it they don't you know and and it's uh don't you know it's always fine if everything turns out fine right it's when it's when you have the stories you don't hear about yeah that that

and you can't fix it at that point you know and it had you just done your due diligence because even good companies sometimes bad things happen it's how they handle it that makes them a good company exactly you know and it's i've had jobs unfortunately that that i no matter what it just there was just a problem after a problem after a problem you know but i'm no matter what i'm going to take care of that problem even if i lose money yeah you know that's a good idea and it

hurts yeah you know but and again i'm not the only one there's other companies that do this too so i'm not saying that i'm the only good company out there there are a lot of good companies but i'll tell you what there's a lot of super bad companies you know you talked about you're the 150 000 example where the guy took the money and ran um you know the 14 statistic from the better business bureau that that people looking for their contractor when they need them a year or so

later can't even find them um there's just issues that come up all the time yeah um it's just extremely important to to do to even you know to if you can't if you don't have the time to do the due diligence again i always say go to trustpatrick.com because what we do you went through the process we did a criminal background check on you we did a credit check on you we checked out a you know credit check on your company we wanted to make sure that you weren't you know 90 days away from bankruptcy you know we

we check out your online reviews we take screenshots of everything i mean we do every we checked out your licensing your insurance we get as a certificate holder to your insurance so that if you dropped your insurance we would know we would get notified if we take you off the site so you're all people are always getting connected with the most current up-to-date companies that are the best that meet our criteria um we also have uh on the website it's not up yet but it's it's gonna be up

shortly which is the five most important things to look for in a roofing company we have the same thing with asphalt you know we have the same thing with other service categories um and people can go to the site and they with a request to get contacted say by by you they're gonna get that list of the top five things to look for so that they can do be a little quicker in their process of doing their due diligence so i just wanted to mention that because that's what you went through and quite

frankly i've turned down more roofing companies that i've actually approved on the site same thing with the asphalt i turned down more companies than i actually let on because i do wanna i wanna give people the best most up-to-date current companies that are doing the best work and obviously you're you're the only one at this moment that met the criteria so well again you know our our focus is uh you know it's consumer advocacy first that's that's my entire background for 25 years

you know i'm a business person second and i'm a roofer third now my partner he's a roofer all right so we got we got someone that knows what they're doing on the roof you know i i know a lot about roofing but i've never put a roof on i mean i mean i've never done it right but i i know how if i would have to do it i hope i never have to do it i don't you know i'm not afraid of heights but i don't really like being on roofs but my partner he's you know and he's a

denver native you know born and raised i think it was thornton born and raised here yeah um he's a good guy never left very good the state you know i mean he's gone on vacation sure yeah it sounds like he's like it has to be here for you know he's restricted to leave the state no he's allowed to leave the state he just chooses not to right but he goes on vacation um yeah but he knows i mean you know he knows roofing inside out now he's been a roofing company i mean that's all he's done you know

with his company you know for most of his adult life he's been in the roofing business um so he's worked with good companies he's worked with bad companies he started his own company i used him on the television show when we had roofing issues before we started our company because ours was not just roofing exclusively when we first started off we were helping consumers with everything roofing was a big component but we would work with um you know ryan as his name he his company was aspire roofing

um we would work with him and then ryan and i partnered together um you know for to form 303 roofer you know and that's that's another thing too and it's so hard i think now um you know there could be like you could be the best roofer in the world and when you're first starting out and you first start your new company right you have one day of experience as a new company but you could have 30 years as a roofer right so just because the company is brand new doesn't mean they're a bad company

you know you just you just you know you gotta you do have to be careful you gotta be careful but how how does everyone starts off from day one at some point right so someone has to trust them yeah in order to in order for them to build a business and continue and then have that longevity yeah so there's there's a lot but i don't i don't know how i don't know how you handle that now it didn't it used to be easier but now with all the information that's out there look it's tough i will tell you that

even in asphalt you know there's a guy in denver he does great work but he goes out there and he tells people i've been doing this 30 years but yet he's been registered with the state for three and then he says oh i bought three other companies around here i know all the companies around here he didn't buy three companies so he says has a really nice good sales pitch which is you know but he does good work i mean what i can see i don't know what the longevity of it is but you're right

there's a lot of companies out there that they get mixed up uh they they they kind of convolute the how long they've been in business versus how long they've they've been in the industry right and so they they throw out the oh i've been doing this 30 years and people go wow that's a great stable company and those two don't really match right they don't they're not the same right so um but you're right i've had people i've had contractors call me and say hey i

just got started and i really want to be part of your network and i say i'm sorry you have to have at least a year experience and they get really angry with me they're like that's not fair how am i supposed to get out yeah well and i i do i feel for him because it could be great yeah but and again someone has to hire them or they're not going to be in business yeah so someone has to trust them yeah you know that's it's it's a it's hard because there's always going to be new

companies yeah you know and it's like for us so everyone that every person we hire will potentially be one of our competitors oh sure yeah you know and that's that's just part of the business yeah but it's harder for them you know it's hard i think it's harder in general right now for for new companies especially now what right going as long as we have without a big storm you know someone that just started up last year uh they're they're gonna be you know it's gonna be

thin they're a little thin for them yeah for sure any other things important that you think that people should look for i mean you know one thing and we've never we've never put a roof on top of another roof you know so you're allowed to though um in the state you are allowed to on top of one layer you can put another layer interesting of shingle on top we've never done that we've always taken the roof down to the decking and then put on brand new underlayment and a brand new

roof um you are however allowed to put on you know like i said uh shingles on top of one layer what would be the instance that someone would even do that i guess just to save money maybe they spent that first check and yeah they just yeah maybe it's a rental property gotcha um we again we've never done it um you know but i was i was just thinking about that on the way over i mean the main reason is that you just don't know the shape of the the decking right so i mean if the decking is bad

and you put you know just another layer on top you know you're not you're not solving the issue of the bad decking you don't know how old the underlayment is you know underlayment is very important in protecting your roof um so you still have that very old underlayment um so just i would make sure you know if you're um if you own the home and you occupy that home don't you know unless unless there's a financial reason to do it i would not recommend it um but i mean we see we see roofs that

have like four or five layers i mean it's not uncommon to see multiple layers on a roof i'm just wondering who's doing that and why um and if they just don't know um or maybe like we talked about maybe it's a rental you know but i still again you're not allowed to do this so in pulling a permit you can't you know if it's gets if it's getting inspected um that would never pass you know that's a good subject permits you know um i always tell people hey make sure that the company that

you're doing business with is if if licensing is required for driveways it's not in some cases some cases it is different states but with roofs now the one thing i've learned about roofing is that just because a company is not licensed in your area yet doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't use them because for instance i wouldn't let's say there's a hail storm in you know i don't know parker colorado and you're not licensed there doesn't necessarily mean you're not a good guy

it just means that why would you pay for a license that you're not really using until you actually had to and you can go get licensed or how does that work yeah no absolutely so yeah you you can't you can't pull a permit you know without license without a license and um having the proper insurance too yeah um some municipalities uh it's really you just pay a fee and it's you know it's not too terribly difficult to get a license others you have to you know have your license i should say

pull a permit others you have to have a license in order to pull that permit um but yeah that's important you know and i would recommend um for all homeowners to make sure that there is a permit pulled for their project yeah um so that there's a second set of eyes that are on it not only from you and from the company but now from the city that that goes out there and inspects it and makes sure that it passes yeah and that's important not only for the homeowner it's important for the company too because

the company can say well i mean we pulled the permit it was inspected you know it's not like we did a a bad job i don't know what's going on you know because sometimes you know and and the roof shouldn't leak but some roofs are built a little tricky and and you have to know that and you have to make sure you take all the precautions so that it's it's properly enclosed um but you know i mean unfortunately we have had a roof we've had to go back and fix a leak sure what happens it does you know and

water is a tricky thing and and every precaution that you take um you know and again it doesn't happen often you can't be in business for a long time if it happens all the time exactly you know you you want to make sure you're doing it right the first time but it's not you know it has happened and even if it's been inspected it still has happened so um but it's just one more person that has eyes on it what do you say to the people that say oh i don't like to do inspections the

government just wants their money and i mean the the my take on it is is that it's really not that big a deal really right they're not that expensive typically you know i i i would i would just say to do it i mean if well first of all you know i'm putting myself at risk if i don't pull a permit right if if the city finds out you know i'm going to have to take again i've never not so i don't know exactly i think you have to take off a certain amount of the roof so that they can inspect it and then put

it back and so it's going to cost you a lot more than just paying for the permit because some permits are only a few hundred dollars or most permits are only a few hundred dollars right it depends on the size of the roof but it's it's it's not you know and it's usually based on on the value of the job of the cost of the job it's it's the reason why i say that is because i'm not willing to put my license at risk sure and the reason why i even bring it up is because you know as you know

you get a guy that finishes basements and there are guys out there that will go hey you know if you skip the whole permit process i can give you a little better deal and uh you know it's just not worth it skipping that you know yeah i um and we would never do we would never do that we never have i don't know many roofers that that i can't imagine because you're outside exactly you know and yeah but a lot of guys will do a job you know they'll do a job on a saturday or sunday to get around having to do a

pull-up permit um but i would as a homeowner i would make sure the permit gets pulled you know check and see it's supposed to hang on your door then the inspector will come and sign off on it um you know a lot of times in certain areas like golden is a good example they do a mid-roof inspection greenwood village is another um where you know once you finish um you're done with the dry-in then they um they come out and inspect everything and then you can shingle and then they'll come out and inspect

after that um and and can i i want to say this when it comes to that i think that again these are instances where there are some roofing companies that are going to tell you oh yeah yeah we we got that permit i just i got it in my truck i just haven't put it up yet i personally would be like yeah well you can't start on my roof until i see the permit that's just the bottom line yeah see the permit or call into the city sure you can check it yeah because all that information is uh you can probably even check online

yeah and see well even even money down you know like with driveways i have people tell me oh the contractor wanted 50 down and i always tell people don't look look a good company that is a good solid business isn't going to ask you for money up front yeah i've had a couple of asphalt guys say well i'm you know i'm taking a risk on them they they should take a risk on me but more times than not those companies end up running with that money and so what i tell people is hey look if

if somebody's requiring money down i just tell them look i i'll just tell them that when you arrive and i see the you unloading the stuff i will have a 50 check for you but i'm not giving it to you up front yeah we don't ask for money up front um big jobs commercial jobs you know that's sure that's negotiated with uh with the commercial client um uh you know only on big residential jobs but we would only i would never ask for money up front i would always you know it would be a

progress payment for us sure um most roofs are like a day or two you know um but but again on some big homes um you know we were talking about the one that's in parker i mean that's gonna be you know at least a week um yeah and that's not even that long i mean like so for us but it's this is a you know a brand new home you know it's that that's it's not um you know it's not a re-roof so it's and it's not an insurance claim so how we typically handle on an insurance

claim is that when we are done we ask the consumer for the first check they got from insurance so that's the acv check that they get the actual cash value and then we will wait with the homeowner until they get the replacement cost value check and at that point in time too we collect the deductible gotcha okay so and we're in touch too i mean we have direct contact with the insurance company so we know when things get sent you know we've never had a homeowner try and stiff us but i've heard horror

stories sure yeah sure yeah i've heard them too uh because there's certainly not every customer is right right well unfortunately there's some that try and get away with things yeah yeah for sure and i'm kind of bouncing around here but then let's talk about insurance i mean insurance is one of those things that's pretty important right i mean what are the risks if somebody hiring a company without say general liability insurance somebody gets hurt on their property i mean

that's that's not a good thing yeah and that's mostly falls for workers comp um when someone gets hurt on the property yeah i'm sorry um mixing them up yeah the uh but damn i guess damage let's say the trucks backing up and they back into the house and they they you know uh damage the the whole eve gutter everything yeah and again that's one of the importance of of if you have a permit can't pull a permit without the proper insurance gotcha so it falls into play into place there

so just another reason why a permit should be pulled another reason why to make sure that the contractor you hire in fact has insurance um yeah i mean there's there's there's bad thing you know again we've been super lucky so we haven't had issues but i can see them happening you know we have i mean we've had some some i shouldn't say no nothing you know we did a a roof um where we had to back up the uh the dumpster um it was a cedar shake roof that we were taking off and

putting on tile um and the guys driving the dumpster um you know ran over the lawn and then damaged the grass and um and the part of the driveway because it shipped a little bit because he went off and came back on it was a heavy dumpster uh we got to eat that cost i'm not you know it wasn't enough to turn into insurance so you know i gotta get a landscaper out there i gotta get a concrete guy out there and i gotta i gotta take care of it you know and that's um you know that stinks but

that's you know part of doing business you know we'll see and that wasn't even one of our guys you know that was the dumpster we'll see and that's what i was just gonna say is again you you're showing me why i love having you on trust patrick because there are guys out there it becomes a hot potato oh well it wasn't our fault you got to call the trash company you know and then the trash company's like well i worked for the roofing company you know and it just becomes a hot

potato and nobody wants to take care of it yeah i wouldn't put that on a homeowner ever you know this is you know we were hired to do a job and and when the job is done i want to make sure that that they're happy we'll do a walk through um you know we'll take a picture of them um in front of the home um have them sign off that everything's great but but again you know maybe in a week or two you know they find something i'm not gonna what well you signed it that it was great you know you said it

was good you know what i'm not gonna do anything for you so yeah but yeah again i i i don't know of any good company that would that would do that right um good companies do good but bad but you know but honestly then bad companies they're not even going to take the time to have you sign anything anyway they just want to get get done get in get out and get going and get out of the state um so you can't ever find him again yeah but uh you know just again to reiterate do your due diligence as a

homeowner that will save you headaches yeah yeah for sure and i preach that constantly i say it all the time on the show go to the website i say it in every video i talk about it i mean it's just super important and you know it's just funny because i get people that send in complaints you know and one of the first questions i ask them is do you have a copy of your contract well no we did we just did it by verbal what do you what do you want me to do you know yeah you got to do the things that are

important and you can't let these guys you know bamboozle you or push you around or intimidate you or rush you or pressure you you just have to be able to say no i'm not doing it that way you know and i've had people tell me well i chose the guy because he was the only asphalt company around that could do it in the next two weeks and i needed to get it done well you were in a hurry you know that's right yeah that's what happens when you rush things you know you just got to take your time and

be willing to do it right so you don't have to deal with the headaches afterwards you know a job can be done quickly painlessly and a good job if you just do your due diligence and you never have to worry about it again yep no that's true that's true so yeah it's it's you know i guess another thing you should ask for um and compare what kind of warranty is the company gonna give you gotcha you know the the shingle comes with its own warranty and then there's a workmanship warranty

so just understand what your warranties are get copies of the warranties yeah that that's another main thing you know some companies will just do i think it's i think it's mandatory in colorado to to offer a one-year workmanship warranty you know some companies will do two three four five lifetime some companies do lifetime warranties sure um you know it's uh you know that reminds me of that tommy boy movie where you know like the warranty is only as good as the company how long they've

been in business right so if a company has been in business three months and they're telling you that they've got a lifetime warranty it sounds good right it reminds me of that tommy boy movie you remember that i do he says something about the warranty on the brake pads yeah i won't repeat it but it's the truth you know now again it's not an all the time thing that if a company is newer and they offer a lifetime warranty that's not really something to rely on but it's

you know i mean i find it interesting that there are asphalt companies out there that they've been in business six months but they're telling people oh we give a three year warranty and the homeowner's like well how come you guys only give a one year warranty this other company is going to give me a three year warranty and i'm like well yeah well but again that's something that you have to weigh out as a homeowner how important is that to you um you know again just because the

company's only been in business for three months doesn't mean they're a bad company doesn't mean they're gonna go away well it's a higher probability though right you know so that you just gotta weigh that um but they they could end up being the best company in the world you know they they could be out of business and a month later you know you don't know um you know again i i i my heart goes out to new companies so you know um yeah you know it's uh you know it's

difficult for them um you know again i dealt with new companies you know for most of my career um on tv and radio and and trying to help them you know become you know a company of longevity and and it's uh and it's been great to see i mean i've started companies um as a silent investor even with a plumbing company with an electrical company um you know there's you know a few others as well that that are still in business and are still thriving um and it's and it's fun to be a part of that and and to have

that story but now their story right is because they've been in business for you know 10 years or 20 years or whatever the number is that you know only worker company that have long jeopardy right but they were singing a different tune when they first started yeah for sure but anyway they're it's uh just again you know get to a level of comfort um if you check check references that's always a good thing too yeah um you know personally check not just google references you know check and call and ask you know

references now again the tough part with that is that you know most companies me included and again i don't you know i'm sure that we've had some people that have been upset with us but um i mean i make sure that the companies that i'm giving out or i'm sorry the homeowners that i'm giving out for references are ones that are going to give me a good right a good recommendation right here's five that are bad and five that are good yeah but anyway it's um it's it you know again i i love the

business i love the fact that we can get in and we can get out i love the fact that we're going to make sure that that when the job is done that it's cleaned up because that's again that's the main thing that that you know a homeowner yeah does it look nice and is it clean that's probably the only two things that most homeowners care about some are a little more savvy and roofing and what they want but most are which shingle do you recommend okay i'll go with that and and as long as the house is clean

you know i'm gonna love you forever yeah um you know another main thing that that i would tell uh homeowners is is uh you know ask ask the company like how how are you gonna put the ladder up you know i mean because if you just put the ladder onto a gutter you know it can crush that gutter and now you gotta now you got a bent gutter so you know make sure they're using protection you know with the ladders to make sure they're not going to damage the gutters and i think that's a great question to

ask um you know another um you know where are you going to use the bathroom you know i don't want you in my house i don't want you in my house especially using the bathroom and i don't want you on top of the roof peeing into a gatorade bottle you know i don't know how much you do with that you know because i don't want my neighbors being upset with me um you know so that's another you know good question just making sure that there's an understanding that you know if you have to use the restroom

you know where are you going to go you're going to leave right you're going to you're going to go to an outhouse or to a gas station you're going to wait for you know if you take a lunch or if it's you know waiting on a mid-roof inspection or whatever it might be you know what's what's the plan here um that's a good one i never even really thought of that yeah i mean it's it's just it's kind of hard to uh hide it on on top of a roof yeah music is another

one you know do you care if there's music that's playing a lot of guys will just crank the music sure um you know neighbors probably aren't too appreciative of that you know and really it's been it's been difficult for the roofs that we've done especially during cove people are home a lot of times you know especially well either you're if you work from home you're going to be home anyway but people that uh that weren't typically working from home and then were

you know they have to go through that process it's loud you know and another thing too we tell people take the pictures off the wall you know there's going to be a lot of banging we don't want to break any of your pictures you know anything that that's furniture that's that that you know move it away from the wall you know just just take some inside precautions interesting yeah very interesting cool i think this has been like a lot of information like i think we should like break this up and put it into

little bits and pieces for people to digest because it's you got you just got a lot of a lot of awesome awesome information yeah i'm not sure people just sit down tell you he's riveting stuff so you can just sit down and sure i'm sure everybody has watched this from start to finish no bathroom but it is important it really is um to know just again the the the main piece of advice let's go back to the beginning that we can cut out of here is understand what your coverage is that's the first thing you can do you

know do it before a storm comes you know understand so that you are armed with that knowledge and then everything else follow what we talked about and you're going to be a very happy kid that's awesome well chris i appreciate you being here hey thanks for having me yeah you bet thanks a million for coming i'm sure we'll do some more shows and again if you're looking for a great roofing company in denver make sure you go to trustpatrick.com up on the right hand side you're going

to see a button that says find a pro look for a roofer and you're going to get connected with 303 roofer so thanks for watching today we really appreciate you watching the show we hope you join us for our next show we'll be uh live again next week and uh it's gonna be fun so thanks for watching and we will see you again soon [Music] you

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Driveway Grading in Euclid, Ohio

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