Our house was undamaged except for quite a few shingles having been blown off. The roof was nearing the end of it's 15 year shingle life which led us to decide to get a new roof instead of replacing the lost and damaged shingles. The state was full of houses needing roofs. I called every roofer in the area and could not get a return call much less an estimate.
Eventually I got a call from US WIndows Inc in Urbandale last November. Greg Fox was the salesman and told me that they could put up 30 year Malarkey shingles in 40 degree weather so there was a chance that I could get the roof up in November. I researched the company and found no cause for concern in the Better Business Bureau and other review sites and Greg was a fellow chessplayer (tinman on ICC) so I signed a contract to replace my roof and flashing for $18,500 with $1,800 down and the rest on completion. The price was comparable with the last time I had the roof replaced (in 3 pieces) for my steep and large roof, I've never felt you can overpay for quality work whjich I was hopeful I was going to get with a roof that would outlive me.
The day after I signed the contract we got a snowfall which put a 2020 roof out of the question. In March, Greg called me to say it would be a four month delay in getting the Malarkey Legacy shingles I ordered but they could get Malarkey Vista shingles instead. It was a lower quality shingle but still came with a 30 year guarantee. I wanted a roof I would't have to replace again so we negotiated a $1200 reduction in price and I didn't ask why my down payment didn't go towards reserving the shingles we had agreed on.
Levi and Lonnie... US WIndows Inc's roofing supervisors.
On March 10th a truck came with 3 pallets of shingles, nails, ridge vents, and roof vents which we had put in the driveway. No one came to even look at the merchandies until the next Wednesday when I first met the head roofers, Levi Paul and Lonnie Foley. They noticed right away that the shingles were not the Malarkey Vista shingles. I hadn't noticed and this gave me a good feeling that I had hired an honest company to do my roof.
The correct shingles arrived Wednesday, March 24th and sat there until March 31st when an old pickup truck pulled into the driveway and a host of ladders, tarps, and other roofing equipment were placed in the front and back yard. The next day (April 1st) three workers arrived at 10am and started tearing down the roof that covers the front entry and awning over the first floor. The workers were gone when I got back home from work at 4:15 and had torn off some of the roof but the tarps remained in the truck and were not used to cover the unshingled parts of the roof. No one came to work on the roof until the next Monday (4 days later). There were a different group of three workers who worked the next three days starting around 10 and gone by 4:15. All three days when I came home for lunch the workers left, presumably for their own lunch, and had not returned by 12:50 when I left to go back to work. On April 7th, after four days of work and seven calendar days the front part of the roof seemed complete.
This is how the first group of workers left my house for four days.
No one showed up after that until the next Tuesday April 13th. For the next five days Lonnie Foley from US WIndows Inc in Urbandale (one of the head roofers) worked on the garage all by himself. Lonnie seemed like a nice enough guy and told me that he was 63 and his back was bad and he was going to get a state job and give up roofing. I asked both Lonnie and Levi about the front part of the house where it seemed like the shingles were uneven and was told that after a few hot days the shingles would flatten out.
Lonnie finished the garage on Saturday April 17th and no one showed up at the house until Thursday April 22nd when three men started to tear down one of the valleys at the top of the house. When I got home from work the workers were gone and the valley stripped and covered with underlayment and some plastic wrapping but the wrapping was flapping in the wind and there was a 30% chance of rain with no tarp over the exposed roof (roofs should be tarped when there is a chance of rain according to www.roofingexperts.com). I called Chris Sergio at US WIndows Inc in Urbandale he got ahold of Lonnie Foley who came to the house and told me there was no chance of rain. I went in the house and printed a fresh weather report showing a 30% chance of rain. Lonnie said he needed to go to Menards for some nails and came back a half an hour later and nailed down one piece of the plastic sheeting but did not tarp the roof.
This is how the second group of workers left my house with a 30% chance of rain.
It didn't rain that night and the next day the same three workers got some of the shingles on the roof but had not finished the valley and did not tarp the roof on Friday night either. On Saturday, a crew of over a dozen workers arrived to work. The roof was torn down and reshingled except the small area over a side door. The US WIndows Inc in Urbandale roofers Levi and Lonnie were not supervising the work, I noticed that on one side of the house the roofers put tarps over a few bushes in a haphazard fashion. I have some rose bushes on that side of the house from at least 1994 when we bought the house that were not covered and one of the bushes was uprooted from being pelted with roof debris.
A sample of the sloppy tarps over my bushes and some of the nails and roof debris on our yard after TWO sweeps by US WIndows Inc in Urbandale.
When we looked at the house the next morning, the roof was on. There were over a dozen holes, breaks, and deep scrapes in the house siding. The metal flashing that seals the house to the bottom of the roof was loose and disconnected all around the house, There was also a broken section on the cement work at the bottom of the chimney as well as lots of shingles that seemed to be sticking up at odd angles as if they were not nailed down. The head of the roofing crew that did all this damage showed up on Sunday to finish up with a couple of helpers. It started raining so he told me he would finish up on Monday. I told him about the broken siding and flashings and chimney and he said I would have to bring it up with Levi. Then he left and it started raining and the piece of roof that wasnt finshed wasn't tarped.
A sample of the broken siding and the last section of the roof left uncovered in the rain by US WIndows INC of Urbandale.
I wrote to Greg Fox and Chris Sergio of US WIndows Inc in Urbandale and sent them some pictures of the broken siding. The three roofing crew guys that came on Sunday returned on Monday and finished up in the afternoon. On Tuesday, Lonnie and Levi arrived. Kathy and I showed them the damage. Levi said he couldn't match the siding but was going to go to Menards and find the best match he could. They spent the afternoon scrubbing the scrapes..On Wednesday, Levi showed up and replaced some of the broken siding using pieces from a corner of the house and putting the mismatched siding from Menards in the corner. When I came home from lunch, Levi showed me what he had done as asked if I could pay him the balance on the job. I told him he would get paid when he finished the job. Levi told me that the chimney was sealed off properly and the flashing and weird shingles would settle down as soon as we got a week of hot weather. I mentioned that there were a lot of nails and shingles around the house so he had Lonnie pick up the debris with a magnet. Kathy went over the area after Lonnie and got three gallon ziploc bags of nails that Lonnie missed.
No workers showed up on Thursday and on Friday April 30th, Greg Fox the US WIndows Inc in Urbandale salesman called me and said he wanted to get paid. I told him that there was a lot of siding still broken but that since I owed over $15000 I would provide some of the payment. Levi came that afternoon, fixed another couple of pieces of siding and I gave him a check for $5600. After getitng paid a third, of their money, Levi and Lonnie got sloppy and were breaking the moldings of the siding while they were fixing the broken pieces. They even replaced a piece of siding with another piece that had a screw hole in it and told me it was a piece of dirt when I asked about it. When I got on the ladder and showed them the screw hole they tried to fix it with some putty and off color paint.
I'm not a roofing expert but I have had roofs put on the house before. Judging by the way Levi and Lonnie and their crew had wrecked the siding and the amount of nails that Kathy found in the driveway after TWO CLEANUPS there was only one conclusion I could draw : Levi Paul, Lonnie Foley, and the crew they had working on my house were NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF SLOBS.. Add in the company from Greg Fox the salesman to Levi Paul the head roofing guy were very pushy on getting paid before finishing the job and had such quick answers to my concerns about the flashing, shingles, and chimney without ever climing on the roof. And consider that Levi Paul and Lonnie Foley started replacing broken siding with siding with holes in it and telling me it was dirt and then trying to stick putty over the broken siding.
Given all these factors, I decided I was going to call in a roof inspector to check the roof. On Tuesday May 4th, Bob from Roof Iowa in Ankeny arrived and inspected the roof. He told us we had overpaid for the roof by $3,000 to $5,000. I didn't care too much about that since roofers have been hard to come by since the derecho. What I did care about was Bob found dozens of exposed nails, uncaulked areas where the roof meets the house, shingles not over the edge of the house. Bob also told us that the flashng and shingles were not going to take care of themselves in the heat, and that the gutter aprons (where the roof meets the gutter) were not installed properly. Bob also had concerns about the chimney but said he talked to Levi and told me that Levi had checked out the chimney and said it was good. I told Bob that no one saw Levi climb a ladder to the top of the roof and Bob said I should wait for a good rain before paying. Bob did think the garage was done properly.
A sample of the bare nails, broken flashing, gaps where roof meets house, roof debris left in gutters, and generally sloppy workmanship. This and more were found by Bob from Roof Iowa during his inspection after US WIndows Inc of Urbandale told me three separate times the job was done and wanted me to pay them because the job was complete.
Over the next two weeks Levi and Lonnie and some workers came by every few days to fix the broken siding and the rest of Bob's list and kept on wanting to be paid. On May 8th we had a big rainstorm. The roof held up well an we found no leaks except for the spot where the chimney had it's cement seal broken. I tried to call Levi but his phone's voice mail was full so I wrote to Chris Sergio and Greg Fox from US WIndows Inc in Urbandale to let them know the situation. On sunday afternoon Lonnie called me to say he would be there Monday morning first thing to fix the chimney. On Monday I came home for lunch and Lonnie had not been there. I called Lonnie and he said he would be there first thing Tuesday morning. On Tuesday Lonnie did not show up and I called Bob who recommended Ron Purdy as someone that could fix my roof. I called Ron and he came on Thursday and tarred the chimney and caulked another dozen spots that Levi and Lonnie and crew missed. There is still a leak by the chimney which Ron said he will fix as soon as there is some dry weather (we have not had three sunny days in a row since he tried to fix the leak the first time).
Here is the leak in my roof right where the chimney was damaged after Levi Paul from US WIndows Inc of Urbandale said he had 'inspected' the work.
Eventually Levi and Lonnie took care of all the issues that Bob and Kathy and I found. Chris Sergio agreed to reduce the invoice by the cost of the roof inspection and Ron's leak repair. I suppose it could be said that US WIndows Inc in Urbandale stands by their work. I prefer to think that US WIndows Inc in Urbandale finished their work because I wouldn't pay them until the job was complete. I also think that US WIndows Inc in Urbandale is a company that employs a bunch of slobs that charge top dollar for shoddy work. Chris Sergio told me that he has used Levi Paul for roofing projects many times and this was the first problem he had ever heard of. I not calling Chris Sergio of US WIndows Inc in Urbandale a liar but my thought on that statmene is 'Suuuurrrre'. I fell like Levi Paul, Chris Sergio, Greg Fox of US WIndows Inc in Urbandale would have been happy to let me pay the bill with a leaky roof, broken siding, three gallons of nails in the driveway, bare nails sticking out of my roof, shingles not overhanging the house, and all the other issues Kathy, Bob, and I found.The fact that a roof inspector had to point these problems out instead of Levi Paul or Lonnie Foley of US WIndows Inc in Urbandale checking their crew's work and taking care of the issues before asking to be paid speaks volumes.
Chris Sergio of US WIndows Inc in Urbandale told me that if I had any problems with my roof his company would stand behind their work. I wouldn't let these guys anywhere near my house again. I'm not writing this post to beat myself up or to cause trouble for US WIndows Inc in Urbandale.I'm writing this post to let people know about this company
and see if others have had the same experiences and if the post ends up being in the front page of google search resilts for US WIndows Inc in Urbandale so much the better.
