Complain about a product or service

Champion Roofs

Los Angeles

Jenaffer of Claremont, CA, writes:
Champion Roofs, Inc is a roofing company located in Los Angeles. They sent a salesman/estimator, Charles, out to my home to estimate a repair needed due to some visible water stains on the interior ceiling in the kitchen. He offered me 3 different plans per the contract. He encouraged me to get my entire roof redone.

I requested that at this time I just get the ceiling leak repaired in the one spot in the kitchen. He set up the job. About 2 weeks later two men came to my home to do the job. And although the Assistant Manager, Anthony, stated that the men would be at my house by no later than 8:30 a.m., they did not arrive until close to noon.

I was livid and called the Manager, Kurt. I insisted that I either be compensated for the inconvenience of waiting or that I would cancel my work order. He told me he would take $50 off the job because it wasn't really worth that much anyway. I asked him if he meant that I was not really worth much to him as a customer. He said "yes" that basically it was a small job. They were not making that much money off of me so I was not prioritized due to my small patch-job of $550.

I assured him that in my world $550 is still a lot of money. That was in July 99.

Now, a few rains later. . . I have learned that my roof not only still causes water damage; the ceiling leaks now (it didn't leak before the roof job).

After 2 weeks of calling and arguing with them over the phone, they finally sent someone out to take a look at it. They took my hose to the roof and sprayed away. Lo and behold it leaked. The worker's explanation regarding the leak was, "Oh, that is the part of the roof next to the part that we fixed. See we did this here part as the contract says. This is a different problem here."

Yes, we were looking at the same part of the roof together. I was incredulous and told him that was the dumbest thing I had heard in a while.

The idea of paying Champion Roofs, Inc. was to stop the leak. They came and made an estimation to determine what repairs would stop the leak. They did not do the job. The thing still leaks. I will be taking these knuckleheads to court ASAP. My kitchen ceiling not only has larger water stains, the damn thing leaks now!

A roofer responds

Tim of Warwick NY writes:
Jenaffer complains that the roofer didn't do a good job. They recommended a new roof, she refused and asked what else could be done. They offered to try to repair it. From experience I know that a roof defect which is detected, whether a crack, opening, puncture, penetration, etc., might be open and require fixing, but might not be the only thing contributing to a leak. Water flows downhill and multiple defects might all show up in the same place.

Champion came, found a defect and fixed that defect. Roofers do not "stop leaks" They repair defects in the roof. Had she followed the recommended advice to REPLACE HER ROOF she would not have had a problem. My Swiss Cheese has many holes in it. I covered over 99% of them. The one remaining one was the actual problem one. At what point do you limit what you can do?

You are being unfair to Champion, and misleading, based on your article. They made a judgement call and fixed a defect, while trying to keep within her budget. In NY State the prevailing wage for government work is $376.00 per day and with FICA (7.65%)and Workers Compensation (39%)the COST to put a man on the roof for an 8 hour day is $551.40 and the owner didn't make any overhead or profit. If he sent 2 men for 4 hours (including travel which he still has to pay for)and used some materials-HE DID THE JOB FOR FREE!!!

Jenaffer should be thanking him instead of being angry. He did his attempted repair at a loss!

Consumer Affairs is damaging the reputation of all roofers by misleading people into thinking that a single repair could stop all their problems and that an owners choice to not perform the recommended solution absolves them of any responsibility.

Tim's points are well-founded and we thank him for writing.

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