Tri-State Construction, co

I requested bids for my roof replacement from 3 companies, including Tri State Construction. It's a two story colonial with attached garage and two large porches. The work involved stripping the old shingles, installing new GAF shingles, and replacing about 75' of fascia and soffit boards with equivalent Azek trim. I chose Tri-State based on the glowing review of a co-worker, whose parents had Tri State replace their roof with good results. The contract was signed 6/4, with a deposit. One of the requirements was that the company be a GAF certified installer. Tri-state had apparently let their certification lapse, though they advertised as being certified on their website. I was given an approximate start date of 7/15. I had my solar panels removed on 7/12, in preparation. I realize when doing roof work, other people have emergencies and the weather is not always good. However, by the end of July, they weren't certified and could not give me a start date. After I returned from vacation after the first week of August, made a lot more phone calls, and waited for them to get my building permit, they started work on 8/14. To be fair, it was smoking hot outside. This is where the best part of working with the company came out. Their final work product is excellent. They are neat, they are fast, all the materials were as specified. They swept up every night, they did not play a radio, they did not smoke, and they kept the air compressor inside their truck, so it was fairly quiet. With the job halfway done (it took 4 days), we had a 3" rain storm. Nothing leaked. As far as the actual roofing and soffit work went, the job was excellent. The solar panel re-install crew gave the roof high marks for quality as they put my panels back on the roof. However, they did point out I lost almost 6 weeks of production due to the delays during the best weather of the year. Upon completion and inspection, I found one of my gutters was not re-installed correctly. It only drains on one end, yet they bowed it up in the middle like it had drains on both ends....leaving me with standing water in the gutter. John the salesman assured me the crew would return to fix it the next day. So, I made my final payment by certified check; they did sign a lien waiver.....and they never returned to fix my gutter. So I will end up doing it myself this weekend (9/12). These guys were not the lowest bid (but they were close), and I was overly swayed by a personal review rather than relying on Angies List reviews (the other two companies were solid A's on Angie's List. Trust Angie! Instead I waited an extra 5 weeks for my job to get done, and had to deal with the drama of expired certifications and finally, non-existent follow-up on a legitimate problem found at completion of the work. With so many roofing companies out there, I would think the way to distinguish a company is with attention to details like paperwork, answering customer questions, and following up on problems. Tri-State is a group of great roofers, but not so great at customer relations.