Do hire a contractor who is certified by the shingle makers...you will have a longer warranty this way. This provides confidence that the crews have been trained to do proper installations, which is needed to ensure the shingles stay put as long as possible. Do hire a contractor who has worker's comp insurance, and ask for proof. Do read the fine print on proposals. As I said, one of the contractors I called had said they would work with no downpayment, only requesting payment at the end, but the actual quote page had fine print requiring a large downpayment... Not a huge deal with the balance being paid only after the work is complete, but this indicates a lack of attention to detail, an inconsistency. You do not want to hire a contractor who does not pay attention to detail or who is inconsistent. Do visit reference houses and call references to talk about the work done by the contractor. Look for more than one reference. As I said, one of the contractors I called, who was in fact certified by the shingle maker, provided only one reference, which he had scribbled illegibly at the top of the quote sheet. How unprofessional. I attempted to read the scribble. The only street name I could decipher from the scribble does not in fact exist Raleigh. I looked, for that name and a couple of variations. Basically, there were no references. Everyone else provided a nice computer printout with addresses and phone numbers. That's what you want. At least a handful of references that actually exist. Do check the better business bureau to see if there is a record for the contractor, and check out any reports that exist.
Description of Work: I asked Tom to stop by the house and provide a quotation to install a new roof. Old roof had numerous shingles fly off over the past few years, and some of the flashing had started to fail....water coming into the house around a couple of windows. I had called *5* separate contractors and received quotes from all of them. All of them were certified with the various shingle makers and most provided what I consider to be high quality proposals. (One contractor, though a certified installer, provided a weak proposal and only one, completely illegible, hand-scrawled reference address. Another verbally stated certain payment terms but the written quote had fine print with different terms.) Tom presented his proposal in a nice booklet that included the cost estimate, as well as a lot of information about the shingle warranties, the various detail work involved in doing a proper installation, etc. His proposal package was a bit more complete than the other contractors. His presentation was not as flashy/fancy as some others (one other had shown many photos on an iPad for example), but Tom impressed me. He made a point to talk about detail work, about the importance of training the crew and keeping them refreshed on training. He also made a point to talk about things that might require that I call a separate contractor for work his crew is not licensed to perform. I like this. For example, nobody else talked about the possibility of issues related to natural gas vent pipes (e.g., for hot water heater and gas furnace) that could, *potentially*, become damaged by the vibrations while they were working on the roof...which would require someone licensed to work on gas systems do extra repair work. I appreciate that Tom pointed this out to me before hand. In fact, nothing happened and there was no need for a separate contractor...probably this is rare. But I appreciate having that discussion before starting the work, just in case. I'd rather have the information just in case, and avoid a surprise later on. I found Tom to be direct/straightforward, but polite and patient. One other thing set Tom apart: his company's workmanship warranty, which stands at ten years in addition to the shingle maker's warranty. I selected Tom's crew (Pablo et al.) to install a new roof on my house. Certainteed Landmark architectural shingles. The crew removed the old shingles, the old underlayment paper, replaced 3 sheets of failing sheathing plywood, installed new underlayment, including a special waterproofing underlayment in valleys, then shingles. In addition, they installed a new skylight, drip edges, new flashing, lead (not rubber) vent stack boots, etc. The final product looks FANTASTIC. I would also like to point out that the crew took great care to clean the yard, during and after the work was done. I came home on the 2nd day, as they were finishing, to find the entire crew walking slowly around the backyard with tools, looking for scraps to pick up. They did a very fine job at the cleanup. I found one small piece of shingle, just one. I found one nail sitting on the top of my rain barrel. I found a couple of small strips of plastic that had been pulled off the back of the new shingles. But really, that is next to nothing. I've had a bunch of trash in the yard from a prior roofing contractor doing just minor repair work (replace a couple of strips of shingles and a vent stack boot) on the old roof...on this job was nothing of note. They did what was promised and kept the yard CLEAN. I would also like to point out that the crew was quite focused on the job. I didn't speak to most of them. I did speak with Pablo, briefly, on the first day. Nice guy. Friendly, courteous. They obviously care about what they do. This is clear. It's a hard job. I am extremely pleased with the outcome.