Custom Roofing & Exteriors

I hired Custom Roofing and Exteriors in October, 2010 to re-roof my house due to damage from a hail storm and subsequent insurance claim. They had been referred to me by a coworker that I?ve known for several years. The two people I have dealt with are the salesman, Kevin Weber; and the owner, Dirk Kappel. As soon as the contracts were signed, we noticed a significant shift in performance. Communications became very poor. Voice mails went unreturned. An excuse to the effect of: I don?t get good cell phone coverage in the mountains, was given. Voice mails don?t need coverage to be stored, and not returning the call after a week is unacceptable?especially when it was more than one time. And this was just the start of the problems. After problems with the communications?especially in scheduling the work to be done (we had been told it would be two weeks to get the materials?it turned into 4?with no communications about the schedule,) I contacted the owner, Dirk Kappel. He had scheduled the work to be done without even coordinating with me and it was for 3 days out?and wouldn?t work. Instead of covering every problem we have had, I?ll list the main issues: I found out, after the fact, that our house had been re-roofed without the required license and permit?and that Custom Roofing and Exteriors hid that from us. 1. They destroyed $1,600 worth of commercial grade roof heating cables that were installed on the roof to prevent Ice Dams from forming in the winter. They had 7 weeks prior to re-roofing to remove the cables, were fully aware they were on the roof and were even being paid to remove the cables. Their workers pried the electrical elements off the roof with pitchforks. Weber?s remark while looking at the destroyed cables hanging from our roof was that he would just plug them back in. 2. They didn?t know what building code was for where I live in El Paso County, Colorado. We were told that ?code had changed? since we built our house in 1999-2000. We were told that to pass inspection, we would need to at least double the number of roof and soffit vents on our house?out of pocket. After I learned they didn?t have a license or permit to do the work, I checked on the building code issues. Code hadn?t changed and the roof and soffit vents were not needed. Even if they had, I learned from our insurance agent that building code changes are covered by the insurance policy. They also said that one area of the roof was too shallow a pitch and code no longer allowed it to be covered with shingles. Again, they were wrong. They didn?t even measure the pitch of the roof to see what was correct and applied a roll-out, tar paper shack looking asphaltic material that isn?t what we wanted and makes the front of our house look bad. 3. They didn?t follow the Owens Corning manufacturer?s installation instructions for the shingles. The roof was done in mid/late November in cold temperatures. They put the ridge shingles on in 18-20 degree weather without preheating the shingles as required and cracked many of the ridge shingles and just left them that way. They also didn?t manually seal the shingles in the cold weather as the manufacturer instructs to, and we still have sealing issues with the shingles. 4. They shorted the materials required to do the job so much they had to take two additional days to finish the roof even though the insurance claim provided for more than adequate materials. 5. The owner of the business wasn?t even aware the roof was not completed until I called after the third day of work and asked when it would be completed. No one ever came out to check the roofing work from Custom Roofing and Exteriors except on the 2nd day of re-roofing. No post inspection, no quality control check, nothing. 6. They very minimally tried to clear up all the nails and debris in my driveway and on my lawn. With a cheap Harbor Freight rolling shop magnet, I was able to pick up a significant amount of nails, staples and other metal the roofers left in my driveway and on my lawn that was a safety hazard. 7. They wanted me to sign a blank contract at the time of the initial contract to facilitate follow-on issues with our insurance carrier?which is a poor business practice. 8. They damaged all the entry pathway lighting by throwing roofing debris directly from roof height down onto the lights along our sidewalk. Due to all the problems I experienced with Dirk Kappel and his business, when I learned they weren?t even licensed or had the permits, as required by El Paso County laws, I terminated the contracts and fired them. After two months of attempting negotiations with Kappel, I sent an email in February outlining the remaining issues to be resolved and his response was to file a lien against my house. Even with all the illegal, unethical and unprofessional conduct, and all the damage they caused thru lack of competence, they still expect full contract price, as dictated solely by Kappel, even after they broke the law and damaged my house. Pretty amazing, considering also that they never finished the job, there is still damage to the roof that they caused (that will have to be repaired by a different roofing company)and the paperwork is not complete. If you are planning to hire a roofing company, I?m sure there are good, respectable companies that are there. Check with the County Building Department to see if they are properly licensed and if there are any complaints against them. Custom Roofing and Exteriors is one company to avoid.