Old Florida Roofing & Sheet Metal, Inc.

This is a really hard review to write because #1 - The People were very, very, very nice.  #2 - The actual work was good.  HOWEVER it was truly a nightmare getting this roof put on. 

Michelle in the office who has to field phone calls deserves to become a Saint in her next life because I'm sure she gets caught in the middle of quite a few angry calls. 

We live in Missouri and bought our retirement home on Pine Island, FL. We are using it as a vacation rental until we retire.  We needed a new roof on the Florida rental and my husband chose to use Old Florida Roofing after speaking with Dooper, the owner.  He felt he used quality materials and liked that. 

The contract was finalized on November 11, 2015.  Dooper said he would start work in 2 weeks and that at most it would take 4 days.  We blocked out this time without renters and my husband planned a maintenance trip from December 12, 2015 through December 19, 2015.  When he arrived, the roof was not on and there was no material delivered.  He called and was told they would be there on Monday.  Nobody showed up. The day before he returned home, they delivered the materials.  The materials were ordered on 12/16/15 (according to our credit card charge).   Neighbors kept us apprised of what was taking place, which was absolutely nothing after my husband came home. 

We returned on January 1, 2016 and again we were assured they would be there “Monday”.  Nobody showed.  This went on every week.  My husband had to go back home to work – but I stayed because we couldn’t rent the house out until this roof was completed. 

There was a lot of rain in January but it came in huge down pours with days of sun in between.  We had 2 tornadoes and crazy weather with stretches of beautiful weather.  The Roofers showed up January 12 and started on the shingle removal and laying the new underlayment.  They showed up sporadically throughout January.  After a few weeks the underlayment was done and then the roofers disappeared.  Our lawn care people and pool maintenance people stepped on roofing nails.  I stepped on roofing nails.  I picked up roofing nails for days. 

Again… we called and called and were told they would be there Monday.  Then we were told it was the Lee County Inspector holding things up.  The Inspector came and approved the work to go ahead with the metal install (but requested a 2nd permit be issued for the garage because it is a separate building).  The permit was applied for immediately and showed up on the Lee County website.  Still no roofers.    No work.  No materials.  This goes on for weeks.  Finally, I get a call asking what credit card I want the metal charged to.  This occurred on January 25, 2016.  I about fell over when I found out that they hadn’t even ordered the material to be used.  It had been two full months since we’d signed the contract! 

By now I’ve been gone a long time and my husband comes back down February 10th.  No material has been delivered and we are losing our minds.  FINALLY the metal arrives (but not all of it) and they start putting metal on the house.  They have almost the entire house done and none of the garage when we have to leave to go home on February 19, 2016.   They say they will be all finished and cleaned up by the following Monday.  So we tell the property manager to put the house back on the rental market. 

We head home and find out as soon as we pulled out of the driveway – so did the roofers.  Again they disappeared.  They didn’t reappear again until March.  We had to turn renters away – after missing most of the season already! 

So they finally finish the roof but leave a pile of debris in the driveway in front of the garage.  We had to hire someone to move the pile off to the side so we didn’t have to cancel renters AGAIN.

The final inspection and payment were done on March 10, 2016.

The roof looks to be a good one and Dooper and his crew are all very nice but it was the most disorganized place I’ve ever dealt with (maybe equal to Comcast).    

If you have no timeline – they do good work.  They had to travel to Pine Island and they would show up for a couple hours a day randomly.  So much travel time must have added up.  If they had just come and worked for 4 days straight everyone would have been happy.  Why not order materials all at once?  I don’t know what the problem was but a 4 day job took 3 months. 

The take-off, metal installation and finishing went as planned with no set backs. The appearance of the metal roof is first c

lass and met or exceeded all of my expectations. Pricing was very competitive for the system provided. Moreover, the contractor made installation improvements which were needed to overcome site aberrations. All invovled were responsive, willing to make adjustments and worked as 1 team.

For the amount of work it was , the replacement went well. The only hiccup involved confusion over the hurricane straps which caused a delay of about a week. Workers worked very hard and were conscientious, the owner Dooper stopped by to check every day the workers were there to discuss progress. We stayed dry during the period and the roof is now complete. There were a lot of segments to stripping
off an old roof and installing a new one, especially in Florida with multiple inspections , making sure the roof is according to strict code.

15 days after the warranty ran out ( it hadn't rained in quite a while) the leak started again in the same place.  We called many times to have them come and look and twice they set a schedule to come but never showed. or called.  Just stood us up.  When we got someone else to come, they reported that the original repair was not done correctly.  We are going to take these people to small claims court, but just don't bother with them in the first place.  Very unprofessional and shoddy work.

The owner/operator is a very affable guy who will promise the world to get the job but falls painfully short on his ability to get it done.  Contracted with them in May of 2013 and as of December of 2013 all of the work is still not completed despite numerous promises by the owner.  In order to get the work completed, I had to bring in another contractor at my own expense.  USE AT YOUR OWN RISK!

The owner became a friend-doing extra things for me for no charge. Repaired unseen rot on my roof for just his laborers' time. He found me deals on other materials and services. He is an honest man.