The Durable Slate Company

They were excellent.

Well! Roof was assessed and after rain stopped they came right away. Aaron, Justin and Susannah were a pleasure to interact with. The foreman was professional and friendly. We’ll have them back again when we need more done.

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I really can't say enough positive things about Durable Slate, and the owner, John Chan (who is also president of the National Slate Association). From the beginning to the end they were prompt, responsive, extremely knowledgeable, and professional. We bought our house last summer and had a lot of angst about inheriting an old slate roof that clearly had some botched "repairs." From the time of negotiations with the sellers to after moving in, we had 5 roofers give estimates that ranged from $450 to $22,000 which left us pretty confused. Durable Slate was recommended to us by a friend who had recently used them to detect and repair a leak. John showed up on the dot at the time provided to give us our estimate, so that was our first good impression. He clearly knew what he was doing while inspecting our roof, gave us information about the type of slate and possible underlayment, and walked us through his recommended repairs from highest to lowest priority. He mentioned a few things that we could wait on and watch rather than tackling right away. John's estimate landed in the middle of the range of the estimates we received.



While we were still deciding what work to do and which roofer to use, John promptly answered several questions over email. He continued to do that even after we signed the contract and before the work had started. His crews were busy on a hotel in Baltimore, so he couldn't give us a firm date right away for the work to start. But a tree had scraped several slates off our roof, so John came out himself to patch it up temporarily while we were waiting. Then, unexpectedly, the crew had a break from the Baltimore work so we got lucky and the crew was able to devote 4 days to our project. The crew (Aaron, Chico and Bridget) showed up promptly every day, worked hard and carefully, and were courteous about cleaning up and responding to our requests and questions. They seemed to have a lot of experience and also enjoy what they do in preserving these beautiful old roofs. And they corrected the shoddy work from the previous roofers (like shoving an old flattened Pepsi can under the slate!). There was one adjustment to our contract when they discovered the need for some additional flashing halfway through, but John had warned us it might be needed and showed up personally to get our approval for the work.



After Durable Slate completed the work, we watched the roof in heavy rains and snow and didn't have any problems, other than a small leak in a different area of the roof where Durable hadn't been working. John came out (on Thanksgiving Day!!) to diagnose the new leak, and he promptly sent someone to patch over an exposed nail head on the roof peak for no charge (John advised that we should reinforce the peak with copper in the near future for a more permanent solution). Dry as a bone ever since. The copper valleys and new soil pipes continue to look beautiful.



We're so grateful to have a go-to roofing company we can trust now. We highly recommend Durable Slate!!

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Everything was excellent. They were honest, prompt and efficient.