Busy Bee Team

We hired Ben Simson and his company to re-shingle the roof of our house. At the time Ben represented himself as a Master shingle applicator certified by the shingle manufacturer. He also sold us a 20-year guarantee on his workmanship through the shingle manufacturer. The work done was a complete tear off, down to the plywood roof decking, and a complete re-shingle. Approximately two years after the roofing work was done by Ben and his company, more than 30 gallons of rain water poured onto our first-floor kitchen ceiling ruining the ceiling. So much water poured in so quickly that it actually poured out of our kitchen cabinets. We ripped apart the inside walls on our second floor and determined that the leak was coming from the area where the house roof meets the outside wall on our rear dormer. We contacted Ben Simson about the problem and spent months trying to get him to fix it but he continually refused. We called the shingle manufacturer about our 20-year workmanship guarantee and it turned out that Ben did not fill out the necessary paperwork with them. Ben had sold us a guarantee that he never actually delivered. Eventually, we hired another contractor to fix the problem. When the leaky area was dismantled, we found that the area was leaking slightly for at least a year, possibly two. We also found that the step flashing had been incorrectly sized and incorrectly installed. It did not meet the minimum size specifications for step flashing and overlap specified by the shingle manufacturer for the shingles that Ben supplied, installed, and was supposedly certified for. The other contractor also found a lot of other workmanship problems on our roof. Even the simplest of flashings was improperly installed or damaged and then repaired by Ben's workmen using substandard methods. The waterproofing house-wrap paper had been deliberately removed from underneath the vinyl siding on our front dormers by Ben's workmen. We again contacted Ben Simson to try to get him to repair these problems, but he continually denied that his workmanship was substandard. We hired an attorney and placed a lawsuit against Ben Simson for almost $10,000, our cost to repair our roof, fix the leak, and repair the damage within our home. The other contractor we hired agreed to testify against Ben Simson's workmanship in court. Our attorney tried to work with Ben to straighten out the problems for another year. Finally, two weeks before the trial was to take place, Ben Simson filed Chapter 13 Bankruptcy stopping the trial and protecting him from our lawsuit. We are currently working with the bankruptcy court to recover the cost of our damages, but our attorney has told us that reimbursement from Ben is extremely unlikely. It turns out that the list of people that Ben Simson owes money to is about four pages long, and he is planning to pay less than one percent of the money that he owes all of us. When we hired Ben Simson and his company, he seemed to have a good reputation with local people we had spoken with. Looking back on it, I'm not sure at all where this reputation had come from. It turns out that Ben Simson is only a roofing broker that subcontracts with another company to actually do the roofing. Go to this URL to see the meeting minutes from a RI Contractors' board meeting where Ben Simson addresses the board to determine if he can avoid purchasing roofing insurance because he is only a roofing broker. [*** Link removed ***] He states that he is simply a roofing subcontractor that subs all work out to another company and he believes that the company he hires to actually do the roofing work should have the responsibility of carrying roofing insurance. Luckily the board did deny his request. On January 11th 2012, at 12:40 PM, Ben Simson again addressed the RI Contractors' board. The minutes for this meeting are available at the following URL. [*** Link removed ***] The portion of the meeting minutes that deals with Ben Simson begins at the top of page 3. This time, Ben tried to get seven claims against him expunged from his record. Based on these meeting minutes, Ben couldn't recall the facts of many of the cases against him or even the people involved. Three of the homeowners involved contacted the board to request that their claims not be removed from Ben's record and one of the homeowners stated that she was still very dissatisfied with the work done on her home by Busy Bee. All of the requests made by Ben to remove the cases against him from his record were denied. I should also note that none of these seven claims against Ben have anything to do with the problems we had with him and his company.

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He was hired by my 78 year old relative to install a new flat roof. He completed the job, was paid and left. I got involved when my 85 Year old relative complained of water damage to the ceiling. I examined the roof, the contract and called Busy Bee. After much delay I was told that he was not responsible.

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They did a very good job. They were fast and professional. We had no problems at all.

Response to initial call was prompt. The older man who came to the house assessed the problem accurately and quickly. We immediately felt we were talking to someone who knew his business. Service was scheduled to occur "in the next week" and by the end of the week one man came and did the entire job in about a half hour. No problems. And no more leaky attic since then!

Overall, it went well. He gave me an estimate and stayed with it. Before they did the roof, I told him the chimney needed to be worked on. He found the mason for that project for me. They are very fast and did a very good job cleaning up. He honored his time commitments.

They were great! Very responsive and took care of our problem right away.

They did the work when we were out of town and cleaned up very well. According to a friend, the work was done in one day before 3:30 PM. The price charged was the same as the estimate.

It went well. I was a little leery of hiring a roofer in general but they made me feel comfortable. I was happy that they have been in business for 30 years. The guys worked very hard and long and did most of the work in two days. One guy came back 2 days later and finished the flashing. They did a very good job of cleaning up debris (we had so much with 4 layers being removed) and did an exceptional job of cleaning up the debris from my neighbors yards in between day one and two.

They did a great job, as there are no leaks. I didn't find them as professional, as some of the other companies, but to be honest, I wasn't really around a whole lot, when they did it. They did have it done in one day, so that was fast.

The roofers were extremely hard working from very early in the morning till after dark. All that roofing was done in 2 days. The only problem was that the workers did not speak any English and so it was hard to communicate with them. With that being said, they did not do my garage on the first day and had taken away that evening. That meant that when they did do the garage, there was no place to put the debris except in the yard. It sat there for almost a week.

THEY CAME TO GIVE ME AN ESTIMATE THE SAME DAY I CALLED THEM. THEY SHOWED UP THE NEXT DAY AND HAD EVERYTHING FINISHED IN THREE DAYS. THAT, AND THE CLEANUP, WAS WONDERFUL.

THEY WERE VERY EFFICIENT. THEY DID AN EXCELLENT JOB. THEY WERE PROMPT AND VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE. THEY DID A VERY GOOD JOB KEEPING THE AREA CLEAN WHILE THEY WERE WORKING. I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS COMPANY.

THIS COMPANY MADE A VERY GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION WITH ME. THE SHINGLES THEY USED COST A LITTLE MORE, BUT THEY ARE THE HIGHEST QUALITY ONES THAT WE COULD GET. THEY LOOK GREAT AND SHOULD LAST FOR A VERY LONG TIME.

THEY DID A SUPER JOB. I WAS QUITE PLEASED, BECAUSE I KNOW A THING OR TWO ABOUT ROOFING. THE BOSS ALWAYS ASKED ME THROUGHOUT THE JOB IF I HAD ANY COMPLAINTS OR QUESTIONS.

I THOUGHT THAT THEY DID AN EXCELLENT JOB. I THOUGHT THAT IT WAS A REALLY GOOD SERVICE. I THINK THAT THE PRODUCT IS REALLY GOOD TOO. THEY SHOWED UP WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO.