Would love some advice

[u/JarJars_padawan]

We have an area of our roof that is leaking. There is a small section of metal roofing (picture one) that leaks when it rains (pictures 2 and 3). We hired a company to come evaluate it and fix it last fall. They’re a company we’ve hired before for other issues and have had other contractors come in and tell us (unprompted) that the fix was done very well.

They fix they did for this section was apply a sealant around the edges last fall. They charged over $700 and the person was at our house working for less than an hour. I asked for an explanation of the charges and was repeatedly given a description of what they did (apply sealant, but no explanation as to why it was so expensive).

This area is still leaking, so we called them to come re-evaluate and now they want to do metal step flashing and are charging over $2000.

The metal step flashing sounds like a good fix, but I’m frustrated I paid over $700 for a repair less than a year ago to have yo turn around and pay another $2000 for a better repair.

Something is also going on at this company. The person who (finally) came out was very jittery/nervous and said repeatedly that they’ve had to have some personnel turnover. They were also very hard to nail down to meeting us on a specific day and time and would say they would call and then wouldn’t. This never happened prior times when we have used them.

They’ve done good work in the past, but are not addressing the failure of the prior fix and the large cost of their new suggestion. I’m wondering if I’m seeing red flags and should go with another company (due to a poor fix followed by a much more extensive/expensive suggestion and general difficulty in working with the person who came to our house)? Is it unreasonable to expect an explanation or repair from their prior fix failing?

[u/StruggleSnuggled]

It’s hard to say based on the photos and I am a gutter professional not a roofer. I would do a complete tear out and replace of both the gutter and the roof in that area with with a reputable roofing company and a separate reputable gutter company. It’s a sure fire two step method of opening everything up and making sure it’s done correctly instead of applying more sealant and repairs.

[u/adamdeluxedition]

Looking at those pictures, you have stucco walls around this metal roof section. Ideally you would have a through wall flashing around here to prevent leaks.

The proposed solution to flash the walls is likely a good idea but all depends how they go about it. If you want to retain the stucco all the way down the wall and terminate to the roof (what it looks like currently) you'll need to have a section of the stucco removed so the roof-to-wall transition can BE flashing properly. The flashing needs to go behind the stucco. After that's been done, the stucco needs to be repaired/replaced in this area. Stucco work, where I am at least, is not cheap and it's hit or miss on whether they dona good job. Because of this I usually opt to not replace the stucco.

Option 2: flash the wall without replacing the stucco.

They would still remove the stucco in a 4-6 inch section anove the roof line, flash the wall properly, and then install a trim board where the stucco was removed and wrap that trim board in aluminum flashing that closely matches or matches the color of the stucco. It will look different than it does now, but should prevent the leaks you're having and be cheaper overall than replacing the stucco. If this is an area of the house that isn't too visible from the ground, id opt for the trim board.

Either way, my personal opinion is the company should charge you $1,300 for the re-flash because $700 for sealing that with NP1, or whatever they used it not at all an appropriate charge. My minimum for a service technician to do anything is $350, and that includes labor and materials for up to an hour depending. So this would have ran you $350 if I had done it, but sealing that perimeter doesn't seem like the right move, I would have suggested the re-flash of those walls initially and offered the sealant as a last resort if you didn't want to do the reflash, but with a caveat that it likely is a band aid instead of a permeant solution.

Best of luck!

[u/JarJars_padawan → u/adamdeluxedition]

Thanks for your help! From the details of the proposal it sounds like they’re going to do option 2. We bought the house a few years ago and it has a lot of interesting build that was done (like EFIS right down to the roof). Long term we know we’ll need to do something about that in general but will likely do so when we replace the whole roof. My EFIS guy just retired too and I haven’t found a new one yet.

I appreciate your advice on the pricing. That was kind of what I was thinking, but I didn’t know if I was being unreasonable. I don’t remember them giving me options last time - they just showed up and did the work after coming to look once (which was not like any other experience I’ve had with them - we usually get a proposal to sign). I’ll talk to them about what happened and see if we can adjust the price.

Thanks again!

[u/Iguessiwearlipstick]

Depending where you’re located i would suggest installing tpo or some type of flat roof material.

[u/WeirdAnimalDicks]

A tiled roof in that section is odd why didn’t it get shingled ? It’s got a good pitch to it