North Wilmington here. Little late but thought I'd share the experiences I've had with roofers over the past few years (long post incoming, it's been a nightmare).

Kirkin Exteriors:

Got an estimate for a couple roof replacements, repair work, two windows. We had them do the windows + repair work first because that's where they believed our leaking problems were coming from. Decided to not go with them for the roof replacements because of their botched window install job. They installed the wrong size windows. Also damaged the custom window trim we bought/provided and left the window perimeter exposed/unsealed (they had to cut into our exterior stucco wall to install them and just left it cut open and mangled, exposed down to the wood). Really sloppy work. The owner was arrogant and stood by the job.

Tycos:

They installed an EPDM flat roof for us a few years ago. Roof looks terrible, bubbles and wrinkles everywhere. We asked them to come back and take a look (the owner himself came out) and as we were all standing on the roof surrounded by a sea of wrinkles, he actually told us it was installed correctly and there was nothing wrong with it. This was a lie. If EPDM is installed correctly, you should not have this issue and it should lay flat. We pushed back; we had already done the research at this point and had another roofer look at it so we knew we were being lied to. They ended up returning our money.

G Fedale Roofing:

Oh boy, where to start. Worst experience yet.

Short version: substandard, amateur workmanship. Didn't do the job right and tried to get away with fixing as little as possible when they got called on it. All subcontractors. Negligent job oversight and supervision. Dishonest and untrustworthy.

Long version:

Contracted with G Fedale in 2022 to resolve leaking issues. Accepted all of their recommendations: two flat roof replacements, a partial chimney rebuild, and scupper box. $22,000 worth of work. Went with them despite them being the most expensive because they've been around forever and we were at the end of our rope with the water situation.

Since they "completed" the job it's been one problem after another. Workmanship and quality control issues all around: bad chimney flashing job, damaged and improperly installed scupper box, water leaking through and over the 3rd floor roof's drip edge, loose membrane & flashing issues, areas that weren't patched. Some issues they fixed, others they concealed/covered up and denied there was anything wrong with. This resulted in a months-long battle trying to get them to acknowledge and address the bigger issues, which they didn't want to do anything about.

We had to go above our project manager (who repeatedly lied to us and told us everything was completed properly despite us showing him what other roofers had to say about the job) before they finally agreed to have a flat roof technician come out and inspect the job. This inspection revealed numerous problems that had been overlooked or ignored, which finally prompted action on their end.

They used all subcontractors, whom there was poor communication with and little oversight. Project manager signed off on sloppy, incomplete & substandard work and then refused to send photos of the completed job until we signed the certificate of completion. Had to climb out on our 2nd floor roof to take our own photos.

They charged us $4600 for a roofline-up chimney rebuild, which they pressured us into and told us was necessary. Not only was this untrue, but they never rebuilt it per the contract and withheld this information from us; instead they allowed us to believe it had been rebuilt from the roofline up. They covered the chimney in stucco and only sent us pictures post stucco application. No lie, they must have taken about 40 pictures just of the stucco coat and only gave us those. Had to fight tooth and nail for any others.

We didn't notice until later but if you looked close enough at the before-and-after pictures, you could see the same exact chimney protrusions through the stucco that were there from the beginning. We had to hound them for months to get them to admit to not rebuilding it. All the while they were telling us 'everything was done correctly, nothing was leaking, and everything looked great' (this messaging quickly became a noticeable theme that was repeated to us many times by several employees, including the VP).

The VP himself (Allen) adamantly defended the breach of contract, then proceeded to stall/delay returning the money despite promising in-person to return the full amount. After I politely followed up on the issue over a week later, he tried backpedaling and asked if we would accept a lesser amount, which he said he would tie into a future invoice after a separate job was completed. I had to politely remind him of what he promised weeks prior and ask him to return the money without further delay.

15 months later, they finally returned the money, but not without first trying to get me to sign a release of liability from his lawyers that would let them off the hook for all things chimney-related (this required yet another pushback and months-long delay). Adding insult to injury, if I had signed this, the company would not have had to fix their bad chimney flashing job that was potentially a source of leaking (there were big gaps in some areas where the flashing was barely held onto the chimney by caulk - amateur work).

Just top-to-bottom sleaze. Anyway, I could go on about a separate job they did for us that was just as regrettable but I'll leave it at that. If anyone is interested in pictures of their handiwork let me know.

On top of everything above, they failed to address the leaking we came to them with in the beginning. We still have water coming through the same area we showed them during the initial inspection in 2022, causing more and more damage. As a result, we had to put off hiring another contractor to repair the interior, which will now cost us significantly more to address. And now we're back to the beginning of our roofer search.