Hello from Garvey Roofing!
So, this is my first attempt at a blog for a business. As I learned from my boss, the man himself, Tom Garvey (hence, ya know, the name) the best way to figure out how to do something is… well… by doing it.
So here I am! It’s going to be fun, and all my fault.
*cracks knuckles*
We here at Garvey Roofing Inc. believe in being straightforward, honest, and will let you know exactly what’s needed when it comes to roofing concerns.
We repair and replace commercial and residential roofs. We also do solar installations, insulation installation (say that ten times fast) and gutter installations. In all these categories, we are fully licensed. We don’t do repairs as far as gutters go, but we have people we can refer in that regard.
A small but noticeable portion of our work also seems to be fixing bad work done by others. And these people come in all shapes and sizes.
They aren’t just That Guy Your Neighbor Knows who drives a 1973 Ford pickup that looks like it was unearthed from the bottom of the ocean 6 years ago, works alone, and blasts Black Sabbath from the cement-encrusted stereo he drags around. I know a few guys who roughly fit that description- the independent contractor who obviously isn’t rolling in money- and for the most part they really do know what they are doing. But not all, especially when it comes to roofing, which is an art in itself.
Also, “legit” companies do bad work as well. We’ve been chasing around bad work done by a company based out of Sunland for the past, maybe, 10 years or so. Their M.O. seems to be: go out of business, change their name, tarnish that name… rinse and repeat. I couldn’t tell you what they’re called now, because really I don’t know.
There are several entities out there who are unlicensed, uninsured and will have drastically lower bids than anyone else. Then they’ll do bad work, and you’ll only find out long after. You try to get a hold of them… and the number doesn’t work anymore or they never pick up. It happens more than you’d think, sadly.
Yes! They’re cheaper! And believe me, I understand that. If you knew what you were talking about in terms of roofing, then you probably wouldn’t be calling a roofer. This is why tradesman exist. And there are those out there who exploit the ignorance of their customers.
We do not like these people. To be plain about it, they are liars and thieves.
They give legitimate tradesman such as ourselves a bad name. On more than once occasion (that I’ve heard of; I wasn’t here during these instances) Tom has gone after such people, especially in cases where the elderly where taken advantage of. Arrests resulted. It was great. He has two letters from elderly folk thanking him for the work he did for them, and the advice he provided afterwards in chasing down the people who screwed them over to get their money back.
Sidenote: Always make sure people doing work on your house are insured. If they aren’t insured and get hurt by falling off your roof, getting cut, burned, etc., they can sue you and win. The reason why people wouldn’t get insured is because it’s really expensive (California is not too friendly to small business, I’ve found.) and if work isn’t steady and consistent year-round, fees and everything from being a legitimate business alone will put someone under. It sucks, but the reality there is also customers are at risk by hiring people who aren’t licensed, bonded and insured in the work they are doing.
Here at Garvey Roofing Inc., we tell the truth even if isn’t really to our advantage, we deliver what we say we will, and also (this should seem obvious) when we start a job, we don’t leave the job until it is done.
Why would one leave a job before it’s done? It’s a given, really, and assumed (rightfully) that if someone comes to fix your roof/plumbing/driveway/wiring/etc. that they start the job, and then finish the job in a realistic time frame, and it’s fixed, and you pay them, and all is well.
Believe it or not… not always. There are roofing companies out there who will “predict” how long it will take them to get a job done, and when they go past their own projected schedule, they leave with a “we’ll get to it when we can”, and that’s it. Oftentimes, yes, they do come back to finish the job… much, much later. Meanwhile… you’re waiting…
And that’s not cool.
Once we start a job, we don’t leave until it’s done. This is both a good thing and, can be, a hindrance too. It’s a hindrance in that we can’t accurately say when the job will actually be done, thus knowing when the next job will start, and so on. This is for a litany of reasons, but primarily from unforeseen setbacks, such as damage that can only be found by actually opening the roof up that then needs to be fixed, bad weather, financial setbacks on part of the customer, material supplies for the job, a meteorite plummeting from the heavens and busting a massive, smoldering hole in the roof… ya know, I bet that’s actually happened too. I’d hate to have been the Claim Investigator on that one.
These situations are rare, but need to be mentioned. We can, and do, give accurate predictions on the amount of time it will take on something. However, we don’t want to establish the wrong expectations on someone’s part, which we really do care about.
Our primary concern is to stay in business because:
A. The idea behind owning a roofing business is to, first and foremost, stay in business in order to honor the warranties of the roofs we’ve done.
B. Other obvious reasons not worth mentioning that are along the lines of the first reason.
C. That’s really it.
D. Have you ever wondered why the scholastic grading system in schools skips “E”? I’m sure you can Google it. You can Google anything. I tried to Google “Google” once and my computer got sucked into another dimension. It was pretty cool. But I needed to get a new computer after that, which wasn’t cool.
F. Moving on-
Roofs on houses tend to last a while, especially ours, because the guy behind it all (and in front, too… I guess that means the same thing, metaphorically) has been roofing since he was, really, 13 years old. It was a simpler time back then, which in this case is actually a good thing.
So, it’s safe to say he knows what he is talking about. As a result, our warranties last a while. We’ve had instances where customers call us about a roof we put on a decade ago (more or less) which has a leak. We then go fix it for free. Tom will probably remember the job too. Really. It’s… actually pretty impressive to the point of almost being weird how he remembers every job he’s ever done.
If you call us with a roofing issue, we come out to see you and figure out what’s going on, we’ll tell you precisely what you need. If you think you need a new roof and don’t, we’ll tell you. If you think you just need a repair done and we feel that a new roof would actually be the better way to go, then we’ll tell you.
I am emphasizing this approach on our part, which would seem obvious, but, again, there are people out there who are not honest. If someone thinks they need a new roof and really don’t, there are others who will capitalize off of the guise of their “expertise” and the customers expectations to sell something to someone that they really don’t need. Again, not cool.
So… ah… that’s really it I suppose. More to come, I actually didn’t want to make this post too long. Hope you liked, feedback is appreciated, and nasty comments will be deleted 🙂