Storm chasing roofers (Knoxville: insurance, motels, felony)

[Barking Spider]

Just a little note for caution if you are getting a roof replaced because of the storms. There are tons of trucks driving around Knoxville with signs that say "locally owned", yet have license plates from all over the place. Driving by local motels you see the trucks in the parking lots. Locally owned? Yeah, right.

I have inspected a lot of houses after the storms, some have damaged roofs, some have had the roofs recently replaced.

I have seen roof after roof where the workmanship was just shoddy. One house was partially roofed when they crew quit for the day. The home owner asked if they were going to put a tarp on. "NO - it will be OK. Well, it rained and water poured in the house and collapsed a ceiling in an office and poured water in other rooms as well. Now the homeowner is having a hard time getting the damage fixed, as well as the original roof job.

I have to wonder what's going to happen in a few months when they have all split town and the problems start.

I encourage anyone that needs storm repair work done to check out the contractor and make sure they are local. One other thing, NEVER give them money up front, and NEVER before the job is finished.

[Max4Speed]

Agreed! Sometimes paying a little more to locally owned businesses is better than paying less to out of towners who don't even have insurance in most cases. great post!

[EastTNSuthernBelle]

I'm getting phone calls and even people going door to door in my neck of the woods since i'm in the "damage zone." It's really ridiculous. I'm fortunate to have a licensed, insured contractor for a neighbor (for 9 yrs) who's doing my roof. Gotta be careful out there...toooo many scammers. If you drive along Morrell road almost to Northshore, there are a few new roofing businesses that have opened shop right there. Came out of nowhere.

[hiknapster]

Saw a truck like that the other day. Brand-new paint job, South Dakota plates.

[Barking Spider]

One that first caught my eye was a truck with a magnetic sign with an 865 phone number, and they said "locally owned" on the new sign. Then I saw the out of State plates. I kept seeing this guy every time I was around the mall. I finally saw his truck at the old Howard Johnsons parked in the back.

I have seen all kinds of repair guys in the neighborhoods where I am inspecting. While they may have magnetic signs that say locally owned, they all seem to have out of State plates.

I spent about 10 minutes watching one crew working on a roof next door to the house I was inspecting. If they had been my crew they would have been fired right then. They put the roofing felt on wrong, then they were only putting 3 nails per shingle (should be at least 4 per tab), and many of the nails were too high on the single (improper position on the shingle where the nails are supposed to go). It might be a while before these issues come to light......but they will at some point.

[ThatTNGuy]

A guy knocked on our door the other day and told us that, unlike all of the other local companies, they were not too busy to fix our roof (that made me a little suspicious). His people were repairing the roof of another house on our street, so he invited us to come down and take a look once they had finished. However, we heard a few days later that the entire project had been botched and had to be started over completely.

You always have to be careful with stuff like this.

[EastTNSuthernBelle]

there was actually a plane flying over part of west knoxville today with one of those banners advertising a roofing company. no idea if the company is local or not. we were the pool at the west ymca and lots of people were just pointing and shaking their heads. would you really call someone to roof your house from an airplane banner?!?!

[hiknapster]

Just wow.

[Ashrael]

I had to track one of these jokers down (to his ex-wife's home in Indiana) to get back $3800 he'd taken from my 89-year old grandmother for roof repairs. The police where she lives were kind enough to charge him with felony 'exploitation of the elderly' (who knew KY had such a thing?) once I corralled him for them, and he was forced to return the money or go to jail for a long, long time.

Never, ever do business with a roofer who isn't from a licensed, local contractor. Even the big companies will have a local office somewhere nearby. It might be the next town over, but that's still local. If someone shows up trying to sell you roof repair, storm cleanup or anything of the kind and can't produce proof, ON THE SPOT, that they're legit, licensed and insured, call the police and give them the plate number off of his vehicle. If your testicles are made of polished brass, do what I did and stand right in front of the man while you're talking on the phone with the cops. "Yeah, he's some kind of roofing scam artist. Plate number on his blue Ford truck is blah blah blah. Right. The one I talked to Detective so-and-so about. Cool. Uh huh..."

I'm a baaad man. But I'm a lot better than these jokers.

[ItsZoey]

Hello! I'm new to Knoxville and have these storm chasers ringing the doorbell and calling every day. They have been taping flyers on the front door and garage doors. We do need help. But we have much more damage than just the roof and I have realized that I need to hire a contractor to handle everything. The problem is we don't know any and we don't know anybody who knows any.

Can anybody recommend a good trustworthy general contractor with TN plates? Thank you!