Urban Roofing & Consulting

If you want to work with a contractor who displays personal and professional integrity, dedication to his trade and great customer service, look no further than Shaun at Urban Roofing. I obtained 3 different quotes(had 5 scheduled but one never showed and the other didn't have a permit to work in my area so he could only supply me with tips, couldn't actually do the work). All 3 quotes were within a few hundred dollars of one another for the same work; strip existing shingles and fibreboard roof deck and replace with plywood, GAF timberline shingles and accessories, and replace all roof vents and knock down remainder of my chimney. After verifying city permits and insurance coverage for each company I decided to go with Urban Roofing; not because it was cheaper but because of the following reasons:

*Easy to reach, quick to respond. The longest I waited for a response from him, via either email or phone was about 24hrs
*Shaun personally went up on my roof on the day of the quote and told me things about my existing roof that none of the other 2 companies I got quotes from did.
*Advised me of the hole in my existing roof and provided advice on having whomever I chose as my contractor to include a patch of that hole in the cost of the roof to hold me over until I could get the full roof replaced.
*Spoke to me frankly, didn't try to sell me on stuff I didn't need
*Provided a full written quote, detailing exactly what work would be performed and how.
*Company has experience in both residential and commercial roofing even being called to perform work out of province-this too me shows the quality of the work they do
*Smaller company, about 15 or so employees. No outside subcontractors. Shaun advised that he would have 4-5 roofers working on my house(1000 sq ft) to make sure they would finish in one day.
*He charged me nothing to take down the last few layers of the unused chimney; other companies were going to charge from $300-600 to do it. (note-this was not a full chimney dismantle, just about 4 layers; there may be a cost for a full chimney dismantle due to the extra weight in the bin, I don't know)
*I was able to deal directly with the owner, no sales people.
*They had the highest liability coverage of any of the contractors I spoke to
*I simply got a good vibe from him and Steve, his right hand man as I call him. I didn't sense any BS or sales tactics.

Once I hired Shaun my appointment was made for a Sunday, less than one week later(unusual day for roofing but the weather was going to be good, they were going to be getting busy in the coming weeks and due to the poor shape of my existing roof, it was considered a priority). Shaun sent out a guy to patch up the hole at the peak on the Thursday which was good since it poured the rest of that evening and possibly into the weekend.

Materials and bin were delivered on the Friday, bin was picked up on the Monday. There weren't 4 guys there, there weren't even 3 guys there on Sunday. There were no fewer than 6 roofers working on my roof that Sunday; Shaun included. At times I counted 8 guys! They started at 815A and were finished around 5P, taking only a few short breaks from what my neighbours and I could tell(I was in and out all day). They worked with quick efficiency; roof was stripped in no time and they had guys working on all sides of the roof at the same time; there was no waiting around until all the roof deck was put on before doing the ice/water barrier; once the plywood was down, another guy was working on the ice barrier; then the deck armour over the rest of the roof; as that was being done, the shingles were going down right behind. There were guys on the ground bringing up supplies, cleaning up wayward shingles and garbage, someone else cutting plywood.

When the work was done, they cleaned up after themselves. They had out rakes, shovels and brooms as well as the magnet broom to pick up any loose nails. One of my biggest issues with any contractor is cigarette butts thrown on my property. They did a very good job of minimizing this; I did still find some here and there and a handful of nails but nothing major.

Now a job like this doesn't often come without a few hiccups. We did have a few instances that came up however Shaun was very quick to respond to my concerns and we had them resolved within 72hrs.

A-I had asked for some of the good bricks from the chimney to be kept aside in case I needed them for future replacement on the house itself. While this information was communicated by Shaun and Steve to the other roofers, apparently they forgot. Shaun got on them at the end of the night to locate them but turns out that none of the ones they could find were of any use anyway.

B)one of the roofers dropped a nail gun from roof height onto my front stairs damaging one of the treads pretty badly; there was also damage to one of my back stairs. No problem though as Shaun personally came back and replaced both treads himself.

C)-Another issue did arise with one of his workers over a mistimed and unwarranted prank(meant to be funny but caused both Shaun and I undue anxiety) however, being true to form and taking personal responsibility for the actions of this one roofer, Shaun resolved the issue to my satisfaction within 48hrs. Shaun notified me right away of the issue, apologized on behalf of his employee, offered corrective action to me due to the inconvenience and immediately took care of the situation with his employee ensuring the issue would not occur again.

In each of the above instances, Shaun could have easily fluffed it off as simply a part of doing business and placed blame on the employees themselves. But he didn't. He was sincere and remorseful, and took responsibility. He thinks of the customer first and places himself in their shoes. He is dedicated to his trade, honest, acts with integrity, leads by example and expects the same from his employees. I would hire Urban Roofing again anytime.