A quality, hurricane-resistant roof is crucial in Florida to the safety and longevity of your home. But it’s equally crucial to ensure your Florida roofing company is trustworthy and reputable.
Your roof is NOT an investment where you should accept shortcuts, inexperience or low quality materials. The lowest quote for your new roof could cost you thousands of dollars in the long run.
At Florida Quality Roofing, integrity and quality are two of our core values. Whether you choose us or another Florida roofing company, we want to make sure you receive the quality work you deserve.
We’ve identified 5 steps to ensure you’re hiring a trustworthy roofing company:
- Make sure the company is licensed
- Evaluate the reviews
- Verify the company’s insurance policies
- Ask about manufacturer certifications
- Choose longevity over low prices
Make sure the company is licensed
The first step in researching Florida roofing companies is to ensure that the company is licensed.
In the state of Florida, roofers are required to have a state license. Not every state has this requirement. Here, we are licensed under the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, the construction industry licensing board.
To check if a Florida roofing company is legitimately licensed, go to DBPR’s website and search by name, license number, license type, city or county.
Make sure that the company’s qualifier — the person who is licensed — is active and involved in the company. This is such a crucial step to ensure your protection.
For Florida Quality Roofing, I am the license holder that qualifies our company to install and repair roofs.
The ultimate responsibility for any roofing job falls on the license holder. If you are unsatisfied with a job, you can file a complaint against the license holder. This helps protect you as a consumer.
That’s why I believe it’s important for you to know the relationship between the person who is going to fix your roof and the person who is licensing the roofing company.
An unfortunate trend to be aware of is companies who lease their licenses. In that case, the roofing company will pay a fee to operate under someone else’s license. The company may use that license for a few years and then the license holder disappears or the name changes. There’s no consistent protection for the consumer.
We don’t work that way at Florida Quality Roofing. I keep my license current, and I am actively involved in every roofing job we perform.
Evaluate the reviews
Another thing to always do when researching Florida roofing companies is to read the reviews. How long have they been in business? How have their customers rated their work?
When you look up a company’s license, you can view any complaints filed against them and how they were resolved.
I am proud to say that Florida Quality Roofing has had no complaints filed against our company (and my license) in the past 22 years.
Reviews on sites like Yelp and Google Business can help you evaluate the quality of a company. Read both the good and the bad reviews to see if there is a persistent theme that stands out. Are there recurring complaints that raise red flags? Do customers consistently praise the roofing company for solid work?
If a company has many poor reviews, it doesn’t matter if they can do the work quickly or cheaply. You don’t want to pay more to fix poor work.
Make sure to do your due diligence as a consumer in order to protect yourself and your property.
Verify the company’s insurance policies
Next, always ask the company for a certificate of insurance. Any reputable Florida roofing company will be able to produce their liability and workers’ compensation insurance.
It’s not enough to simply tell you that they’re licensed and insured. What will their insurance cover if something goes wrong?
Take our company for example. Florida Quality Roofing is insured up to $2 million against liability. All of our trucks, dump trucks, trailers are also all covered up to $1 million per occurrence. All of our employees, anyone working on the roof, are all covered up to $1 million per accident.
Part of a company’s liability insurance is something called completed operations insurance. My company always checks the forecast, and we never tear off a roof if there is more than a 30 percent chance of rain. We always carry tarps and plastic sheeting because protecting a customer’s property is always our top priority.
But let’s say, there was a passing shower and a leak occurred because we are in the middle of a tear-off and don’t yet have it completely dried in. In this scenario, our liability insurance will cover any damages from that passing shower.
How else can insurance protect both consumer and company? If a company’s trailer or dump truck accidentally backs into a mailbox or causes any such accidental damage to a customer’s property, that liability insurance will cover those damages.
Don’t ever just go off of a company’s word that they are insured. Verify it up front to ensure you will be protected in case of any accident.
Ask about manufacturer certifications
It is also important to verify that Florida roofing companies are certified by the manufacturer of the products they are installing.
Florida Quality Roofing is certified by several manufacturers. This allows us to offer enhanced warranties beyond a generic, standard and limited defect warranty.
Our warranties are comprehensive because the manufacturer has trained our crews, we have longevity with them, and they know we will install their products correctly. Because of that, we issue workmanship warranties backed by the manufacturer.
For example, Florida Quality Roofing is certified by Certainteed, which is one of the three biggest roofing material manufacturers in the country. When we install shingle roofs with them, we offer a 5-star shingle warranty, which protects and gives the homeowner a workmanship warranty for 25 years against leaks, whether it’s a product or workmanship issue. The warranty is also fully transferable to the next homeowner. We’re able to offer this warranty because we are a gold-star certified company with Certainteed.
Asking the right questions about a promised warranty is really important. If you have a workmanship warranty backed by a manufacturer, the manufacturer will still honor it, regardless of the status of the company that installed it. Without that backing, your warranty is worthless if a roofing company goes out of business.
Companies we are certified with include:
- Certainteed (Commercial Gold Star Certified Contractor & Select Shingle Master)
- Tarco
- Polyglass
- Firestone
- Owen’s Corning
- GAF
Choose longevity over low prices
We know that everyone is on a budget and repairing or replacing your roof isn’t as exciting as a kitchen renovation. However, I cannot stress enough how important it is to choose longevity of a roofing company over low prices.
At one point, the average longevity of a Florida roofing company was only 5 years, second only to the lifespan of restaurants. To be in business for over 22 years like us is no easy feat. Always look up how long a company has been in business, along with their reviews and credibility.
If you’re collected multiple roofing estimates, you probably have talked with one or two newer roofing companies who are offering to do the work at a far lower cost. However, if a company has only been in business for two years, how do you know they will still be in business in 10 years when suddenly your roof fails?
How do you trust someone with your roof, which is supposed to last 25 or 30 years, if they have only been in business two to five years? Lower costs are not worth taking that risk.
A quality roof is worth the investment. Call us today at 954-458-6095 to talk about what your home needs to ensure that your roof will protect you and your family for years to come.