Dale in East York

We had a leak in our flat roof which appeared in the middle of the office ceiling. We chose Contex to replace both the flat and peaked portions, which included removal of the existing shingles and bitumen, related fascia and spout work, and some carpentry. Contex initially estimated that they would start in November 2005, weather permitting. I understand it's hard to control such things, but they were way off their estimate. We called every week after their initial estimated date, and they consistently responded with a generic "should be in a week or so". After eight weeks of this, they finally sent a representative around, who claimed that it was very difficult for them to judge their availability on account of the maturity of their contract workers - I will not stoop to use the terminology that he used, but it was anything but positive. Their peaked roofing team arrived Jan 17th. Fortunately my temporary repairs (which consisted of a large blue tarp nailed into the existing shingles, ringed with tar to prevent water running beneath it) somehow lasted during the severe weather leading up to their arrival. They tore out my work and replaced the peaked shingles. I was not satisfied at all with the work. There was a board missing on the peaked roof above the rear exit, which they eventually replaced, but they'd run out of the proper shingles (see attached pictures), and had to use a "close match", which is a different colour. They also did a shoddy job cleaning up - they had to send another group back to re-clean the front drive... to this day I find pieces of shingle and nails in the soil in my front garden every spring. But worst of all was that they have a different team that handles the flat portion of the roof. They couldn't guarantee when this team would arrive, but estimated a week or so. It took almost three. Meanwhile, despite it being February, we had rain in Toronto. We were dismayed to see brownish water leaking through the half-repaired roof and down the walls of four rooms in my house. I should note that the initial leak was only in a single room, which ironically wasn't one of the four that suffered water damage from this mid-Feb storm. My own patchwork repairs had managed to keep water out of my house for almost four months, while somehow this professional roofing company couldn't put temporary measures in place to prevent leakage for a mere three weeks. My only guess is that they left the edge between the peaked roof and the flat roof exposed, or inadequately covered, and that the rainwater leaked freely into the house. Responding to my concerns, they sent a man to fix the leak while we were still awaiting the arrival of the flat-roofing team. Despite his work, a few days later it rained again, and the leaks continued. In the end, I had to hire another contractor to come and repair the ceiling in one of the rooms as a direct result of the water damage that occurred between the time that Contex's shingled team did their work and the time that the flat team arrived to finish the job. This added significantly to the cost of the roof repairs. And this does not take into account our own time and effort spent repainting three of the rooms right away, and then one again a month later after the wall bubbled (requiring peeling years of wallpaper and paint from the wall and sanding it down as best I could). I knew that Contex had a guarantee, so I asked if there was any way to recoup some of this additional cost. Sadly, they informed me that their contract specifically states that they are not responsible for any damages that occur while they are doing their work. They told me that this includes any time between the arrival of their two separate teams. When I asked why the Shingle team couldn't have done a temporary patch job, similar to my own, he could offer no response. Finally, my girlfriend received inappropriate attention from one of their workers which made her quite uncomfortable thereafter whenever they had to use the facilities. As to whether the resulting job was sufficient, I cannot say. They attempted to schedule a walk-through to show us the roof and describe the work, but we weren't able to find a mutually agreeable time within the first month or so. We attempted one last time to schedule the inspection but they never returned our call. By then I was too frustrated to pursue them any longer. I strongly advise anyone dealing with Contex to question them about their coverage and what damages they will take responsibility for... not only while they're doing the work, but also between times that their teams might be available.