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I rarely call contractors for anything, but had some wind damage on the roof and don't like crawling around up there. So I called a contractor, they came out, gave me an estimate, I accepted, signed and returned it. Asked when they could do the work.. no reply.. asked again, no reply.. 6 weeks later, suddenly one morning, unannounced they are there up on the roof. They do a fine job and leave, not a word said.. I imagine they'll bill me.
Is this common practice? once an estimate is accepted and returned to stop all communication and show up unannounced several weeks later? I was very close to hiring somebody else.
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Roofing and roofers are a bit different than other trades. It wouldn't surprise me that if you had wind damage, lots of others did too, and he ended up with dozens, if not hundreds, of similar repair jobs.
Roofing isn't a cold weather job, so when the weather looked good and his crew was ready, he just started knocking them out.
Is it good business? Nope. Is it all too common? Sure is.
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mound said:
I rarely call contractors for anything, but had some wind damage on the roof and don't like crawling around up there. So I called a contractor, they came out, gave me an estimate, I accepted, signed and returned it. Asked when they could do the work.. no reply.. asked again, no reply.. 6 weeks later, suddenly one morning, unannounced they are there up on the roof. They do a fine job and leave, not a word said.. I imagine they'll bill me.
Is this common practice? once an estimate is accepted and returned to stop all communication and show up unannounced several weeks later? I was very close to hiring somebody else.
no, it isnt common.
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I had roof damage a couple years ago. I accepted the bid with the understanding that they had other jobs in the pipeline and everything was weather dependent. I got a call at 7am one day and they said they were on the way.
Sounds like your guys may be lacking on the communication front, but in the big picture, if they did a good job.... it's not a big deal.
Mark
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It certainly would have been nice to inform you which year they might do the job. Land lines, cell phones, iphones, email, messaging, fax, US mail, telegrams. Somehow I find it hard not to keep in touch. 
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At least he showed up. 2 Years ago I contracted (no deposit, but a written and signed agreement) with a roofer to have my shop building roofed, My stipulation was that I wasn't in a hurry, but it wanted it done by September (this was in February). twice he contacted me over the summer and said he would be out in 3-4 weeks. Never did show up that year. Then last summer I had to get another contractor to do it...stipulating that it would be guaranteed the job got done (it did).
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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If this was a small contractor I can see why. Being a contractor is not a 9-5 job with an hour lunch and two 15 minute breaks, sick time, paid time off for holidays and birthday. Providing time for his services, estimates, scheduling, hiring, payroll, accounting, insurance, etc., is very time consuming. You signed his contract and that is one less thing he needed to worry about. A 6 week wait is not an unreasonable time to wait for a in-demand contractor.
Any free advice given is worth double price paid.
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Woodenfish said:
If this was a small contractor I can see why. Being a contractor is not a 9-5 job with an hour lunch and two 15 minute breaks, sick time, paid time off for holidays and birthday. Providing time for his services, estimates, scheduling, hiring, payroll, accounting, insurance, etc., is very time consuming. You signed his contract and that is one less thing he needed to worry about. A 6 week wait is not an unreasonable time to wait for a in-demand contractor.
A 6 week wait isn't unreasonable, but not knowing if or when they're going to do the job because they refuse to communicate after the contract is signed is definitely unreasonable.
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Surely something must of been asked or stated at the time of contract signing. If not, why not? A contractor isn't hired to be your friend, there just performing their work skills for fun and profit.
Any free advice given is worth double price paid.
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Interesting comments! some points to clarify, respond 1- not a one-man operation, larger with TV advertising 2- the wind damage was loss of a vent-stack cap, and a downspout came down. (very small job) but I ignored it for a solid 6 months before calling anybody  which didn't change the scope of the work, but it's not like they were swamped with sudden wind-damage calls. 3 - this was not specifically a roofing contractor, just general home repair. I certainly hope they are busy with lots of work to do, and I understand what they do is hard and requires a lot of work and planning, and thus I had no problem agreeing to the price they asked. Nor did I have any problem with a 6 week wait. Just let me know! They came out to look at the job, emailed me a proposal that same day, asked that I sign and email it back, which I did, the same day, including a note "please let me know when you plan to do the work" No reply.. Followed up 2 weeks later with another voicemail and then email. Again, no reply. It's the lack of communication I have a beef with and just suddenly showing up unannounced.
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