Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa FL (813) 655-8777 wrote:

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We have an A+ BBB Rating, we are very proud of. When something goes wrong, and it is OUR fault, we take care of it, end of story.

Long story short, we did a 5000 sq ft tile roof, the chemical got on the old, bad paint, and streaked it. Of course, we did a test spot first, but were never made aware that the test spot was done on a recently re painted section of the house!

Now, she wants her house entirely re painted, of course. I have run into this before, went to court, and I won! But, with the Internet being what it is, it is all too easy  to ruin someones good reputation, for something that was not our fault!

This IS going to head for court, I can tell. I have no intentions of just rolling over on this one. 

I am a fair person, and have love and respect for all my customers. Like anyone else, my guys sometimes make mistakes. But our A+ Better Business Bureau rating is proof positive we have had a minimum of complaints, and that we DO take care of them 99 percent of the time.

But I am also a person of principle, and will fight like a foul hooked Fish, if I feel a deceitful customer is trying to take advantage of a bad situation.

I went to small claims court once before, and the customer was an Atttorney! I was able to show that the chemicals we all use to clean roofs with,  are actually reccommended by Sherwin Williams to clean their paint of mildew! 

I also found out what paint store the paint was bought from,  and went to the paint store. I was told that they fired an employee during the time when the house was painted, for improper paint pigment techniques! 

Then, because we do so MUCH work for painters, I had a few of them come and testify how many roofs we have cleaned for them w/o ANY problems at all, except a toasted plant, here and there.

I not only brought the Sherwin Williams cleaning bulletin into court, but the same "use bleach to clean paint of mildew  bulletins" from both Glidden Paints and BEHR Paints. 

 

I TRIED to tell our customer nicely, that IF this happened all the time to us, we woulld not have been in business, the nearly 20 years we have been.

Of course, she is unyielding in her demands for a total house paint job. 

Here in Florida, we are a no fault state. The procedure for insurance claims is for her to turn in a claim to her homeowners insurance, then they come after my Insurance Company.

She refuses to do this, and so it looks like this will go to court, I am sad to say.

 

 

 

 

 

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 I been talking with someone. He is all the time saying "pre existing" should be on my contracts.

Like if we walk a roof and a Tech puts his foot through it.

 

Prob doesnt help.

We had one issue this year where we were spraying a front door over hang and my ground man pointed the water towards the over spray that put it on a wood stained front door, homeowner called, I went out and tried to wipe off spots, all I did was take stain off, we re-finished it, no questions asked. Now we will cover a wood door with plastic or just spray away from the door, not on to it. If we would not have put the hose on the over spray it would not have spotted the door, maybe.

Then on a roof job, the gutters were just painted and they looked like Tammy Faye Baker's makeup on a bad day, we re-painted them, no questions asked. My pre-op letter says no new paint with-in 90 days, and our quote says it. The guy was a Lawyer, never read anything but the price.

Some advice from a big time home builder passed on to me before he passed on, never, never, loose a client in terms of confidence in wanting to address or resolve a problem is probably some of the best advice I have ever had in residential contracting, no matter how right you may be, you can loose a hell of lot more than few grand in bad PR.

I don't know how to protect ourselves from every bit of exposure that can come from the risk that comes from spraying mix all over a structure, pre-existing conditions? Everything is a pre-existing.

When I see something that we can see being a potential issue, I reduce it to email for documentation in terms of a wavier of liability. We take 10-20 pictures prior to every job from plants, flashing, AC's, grills, anything, they do come in handy from time to time.

One thing we learned this year is to be very careful with any translucent stain like slikkens on log cabins or cedar. The mix will leave it B/out and the stain will not cover it up.

Court is not for 4-10k disputes, she pays for the paint and you supply the labor, it could be in review mirror next week or it can be in your windshield view and you deal with for the next 6 months. Let the BBB arbitration help, only if necessary. If you have before pics, it will settle it quick.

Her insurance will only settle it and come after with yours and for a few G's, no thanks. Then go to renewal black hole.

Nobody wins in court, except lawyers, that is why 97% of cases never go to court.

Jumping to "I'll see you in court" generally comes from someone that has not written many checks to lawyers and is really is a emotional response. I heard Spock say that on Star Trek, so it must be logical.

sweetwaterfish wrote:

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Mike, agree with everything you said!!!!!

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 +1.

I ended up paying for a touch up on a house this year. Brown house. Chems splattered in areas that we were rinsing and it still took the pigment out and turned parts of the house green. Cheap arse paint. I just paid a painter $250.00 to fix it. We've done over 70 roofs in this community and I didn't need the hassle. Customer was very pleased with what we did for them.

It would be a damn shame if her pooch happens to "run away" all of a sudden. I'm sure her priorities would be a bit different.

Roof Cleaning Palm Harbor FL 727 543 3276 wrote:

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I ended up paying for a touch up on a house this year. Brown house. Chems splattered in areas that we were rinsing and it still took the pigment out and turned parts of the house green. Cheap arse paint. I just paid a painter $250.00 to fix it. We've done over 70 roofs in this community and I didn't need the hassle. Customer was very pleased with what we did for them.

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 This lady smells blood Larry. She will NOT allow us to fix it, she wants a whole NEW Paint Job, despite the fact she had old ass paint! 

 Some people suck, no matter what you do , hope things workout for you Chris