Let It Rain, Ltd.

I hired LIR on the recommendation of a neighbour and despite their estimate coming in 2k higher than my other 2 quotes, we did hire them based on a slick sales presentation and the fact that they did seem to be organized with communication and written quotes. I had skylights and a new roof installed. I would conclude that Let it Rain has a mixture of good experienced people mixed in with some dummies that don't take pride in their work and are not "problem solvers" which is the mark of a professional tradesperson.

Fortunately, I hung around with a camera for the entire day and was able to see the screw-ups unfold in real time. Briefly, here are their mistakes.

Skylight one: Dummy "carpenter" took a Sawzall and cut the opening in my roof much to large even though the Pella skylight box clearly states the roof opening dimensions on the box. This required a major patching job to reduce the opening to allow a proper install. A close inspection of skylight flashing revealed a missing screw (oops, must have dropped it-oh well!) and crooked flashing. That would have caused a leak on the first storm had I not actually gone up there and caught it.

Skylight 2: Despite being clearly marked with an outline marking the centerline of the opening to be cut AND a face-to-face discussion on where to cut, dummy carpenter #2 proceeded to cut a hole in my roof mistaking the center line for the edge, thus putting the skylight over two feet to the left and right under the chimney. Then, after apologies and patching, I discovered they patched my 1 1/2" thick roof with 3/4 " plywood leaving a weird 2x2 foot indentation which was clearly obvious even with shingles on it. That ended up being a 4 repair by opening the ceiling up and pounding the plywood back up to the level of the surrounding roof and gluing shims to the trusses. It was either that or tear off the whole side of a new roof right back down to the wood. What a pain!

Flashing. Not very skilled. They wrote in the contract that our particular chimney required saddle flashing and I paid extra for it, and yet, after the job was complete it clearly wasn't installed. Another leak waiting to happen. Drip edges were crooked in several places (clearly eyeballed with by people with poor spatial ability). That was another costly mistake on their part as they had to tear of the shoddy work and reinstall what I contracted for.

So that's the bad, and, considering the premium price, it was unacceptable.

Now on to the good. Despite all these screw-ups, Let it Rain was actually responsive to my concerns. Within a week they dispatched some of their skilled guys to correct everything. They didn't argue either-it was yes, sir, no problem sir. That's what I like to hear. (and they were at it all day which couldn't have been good for their bottom line. These guys were older and clearly were the pros I had hoped to have in the first place. Of the kids doing the grunt work on my roof, they had some bad workers that need retraining or reemployment.

The shingling itself was good workmanship and their ridge vents and ice shield installation was done well. In the end we got a good product, but it required total involvement of the homeowner and that shouldn't be necessary. I shouldn't have to climb my own roof and find all this stuff and get them all back there for a day of remediation. With this particular crew working on your roof, I shudder to think what you'd find if you did a close inspection.

To the management of Let it Rain, my advice to you would be to have a SKILLED job supervisor on EVERY job, for the FULL job because it's really difficult to find careful, intelligent workers in any trade. Your two skylight guys and flashing dude were the bad apples and made for major headaches on my end and yours. The best you can do for the homeowner is to carefully supervise each job so it doesn't need to be done twice. That's in your customer's interest and in the interest of your bottom line.