My husband and I contacted D’Angelo and Sons to replace our roof. The salesman came out to give us a quote, and asked if we would be replacing our three skylights. We said no as they were less than 10 years old, and were still under warranty. That was the last time replacing the skylights was mentioned by the salesman. About a month later, the crew arrived at our house. About half way through the demolition, the project manager arrived and said that he wanted us to know that if anything went wrong with the skylights, it was not the company’s responsibility. Considering half of the shingles were gone off of the roof at that point, there wasn’t much I could do.
The work seemed to go well. The crew was professional (although one neighbor did complain about the foul language). They did a good job of cleaning up, and we had no complaints.
Fast forward a month. We’d had a few days of rain, and the roof had held up well. But one morning, after a particularly hard rain, we woke up to water in the kitchen. The drywall on the ceiling was damaged, and the overhead lights were no longer working. It was apparent that the roof was leaking. We called D’Angelo and Sons to tell them about the problem, and here’s where things went downhill.
We didn’t know where the leak was but it appeared to be in the vicinity of the skylight. As soon as the office heard that, they said they’d have to call us back. Mr. D’Angelo called us (I’m not sure if it was the father or son). He was immediately on the defensive going on and on about how the skylights were not their responsibility. I could barely get a word in. When I said that I wasn’t 100% sure if it was the skylight, maybe it was somewhere else on the roof, he replied “Are you a roofing expert?” When I said that the skylights weren’t that old because we had replaced ones that had previously leaked, he said “So they DID leak at one time.” Well, the old skylights had leaked but not the new ones. I finally had to talk over him and say “Before your team came, the roof didn’t leak, and after they came, the roof leaked. Come out to our house and find the problem!” Mr. D’Angelo was so rude on the phone, I could hardly believe it. It’s hard to convey in words, just how rude he was. All we wanted was someone to come out and check the roof to see if they could find and fix the source of the leak. If the issue was a skylight, then we would’ve figured out where to go from there. What we got was someone who acted as though he didn’t even want to come out to check out the problem, never mind fix it.
Mr. D’Angelo arrived, and while he was more polite in person than on the phone, he was still defensive and acting as though he was doing us a big favour for coming out. He went on to say how windows shouldn’t even be on roofs. And that “some” customers didn’t want to spend the added expense of replacing the skylights when replacing their roof even though that was the smart thing to do. I had to remind him that no one had ever mentioned to us that it was in our best interest to replace the skylights. He proceeded to tell us that our roof wouldn’t last that long anyways due to the way the house was built. And continued with telling us that he tries to look after his customers but sometimes people have unrealistic expectations about the responsibilities of his company. None of these comments were particularly helpful…we just wanted a roof that didn’t leak, not a commentary of what we had done wrong. He even said that sometimes roofs only leaked once or twice in particularly hard rains, as though that was acceptable. He finally went on the roof and re-caulked around the skylights and vents, and said to wait and see if that worked.
Since he repaired the roof, we haven’t had another leak…for now. But we are left with drywall and electrical repairs below a roof that may or may not leak again depending on the severity of the rain. I would not recommend D’Angelo and Sons, especially if you have skylights. Not only did we end up with a leaky roof, but they were rude and very difficult to deal with once we had a problem.
