I’ve worked with many contractors, but I’ve never left a negative review until now. The short version is that Dale came to work on our roof on June 5, and the work was still incomplete on Nov 26 when he admitted he was not coming back.
Here’s the timeline of events: June 4 Dale came to give a quote for fixing three issues: a leak in the porch roof; a leak around our skylight; the eavestrough overflowing on one corner of the house, leaking into the basement. He quoted $600 to fix these issues, and suggested our eavestroughs needed to be cleaned as well. We agreed to add this for a total of $825, and requested a quote in writing.
The next day, Dale showed up to work without a written quote and stayed a little more than an hour. He completed work on the two roof leaks to our satisfaction. However, it turned out that he didn’t fix the eavestrough leak due to a hole in the siding nearby which was torn by squirrels some months before. He left the eavestrough dirty (with a small tree growing in the dirt!) and didn’t make any adjustments to the angle of the eavestrough, which was causing the overflow. The hole in the siding is clearly visible from our back deck, and there were no squirrels living inside, since my husband had blocked it from inside our attic. If Dale was afraid of being bitten while working in the area, he should never have said he was going to fix that corner the day before, or admitted that he couldn’t complete the work he was hired to do and removed that charge from his quote. Instead, he left the work undone (unknown to me) and charged us the full amount, giving me some photos of the hole and saying that we might want to get it fixed.
My husband was confused about what work Dale had actually done versus what he had agreed to do, so I requested the written quote again and got it from Dale via email about a week after the work was done. There were several rainstorms where the eavestrough was still overflowing, so I emailed Dale to ask if there had been a misunderstanding of the work he was supposed to complete, but got no response.
It took a few tries on my part but about 2 weeks later, Dale did phone me back, explaining that the work wasn’t completed because he was afraid of being bitten. I reassured him that there were no animals in the hole, and we agreed that he would come back to fix the hole (a new job) as well as fix the eavestrough (complete the old job).
After waiting two months for him to get in touch, I called and he suggested next month would be good. That was September. In early November, I texted him again about fixing the hole and the eavestrough, reassuring him that we didn’t want him to feel unsafe, and saying that he could provide a partial refund if he didn’t want to return to complete the job. Dale didn’t respond to my texts or phone calls.
Over a week later, my husband called instead, and Dale picked up; he agreed to come on November 22. But, he did not come to the house or contact us. Four days later, my husband texted him asking that he contact us by the end of the month if he still wanted to work with us. Dale immediately said he was not coming and told us not to contact him again. Since Dale does not want us to contact him, writing this review is the only thing we can do. I’m hoping that another homeowner doesn’t have the same experience we did.
