Homeowner Communication During a Reroof

Purpose

Almost every reroof dispute is a timing problem rather than a quality problem. The customer found out about the rotten decking after it was covered, learned the crew would be back a fourth day from a neighbor, or discovered the cracked step at the final walk. This procedure schedules the contact so surprises land while they are still information rather than after they have become accusations.

Scope

Covers contact with the occupying homeowner or the small commercial tenant from the pre-job walk to the handoff at the final walk: expectations, daily contact, the in-the-moment change conversation, bad news, and complaints raised during the job.

Does not cover the sale, the estimate or the contract. Does not cover the closeout walk, owned by the nail sweep SOP, the warranty paperwork, owned by the warranty handover SOP, or neighbors and associations, owned by the neighbor and HOA notification SOP. Does not cover physical interior protection, owned by the property protection SOP - this covers what you tell them about it.

Roles and responsibilities

Surprise has a schedule, and a response standard

Three kinds of surprise turn up on a reroof, each with a moment it should land. The ones you know at sale - how many days, how loud, how much dust, what the deck allowance covers, where the container goes - belong on a written sheet the customer holds before day one. The ones only the roof can tell you - rotten sheathing, a failed flashing detail - belong in a conversation the same hour they are found, on the ground, looking at a photograph. The ones from outside, weather and material delays, belong in a call the shop makes rather than one the customer makes.

The operational default worth setting and then tuning: during an active job a customer call or text is returned within 60 minutes in working hours and by 9 am the next working day otherwise, and anything the crew knows that will upset the customer reaches them within 30 minutes of the crew knowing it. Commit to numbers. "Promptly" is not a standard anyone can be held to, including you.

On paperwork: whether a signature on a mid-job change carries any particular legal effect is a question for your own attorney, and it varies by state and contract. What the shop can bank is narrower and still valuable - a dated record showing the condition was photographed, shown, priced against the contract, and agreed before it was covered.

Procedure

1. Walk the property with the customer and leave the expectations sheet in their hand. Cover start time, working hours, expected days, where the crew parks, which door they use, the container, the noise and the dust, and exactly what the deck allowance in the contract covers. Acceptance: a signed sheet with the day-one start time, the expected day count and the deck allowance written on it, and a copy left with the customer. Wrong looks like a sheet emailed the night before. Stop rule: a customer who cannot say back the start time and the day count has not been briefed, so the walk is not finished. Hazard: none at this step, it is a walk on the ground before any work - which is why it happens on a day when no barricade or drop zone is live.

2. Tell them what the inside of the house will do. Say plainly that tear-off is hammering directly over their ceilings, that pictures, mirrors and shelved items on the working elevations move on their own, that fine grit falls through deck joints into an attic, and that pets and small children usually need somewhere else to be for the loud days. Acceptance: the customer's own decision recorded for anything they choose to leave hanging or stored, and a stated plan for pets. Wrong looks like a crew learning about a wall of framed photographs when one lands on the floor. Stop rule: a customer who will not move anything gets it written down as their decision and signed, rather than the crew quietly working under it. Hazard: the customer does not go into the attic to check on things while work is overhead, and nobody stands under a ceiling being nailed from above.

3. Make a daily start contact, from the ground, before the first ladder goes up. One named person tells the customer the crew is here, what the day's plan is in one sentence, and what they will hear. Acceptance: a logged contact each working morning with a name and a time, made before any work starts. Wrong looks like a crew that arrives at first light and starts stripping over people who are asleep. Stop rule: a crew arriving before the start time on the expectations sheet waits, and nobody knocks earlier than that time to ask if it is all right. Hazard: this call is made standing on the ground with both feet planted, never from a ladder or a roof, because a phone is a hand that is not holding on.

4. Run the change conversation the hour it is found, before anything is covered. Stop the crew in that area, photograph the condition with a tape in frame, come down, show the customer the photograph on the ground, price it against the rate written in the contract, and get written authorization. Acceptance: photographs of every affected sheet or detail, a written authorization naming the quantity and the contract rate, and a timestamp before the area was covered. Wrong looks like a crew covering first and raising it at the end of the week. Stop rule: nothing gets buried before authorization, and anything already covered when the conversation happens is recorded as covered-before-signature and does not get charged unless the customer agrees after seeing the photographs. Hazard: the customer is never taken up a ladder or onto the roof to look, whatever they ask - the photograph exists precisely so they do not have to be, and a homeowner on a ladder is the shop's liability.

5. Deliver bad news yourself, inside the standard. Weather holds, delays, a broken item, a material that did not arrive: the office calls within 30 minutes of the crew knowing, leads with the fact, then gives the plan and a date. Acceptance: a logged call with the time the crew knew and the time the customer was told, and a stated next date. Wrong looks like a customer discovering a fourth day because the crew's trucks are still there. Stop rule: no call is delayed waiting for a complete answer - the customer is told what is known and when the rest will be known. Hazard: this call is not made while driving; it is made from a parked vehicle with the engine off, because a bad-news conversation is exactly the one that takes attention off the road.

6. Close each day with a short report and a number they can call. Say what was completed, what is open overnight and how it is covered, what they will hear tomorrow, and who to call tonight if anything happens. Acceptance: a logged end-of-day contact naming the open area and the overnight number, made before the crew leaves the street. Wrong looks like a crew driving off with a slope under temporary cover and nobody in the house knowing. Stop rule: an unreachable customer at close means the report goes in writing on the door and by text, and the office is told the contact was not made in person. Hazard: the end-of-day contact happens after the barricade check and the tool count, so nobody is standing under a work face while a colleague is still on it.

7. Take a complaint on site, in writing, without arguing about it. Listen, write down exactly what they said, photograph whatever they are pointing at, tell them who owns it and by when, and route it to the office the same day. Acceptance: a written entry with their words, a photograph, a named owner and a date, plus confirmation back to the customer within the response standard. Wrong looks like a lead debating whether the crack was already there, on the driveway, with the pre-existing photographs sitting in the office. Stop rule: nobody on the crew accepts or denies liability on site - the answer is "I am writing it down and the office will call you today". Hazard: if a person becomes hostile or impaired, the crew disengages, does not block their path to their own door, leaves and calls the office, and the police where anyone is threatened.

8. Hand off cleanly and restore every access they gave you. Walk the punch list with them, hand off to the closeout sweep and the warranty registration, then return keys, codes and gate access, re-latch every gate, and confirm every door and window the crew touched is back as they want it. Acceptance: a signed punch list with owners and dates, a confirmed count of keys, codes and gate access returned, and the customer's confirmation. Wrong looks like a gate left open on a job with a dog, discovered at dusk. Stop rule: any access item unaccounted for is reported to the customer and the office before the crew leaves the street. Hazard: the walk goes at the customer's pace, on the ground only, never onto a roof or a ladder.

The record this produces

The customer contact log on the job: the signed expectations sheet, then one line per contact carrying date, time, who made it, the channel, and one sentence of substance. Change authorizations attach with their photographs and timestamps, complaints with the customer's own words, a photograph, an owner and a date, and the access line lists keys, codes and gate access issued and returned. The office reads the log before answering any call about that job, so the customer never has to explain their own history, and the lead reads yesterday's lines at the huddle.

Worked pass: three-day reroof, deck allowance exceeded on day one

The contract carried an allowance of 3 sheets of decking, with a per-sheet rate written in for anything beyond it, and the expectations sheet set a 7:30 am start and an expected three working days.

On day one the strip crew exposed rot across the north valley and replaced 7 sheets in total. Three fall inside the allowance, so 4 are chargeable. Every sheet was photographed with a tape in frame before it was covered.

Step 4 fails on the timing. Two of the 4 chargeable sheets were covered by the dry-in pair before the customer had signed anything, because the two crews were working the same area and the lead was on the phone. The stop rule fired as written: those two were recorded as covered-before-signature on the ticket, and the lead told the customer that outright when he showed the photographs at 10:20 am. The customer, looking at the photographs, authorized all 4 at the contract rate. Had they declined, the shop would have carried those two, which is what the rule means rather than a formality.

Step 5 ran on day two. A cracked concrete step was found under the container path at 2:00 pm and the office called at 2:25, inside the 30 minute standard, leading with the fact and naming the mason and the date rather than waiting to know the outcome. The pre-existing photo set showed the step uncracked that Monday, so the shop owned it without an argument on the driveway.

Day three's close returned two gate keys and one lockbox code against the two keys and one code issued on day one, and the side gate was re-latched with the customer watching, because the dog was the first thing on the expectations sheet.

References

• Your own contract's deck allowance and per-unit change rate, the only pricing basis a mid-job change conversation should use.
• Your own attorney on what a mid-job authorization or signature proves or binds, which is state-specific and fact-dependent; the operational record is a separate and simpler thing.
• See related: roofing-property-protection-before-a-tear-off, roofing-debris-and-nail-sweep-closeout, and roofing-neighbor-and-hoa-notification-before-a-reroof.