An hour on the roofis worth a weekof guessing.
Slate and copper · Locust Valley · 4.9 · 63 reviews
Why we go up first
A roof cannot be quoted from the driveway.
From the ground you can see that slates are missing. You cannot see whether the nails have rusted through, whether the flashing was ever soldered, or whether the last crew face-nailed a repair straight through the course above it. Those are the three things that decide whether a roof needs forty slates or all of them.
So the first visit is ladders and about an hour, and you get the photographs afterwards whether or not you hire us. If someone quotes your roof without going up on it, they are quoting an average, and you are the one who finds out how far from average your roof was.
What we will not do
Sell you a roof you don't need yet.
Most of what we look at has years left in it.
A slate roof that was laid properly lasts longer than the people who laid it. When there are four or five years left, we say four or five years, write down what to watch for, and expect the call later. It is a worse quarter and a better decade.
Copper, formed on the roof.
Valleys, gutters and flashing are cut and folded on site to the roof they are going onto, not ordered by the running foot and made to fit. It costs a day. It is also the part that is still watertight when the slates around it are being replaced for the second time.