Well, since you pointed out my example and I have a few spare moments, here is the scenario.
Home Owner picked me because I exceeded the qualifications of any of the others he received “Bids” from while I delivered a comprehensive proposal and answered his very very many questions as accurately as possible.
He lives in a neighborhood that has dozens upon dozens of job sign in everyones yard from storm chasing companies due to a supposed Hail Storm event. (The most recent hail event in the area did not actually hit that neighborhood, but many adjusters think that old age and pitting are signs of hail and since a neighborhood about 10 miles North was devastated recently, they presumed it struck there too)
He had AllState, which denied his coverage and upon my inspection of the roof, I agreed with AllStates adjusters opinion, even though 90% of the neighborhood is getting new roofs for supposed hail damage. So, he is paying about $ 12,000.00 cash out of pocket, while everyone else is getting theirs done for their deductible amount and also getting new siding too.
On his home, he has this special type of gutter system, which I have not seen in about 20 years. It is a large Box Gutter, not Ogee, (K-Style), with a ribbed metal aluminum fascia as the front viewable profile and under the rear bottom, their is a receiver ledge or lip formed into the product to act as the J-Channel for the aluminum soffit underneath.
20 years ago, I ran into this product and asked what it was, and this product was called Omni Gutter or Omni Facade, more correctly as I found out from the current research.
On the job, we had a partial sheet of plywood nailed to the roof surface above garage door number 1 of a 3 car garage for the ladder to rest against so that it would not dent or scuff up.
Time out for a minute:
Prior to starting the job, I made casual notice that one section of his gutter was pretty already dinged up and took a photo of it, but it did not show up clearly enough to prove it. It was only a short section on the front porch roof though, but I know, but didn’t take the extra time to document the fact, that other Gutter Facade sections had signs of minor dings and scratching.
Back to the story:
On the 2nd to last day of the job, one of the crew members stepped too high on the ladder rung, which is totally unsafe to do and he should have known better, but…
When he stepped on a rung above the elevation of the plywood which was resting carefully on the upper portion of the front face of the gutter, the ladder kicked out at the bottom on the driveway strong enough to pop over the 2 bundles of shingles on the ground at the feet of the ladder.
The ladder did not slide or fall down, since it was secured on both sides to the closest gutter brackets, but the mans body weight on the ladder compressed the gutter fascia portion inwards.
We were able to body shop the facade back to “Almost” unnoticeable condition, but it was still noticeable if you looked for it in the right light.
Since this was on the front side of his home right smack dab in view of the drive way, I felt that the only thing to do, was to offer to repair the product, if I could find the manufacturer still.
I discovered after a while on the internet, that Omni had changed hands and was now called Spectra Metals, so I found a local branch about 45 minutes away from me to check out what they had in stock.
Unfortunately, they stopped producing this profile of Gutter Facade about 3 months ago, but had one “Nearly” identical. The only damaged section was on a 13 foot section, but was connected to multiple inside and outside corner sections consisting of a total length of about 45 feet.
My initial plan, was to tin snip off just the face portion of the new style and use white aluminum pop rivets to just cover up the old gutter. Well, since this is a new profile, the height is just about 1/2" lower than the old profile, which left it looking like a gutter inside of a gutter. It sucked in my opinion. I told the home owner I was only moderately satisfied with it and asked if he wanted the entire connected 45 foot front section changed out instead of the originally agreed upon cosmetic cover plating job and he said yes.
No argument from me, since I knew in advance that he would be a highly particular customer.
I purchased all of the specialty Omni Facade product to replace all of the connected sections, plus some that had dings on them, even though we never set up a ladder on those roof sections, but since they were straight sections, they were much easier to do. If I had taken “Before” photos, I may have been able to argue that those other gutter sections were not my scope of responsibility, but I nether took photos nor addressed them in any pre-job evaluation, which I have now learned I should. This is what happens when something goes wrong, that the customer starts looking at everything with a magnifying glass, even things that most likely were there before we arrived.
Bottom line, approximately 77 feet of this Omni Facade has been removed and replaced and I was have spent about 40 man hours for the removal and reinstall, plus about 2 plus 4 more hours going to the facility to 1st check out the product and meet with the customer with a sample piece and then 2 more trips to go there to pick up the product to use on his home.
The only One section that he is getting charged for, with his knowledge and consent, is the front porch one, which my foreman did in fact point out to him on the beginning of the first day on the job, so out of 77 feet he is going to get charged proportionately for 13 feet, or 13/77ths of the entire cost of materials and labor.
I believe that he will be as close to being brought back to 100% pre-damage condition, if not better, in my opinion, than prior to the accidental damage occurring.
It sucks to admit that my company screwed up and sucks even more that I had this significant out of pocket expense, but that just the way I was raised I guess. That part does not suck and i hope that the customer agrees with my conclusion.
Ed
