You can never be too careful when it comes to protecting your home and your finances, so when dealing with contractors in any domain you need to take appropriate measures to safeguard yourself. Many have experienced roofing contractors who will bend the rules to make life easier for themselves, even though this can negatively affect you and your roof. This article presents four things to consider when looking for roofers Nottingham in order to keep yourself protected and make roofing jobs go as smoothly as possible. Follow these steps to ensure you get the best roofing contractors Nottingham.
Workers Compensation
Roofing jobs often leave roofing contractors at risk of injury, given they work at height and with heavy and dangerous equipment. Let’s say you have a leak on your flat roof in Nottingham. You hire a contractor to fix the leak, and shortly into the job one of the workers slips and falls, injuring himself. He then holds you responsible and says you must pay all the medical expenses, given that he hurt himself on your property. This is an avoidable situation, the solution being “roofers compensation”, a type of insurance which protects against roofing injuries. With this insurance in place, assuming safety protocols are followed, an injured employee is entitled to expenses for hospital bills and time off work while recovering. Always check that your roofing contractor has workers compensation to avoid having to pay any unnecessary bills for injuries that might occur to the team.
Liability Insurance
A tree branch falls and badly damages a section of your roof; after all, the tiles were getting very old! You immediately panic, calling up the first professional you find without checking Nottingham roof repair reviews! Their team tells you it’ll be a big job and take multiple days. After the first day of work, there is heavy rain in the night and you find water damage on some furniture inside. The contractor left the roof uncovered by mistake. The contractor has liability insurance but tells you there are exclusions which don’t cover water damage inside your house. You must fork out extra money yourself to sort out the damage; unfortunately you didn’t do the research to find the best roof repairs in Nottingham! No matter the urgency of the job, always ask the roofing contractors the extent of their liability insurance cover. Bad insurance can almost be like having no insurance, full of exclusions that hardly protect you at all. In particular, check that their insurance doesn’t exclude water damage if you know your roof could potentially be exposed.
Business License
A roofing company fixes a problem with your flat roof. Just two weeks later, you notice a small leak and immediately try to get hold of them. The phone number is dead, and after searching online they are nowhere to be seen. After a little digging, you find out the company never had a business license. You must pay full price for the repairs yourself. Always check the company you deal with is a registered, licensed company. You can do this on companies house on the government’s website. Unregistered companies can leave you vulnerable if ever they do a poor job. They can just as easily disappear or decide to change their line of business. You also cannot check if the work has been completed to safety standards, which again leaves you vulnerable to forking out more cash in the future, all of which can be avoided with thorough research. Anyone can throw up a quick website and call themselves a roofing company, which is cheaper and easier than acquiring a license. Do your due diligence and hire a team or individual who has gone through the proper process of getting a license. This means you get experience, reliability, and can easily contact them for any ongoing maintenance should problems arise.
Lien Waiver
Your contractor does a fantastic job finishing the roof of your brand-new extension. You pay them, and everyone is happy. Two weeks later, the contractor contacts you to request payment for the materials used for your roof. The contractor never paid the supplier, and now you are required to pay and because you didn’t sign a lien waiver there is nothing you can do but pay. If one is not presented to you, always request a lien waiver upon completion of the job BEFORE you pay. What this means is that should the contractor fail to pay the supplier, or even their employees, you cannot be held responsible for said payments. This prevents the horrible situation where you are forced to pay for something twice.
Protect Yourself
Although uncomfortable in the short term, taking care to check these things will put you at ease in the long run. Asking a few questions doesn’t take much time, and you’ll feel better signing the waiver at the end and knowing there will be no further problems. Make sure to check reviews to see what the experiences of other customers were, in order to get the best roofing services in Nottingham.
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