OUR $9000 MISTAKE: Posted 08Jun01, updated 17Aug01, 26Mar02, 23Jul02, 15Aug02 & 15Feb03.

UPDATE 23Jul02

See photo of major buckling after only one year. Brundage had left some of their plywood out in the rain. They promised not to use any of the curled plywood, but to get new instead. Of course, we weren't there every minute to watch them. We got our only leak while they were working, during a rain. That leak was directly under this buckle. Did they flatten out curled plywood by nailing it into rotten planks which they were supposed to replace?

Specifications given BRUNDAGE prior to contract:

• Our original request-for-bid specs. As originally posted right here on the internet, and also mailed to several roofers. I sent BRUNDAGE a print-out on paper, and also an HTML copy on CD-R. Brundage agreed in advance to these terms.

What BRUNDAGE did wrong – in order of occurance:

1. Month-late start date: Dick Madison agreed to begin on April 1st 2001, weather permitting. I paid $3,000, months in advance, to secure this date.
   • My wife and son scheduled vacation to be away from the noise on that week.
   • Brundage asked to start a week early. We refused.
   • The first part of the scheduled week was fair weather. Brundage failed to show up those days. Then it rained, off and on. In the end, Brundage showed up more than a month late.
2. Cheap materials: Brundage’s owner, Dick Madison, insisted that only 1/2 inch exterior plywood (versus OSB chipboard) met their standards when making the bid. Brundage had conviced me that plywood was better. I specified plywood decking based on Madison’s own recommendation.
   • But after the strip-off, Brundage began installing chipboard.
3. Damaged materials: Quite a number of plywood sheets were left out several days in the rain.
   • The crew said we were not to worry, that these curled plywood sheets would not be used.
   • They said they would dispose of those and get new plywood sheets to replace them.
   • But the above-claimed removal and replacement occured while both my wife and I were at work.
   • One year later, there are one major and several minor areas of buckling under the shingles. The largest is about as long as the end of a sheet of plywood.
4. Rotton wood: I came home at lunch one day while Brundage workers were stripping and redecking to note a piece of rotten wood that needed replacing. They agreed to repair it with new wood.
   • After work I checked up on that very board. It was indeed replaced, but not with new wood.
   • The Brundage crew had removed a plank of good, original wood from elsewhere under the decking.
   • So now, somewhere under my porch roof, a section of original decking board is missing.
5. Failed to clean up: Brundage’s owner, Dick Madison, specified cleaning up the site at the end of every day.
   • The crew failed to clean up on two of the days. Left the place a disaster area.
6. Material shortage: I specified ice and water shield on all the valleys and all the eves.
   • Dick Madison’s hired crew attempted to install a lesser ammount of ice and water shield on only some of the eves.
7. Wrong shingles: I specified 30-year Certainteed Landmark, or Independence brand shingles.
   When I came home one day, I found that Brundage was nearly half done shingling my roof with Elk brand 25-year shingles.
   • To have the out-of-spec shingles removed and replaced with the specified 30-year shingles would leave double the holes in my brand new felt, shielding and decking.
   • That double-quantity of extra holes in the brand new materials would be non-stopped due to the original nails having been drawn out.
8. Fraudulent claim: When I complained to Brundage’s owner Dick Madison about having gotten 25-year shingles after paying for 30-year shingles. Madison claimed, in effect, There is no difference between 25-year shingles and 30-year shingles except for the price and the warrantee. They are really the same shingles. I will send you the thirty-year warrantee. It will be just as good. — I had doubts, but no hard evidence to the contrary, so elected not to express my doubts too insultingly. But I did tell him that when I should receive it, I would inquire with the manufacturer as to its full validity. More than two months have passed. Dick Madison has sent me no updated warrantee. I doubt he ever intended to. My opinion is that Dick Madison, owner of Brundage Roofing, lied to me. I feel that Brundage Roofing owes me a refund equal to 5/30ths of the cost of a 30-year roof, since that is what I had paid for and will need to have it redone years sooner than planned.
   
   

   UPDATE #1 — A telephone call made August 17th to the Elk Roofing manufacturing plant (tel. 1–205–758–2752) in Tuscaloosa, AL, informs me that there is, indeed, a significant differrence in quality between Elk’s 25-year and 30-year shingles: the 30-year being thicker, with more granules. Additionally, the 30-year, being thicker, has a more distinct relief and texture — exactly the historical appearance my wife most wanted to see! The Elk Corporation’s customer service department has promised to mail me their specifications. I will post those specifications here just as soon as they arrive.

   UPDATE #2 — Read how Elk Corporation adamantly rebuts Dick Madison in an offical statement. Click to see the actual email, CTRL S saved, and uploaded directly here on August 21st.

   UPDATE #3 — These are amoung the rumors told about Brundage Roofing and its owner Dick Madison... Note: These are merely unconfirmed allegations only, told to me by other roofing contractors (whos motives, of course, may be suspect) who called me back after I had first called them to inform about this web site. The rumors, as such, go like this... Dick Madison is not the original owner of Brundage Roofing. He is, however, reported to be the prior owner of other now-defunct or re-sold roofing companies, all under different names. Further, I was told that the Better Business Bureau once listed as many as ten unaswered complaints about Brundage Roofing under Madison’s tenure. Then, so the story goes, Brundage Roofing quietly ceased to operate until after the BBB’s three-year record-keeping period had expired.

   UPDATE #4 — One year after completion there is one major and several minor areas of buckling under the shingles. It looks to be a 4-foot length of plywood sheeting-end curled up from below. I have to wonder, even if the sheeting had wanted to curl, how could if if it were nailed properly into non-rotten planks beneath? Any rotten boards were to have been replaced. See photo. As a result I am no longer to be satisfied with a one-sixth refund. I want the whole job re-done, decking and all.

   UPDATE #5 — Filed complaint with the BBB. Here is their acknowledgement.

   UPDATE #6 — Requested by new owner of Brundage Roofing to kindly remove this website. This same person is the last to have come to my home in representation of Brundage Roofing while still owned by Dick Madison. He had on that visit verbally agreed to make ammends for the above complaint saying that he did not want something like this hanging over his head when he should later take over the company. Later there came to my home a 2-man crew totally unprepared to perform the work for lack of a written work order...just as Madison’s crew had come without a written work order. Now that he has taken it over my problem yet remains. He claims to have purchased only the company’s assets but none of its liabilities. Claims to have a contract to this effect with past owner Dick Madison. I cannot believe this is legal. In any case I have just renewed this domain for a further two years.

What BRUNDAGE did right:

1. The work crew is courteous and polite. They labor in an un-hurried, apparently careful manner, at least when I am there to observe them.
2. Similarly, the crew supervisor is polite and responsive.
   • But I am informed that this crew is only sub-contracted from Brundage.
   • They are not directly on the Brundage payroll. Dick Madison has simply hired this crew, and sent them to me, without any kind of written work order, to work on my house.
   • Here, clearly, is the root of mis-communication between Brundage and the crew.
   • I wonder if I could not have hired this or some other crew without having to go through Brundage.
3. When I complained about the chipboard. The crew came back the next day with plywood.
   • Privately, their workers informed me that they never routinely install plywood.
   • This statement by the crew clearly belies Dick Madison’s claim to me for Brundage’s requiring the use of plywood. Dick Madison himself had made that claim to me last fall, on the phone. One has to wonder, did he lie?
4. I had specified 30 lb felt (versus 15 lb). When I checked, 30 lb felt was what the crew brought.