Consider yourself warned after reading this. I had Brad's Roofing (Cartersville, GA) come out to help with some ventilation issues I was having. We discussed a ridge vent and solar fans. I chose the fans. A contract was drawn up and the work was done. Here is where the whole thing started spiraling downward. I trusted these guys to know something about their profession. Admittedly, that was my mistake. While the fans were installed as agreed, none of the common sense practices you would expect to be standard procedure were performed. Since I was swapping from a passive ventilation system to an active one, the old louvre vents and gable vent should have been sealed so that air would be properly pulled from the soffit vents. Otherwise, a process known as ""short-circuiting"" happens, which means air is instead pulled from the path of least resistance, which in my case is the louvre vents. It makes the procedure of going to active ventilation almost completely moot because airflow doesn't flow properly to cool the attic, and could also cause damage from rain and such being sucked in from the open louvre vents during bad weather. It took me about 15 minutes of internet research to learn this. I also realized the fans were not properly sized for my attic. The price for all this was fairly expensive (I mistakenly thought this meant they were better than the average company). One would expect a company touting so many years of experience to know this. At first I thought that maybe they just somehow forgot about this and a quick call would get them out to make the necessary changes. Instead I was told that this ""was not in the contract"". Is that true? Yes, it is correct. It was not specifically stated in the contract. Why would it have to be? It is supposed to be standard procedure when switching ventilation types. I had previously mentioned this twice in conversation but this was somehow selectively forgotten when I challenged them. I tried to explain and told them about the short-circuiting, hoping to talk some sense into these guys and instead I am told that they talked to their roofing supplier and they said it was perfectly fine to leave the passive system in place. If I knew that to be true I would call them out on this post too for incompetence but I don't remember them specifically. Companies like Brad's Roofing obviously think their customers will just believe anything they say and will not check behind their work or call them on their crap. For reference, anyone who wants to know about ventilation can go to www.airvent dot com and see what I am talking about. I am not making an endorsement for this site. It just explains the common sense of ventilation that roofers of any experience level should know if they consider themselves to be professionals. If someone from Craigslist came over to do this, I would not expect them to know, but Brad's Roofing should. Therefore, I am calling them out so everyone can consider these things before going with them. If you do, get EVERY SINGLE LITTLE THING you might possibly want done written specifically into the contract, and do not give them a dime until you verify it's all done. Do your research and know what they need to do because chances are, they don't.
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