[Fuzzy]

50 year shingle warranty’s. Who do you collect from 15 years down the road? And how would the manufacturers know how long it will last anyway? Call me skeptical.

My Wisconsin roof is 3/4” cement tile on the main roof and raised ridge 1/16” thick copper on the front porch. All of the gutters are 1/16” thick hand bent copper. This winter, an avalanche of 24” deep wet snow on top of ice sheared all the cross brace solder joints and crushed the edge of about 10’ of gutter. I’m presently waiting on an estimate to replace the damaged section. Hopefully my homeowner’s policy will cover it. The guy that designed and built our home was the previous owner and is a custom roofer. He’ll be doing the repair. From now on, any deep snow on the porch roof gets raked off right away. The cement tiles have been problem free for 15 years.

 

[Fuzzy]

We ‘ve just experienced the reality of homeowner’s insurance. Specifically AAA. We had some cement siding blow off in a 60 mph wind gust this fall. It also lifted sections of siding away from the walls all around the house. Got three estimates and they all said complete residing was required. I concurred based on the extensive damage. Filed a claim through my agent and the AAA adjuster eventually came out with a roofing estimator for a full inspection. Eventually he called and said AAA required a structural engineer inspection. He showed up several weeks later and did a thorough inspection. Three months after I filed the claim, the adjuster called and said AAA rejected the claim and would pay nothing. Their reason was the siding (Certainteed) was an inferior product and would not be covered. We’re left with a $43,000 reside job on our dime and a claim, even though there was no payout, on our record. Added to a roadside assist claim earlier in the year, we hit the two claim limit of high rates with anyone else. Upwards to $8000/ year vs our present rate of $1500. Our agent advised us to wait until the new siding was up before reinsuring with a different company. I was impressed with how meticulous the structural engineer was with his inspection, but now realize he was building a case for inferior product. One has to wonder what would happen if the house burned down. Bottom line, stay away from AAA. And don’t count on warranties or insurance when you need them.

 

[Fuzzy]

We have an excellent agent, fifteen years to date. He and I discussed this and he learned that many insurance companies state in fine print that they can refuse coverage of poor quality materials. Certainteed got out of the cement siding business due to lawsuits over failures of their products. They lost a huge class action settlement. The original owner/builder’s wife took a new job and her company provided a relocation agency to sell their home. We bought the home from the agency. Turns out the agency got a payout on the settlement from Certainteed and did not pass it on to us. Legally, they had the deed at the time, so the money was theirs. If I took AAA to court, I would likely lose due to that payout reinforcing that the siding was bad. AAA found a loophole. I’m not happy about it and the fact that it took three months for AAA to tell us, not to mention us being black listed for filing a claim that has been refused. The worst part is spending over $40k with nothing to show for it other than a different color house.

 

[Fuzzy]

Things aren’t all bad. The property has doubled in value since we bought it and we still love the place. 👌

 

[Fuzzy]

The craziest part is why would they cancel someone who now has a new roof or siding. Exactly why my agent told me not to seek new insurance until my new siding is up. The risk for them to have to pay out a new claim is practically zero.

 

[Fuzzy]

I can’t give you a like on that, but I understand what you‘re saying. In hindsight, I should not have filed a claim as Certainteed got out of the siding business due to proven poor quality materials. The main reason why I’m not contesting the refused claim.

 

[Fuzzy]

How much are you willing to spend, what is the market value of your home, how old are you and how long do you plan to keep the home?

My roof is 1” thick cement tile. When purchasing the home, I hired a building inspector before closing the deal. He said the roof would probably outlast the house by hundreds of years. But, it’s important that the house and framing is strong enough to support the weight of the tiles.