Building Gypsy Rose

So here it is now June and Gypsy Rose still awaits her standing seam metal roof. It’s a saga that began last November and just won’t seem to end.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only people who have access to metal roofing supplies are roofing contractors. The stuff just isn’t easy to get for the do-it-yourselfer. Here’s the brief rundown on what we’ve experienced.

Last November, I did the research on metal roofing manufacturers. I ended up settling on a product made by Everlast Roofing. There was an added convenience in that the supplier is right around the corner from Marion’s home in Connecticut. I gave them the specs. They got a quote from Everlast. I was hit with sticker shock. The supplier had given me a price per foot for the roofing panels, but the complete package (trim pieces, clips, screws, etc.) came in at a price that was over 50% higher than I’d expected. I called Everlast. They told me that the supplier must have misplaced a decimal point somewhere. I called the supplier. They did not respond. Winter set in. The roof was delayed until spring.

Skip ahead five months. I went back to the supplier and asked for another quote, this time including the roof for the shed addition. Although they were the absolute worst about returning phone calls, we eventually got the new quote. This time, even though we had more roof to cover, the quote was more than $200 lower than the previously received number. What gives?

Turns out that suppliers use a very wide and seemingly random latitude on pricing these sorts of things – perhaps seeing how much commission they can get away with? For someone like me, it’s frustrating at best because it seems impossible to get an honest answer. Every time I’d stand face-to-face with the supplier I’d get the distinct impression that I was not hearing the truth or the whole story.

Even though the price was still higher than we’d originally expected, we decided it was time to give in. We ordered the roofing materials. The delivery truck arrived early one sunny morning. Everything was well packaged and intact. The weather forecast was good for getting the roof on over the next couple days before returning to Vermont. I was excited. We seemed on the verge of having a roof at last.

Not so fast (as if any of this process has been fast). Upon closer inspection of what had just been delivered, I found that many of the trim pieces were of the wrong type and that they’d been bent to the wrong pitch. I called Everlast and pointed out the error. Amazingly, the customer service rep told me, “Oh, I guess someone didn’t read that far.” She went on to say, “Well, 95% of our roofs are of this other type, so we just did yours the same way.” (without reading my complete spec) Crap! Here we go again.

Marion and I drove to the supplier. As we approached the counter, the man we’d been dealing with looked up nervously, afraid to ask what was wrong now. We told him. We gave him the detailed list of what needed to be replaced. He called Everlast. I spent the next day installing porch trim instead of a roof. We drove to Vermont. The saga of the roof continues . . .