- Location
- Woodstock
The other thread on this got me wondering what you guys would think about my case. I did a bunch of tree work for a customer he was happy with and paid the bill for. So out of the blue a week or two later he calls and says hey, can your crew rip off a roof (his) so I can get my roofing company in to replace it. The money he mentions is good for one day's work, and the customer says he was a general contractor in a previous life and he'll do everything and all he needs me to do is supply the crew and are paid a fixed price for the day's work. He rents a roll off and some other tools and although I personally had never seen or even been on this roof, and made clear I am not a roofer, that I had no idea what was involved, I trusted his judgment when he gavea rough estimate it was a day's work or less, and he even threw out the idea that it was only 4 hours work if things smooth. So I went for it, called my crew and asked if they want to do roofing for one day and since the money was more than usual they said yes. We show up and start work a few days later, and after a couple hours we determine this is not gonna be possible in one day let alone 4 hours. This roof was a commercial grade flat type roof with literally 2 earlier roofs underneath and some sort of gravel soaked tar materials 6 inches thick requiring god knows what to cut it or melt. Removing an asphalt road by hand would have been easier. I get with the customer and say hey, we are not gonna be able to do this job but if you like, we can switch to an hourly rate and simply continue and I gave him a rate, actually a fairly low rate. He goes ballistic and says the quote for the crew was to be for completion of the whole roof demolition, not just a days work. I told him no way that's ridiculous (it was not a happy exchange) and told the crew to pack it in. An hour later he calls me as we are driving off and literally begs me to try and finish the job. He says money is no problem, you can have your hourly rate just keep working. I am suspicious at this point of the whole gig and almost say sorry no, but the guy had been straight with me on the tree work and paid the bill so I felt sorry for his mess and called some of my crew to go back saying, let's just do what we can on this and then at least we've filled up the day we promised and that's that. So we do that and literally get maybe 25% of this roof off by late in the afternoon (mis) using rented handheld concrete cutters. I still have no idea what the right tools for this type of roof would be.
So my question is, what does this guy owe me now for my crew's one day of work? I already paid my crew out of my pocket. They got paid for what was about 6 hours on the job, and I am fine with that. They did more or less what they were supposed to do. The fact it did not result in a completed job had nothing to do with them, nor anything I claimed I would deliver either besides showing up with a crew and working for a day. I never said I was a roofing contractor, never saw his roof (or I would have run the other way), and basically trusted him that he knew what he was talking about when he said it would take a day or less to complete. It was an oral agreement originally and there was no contract.
So my question is, what does this guy owe me now for my crew's one day of work? I already paid my crew out of my pocket. They got paid for what was about 6 hours on the job, and I am fine with that. They did more or less what they were supposed to do. The fact it did not result in a completed job had nothing to do with them, nor anything I claimed I would deliver either besides showing up with a crew and working for a day. I never said I was a roofing contractor, never saw his roof (or I would have run the other way), and basically trusted him that he knew what he was talking about when he said it would take a day or less to complete. It was an oral agreement originally and there was no contract.
