Wow! Where to begin with all the issues we had with this company. First off, let me say that the roof “looks” good. Most of the install appears adequate, but looks can be a bit deceiving. In hindsight, I should have paid a little more and gone with the better company.

Our roof was over thirty years old and the underlayment made of OSB was beginning to rot in places and was generally spongy all over. We ended up replacing all the OSB underlayment with CDX plywood throughout the roof. Marlon wanted to charge me over $5000 to do that and I eventually negotiated it down to just under $4000. The real problems started with his crew tore out the OSB. We have LP siding and in a very few places it had become brittle or rotted, but most of it was still very solid. At worst, the roofers purposely damaged the siding, at best, they were careless and neglected to treat the siding with any care. During the installation of the new plywood, the roofer hammered on things so hard that things fell off shelves mounted on the walls and pictures ended up crooked. It was like an earthquake struck our house.

Entire sections of the siding were damaged along the edge close to the roof. Instead of cutting two inches off the edge of the siding and leaving a gap (per local building codes that they weren’t aware of), they tore out the edges while installing the new underlayment and forced flashing under the siding. In all, they damaged about 70 linear feet of the edge of the siding. Now we have to replace the siding, or at the very least, repair 8-9 large sections of it.

What made this worse was the response I got from Marlon. He refused to take any responsibility for the damage, saying the siding was bad. I don’t think that telling me our siding was bad, which I was fully aware of, gave them license to recklessly damage it. Speaking of license and reckless, that leads to the next issue.

Marlon’s contract specifically stated many things which they didn’t follow. They were supposed to take care of any building permits needed to complete the job. They didn’t file for the needed permits. We received a letter from the city the day after they finished with a stop work order. We ended up filing for the permits ourselves. And because Marlon didn’t obtain the permit, the building inspector couldn’t confirm that the underlayment was properly installed. The inspector did point out a lot of “shiners”—nails that didn’t fasten to the rafters and were exposed. This means that the plywood underlayment may not be properly attached with the necessary code-required number of nails. According the building inspector, it also indicates the general subpar workmanship of the roofing job.

Marlon’s contract said his workers were supposed to be attached to safety anchors while on the roof, but they never installed the anchors until after the job was complete. The roofers wore harnesses the entire time, but were never roped into the non-existent safety anchors. The harnesses were for appearances only. When I mentioned that the building inspector might notice the absence of safety anchors, and that his company could get fined for safety violations, only then did he send someone over right away to install anchors after the fact.

His contract also said they would have a port-a-potty for his workers. Like everything else that he cut corners on, Marlon didn’t provide one. We saw on our cameras his workers peeing on the side of the house or on the corners of the fence.

There were numerous other issues. The building inspector pointed out that kickout flashing to divert water into gutters weren’t installed in many of the places where they should be. The gutter screens I had previously installed weren’t re-installed properly and in many places just missing. Flashing around the furnace exhaust wasn’t installed properly and apparently made up for with lots of sealant.

When Marlon came out for the estimate, he said his company was Certainteed certified for the Certainteed roofing materials they were installing. When I contacted Certainteed about the workmanship of our roof, I found out that Certainteed has two levels of certification, a basic and a premium. The premium certification guarantees both the materials and the workmanship. The basic certification only guarantees the materials. MCS has only a basic certification, which is why they have to offer their own warranty for their workmanship, which is meaningless if they go out of business.

Don’t make the mistake I did. I can’t recommend this company. They weren’t much cheaper than a reputable company. In fact, the City of Edmonds building inspector told me he has had many complaints and violations regarding MCS Roofing, citing poor workmanship that’s not up to code, and failure to obtain permits. He wouldn’t recommend them. I think that says it all.