A few years ago I had the wonderful experience of being at home when a once-in-a-generation windstorm hit on the Oregon Coast. It was never classified as a hurricane but my anemometer clocked the circular winds at +120 mph. After the terrifying fifteen minutes of this event -- a scene right out of Hitchcock's The Birds -- I was able to take stock of the outside world. We had lost a large section of the roof and there were shingles absolutely everywhere. Their nails would turn up around the yard for months afterwards.
I first checked on an elderly neighbor who had also lost a lot of her roof; after I had found she was OK, I walked past -- and through -- the downed power and cable TV lines the mile or so to my daughter's elementary school where they were all huddled down safely. The only noise in the streets was the emergency generator at the hospital…
After finally getting the insurance adjuster onto the premises (they were rather busy) he cut a check for the repairs in his mobile office and I then sought someone to actually fix the roof.
The first couple of people to come to the house looked at the rake of the roof and declared it too steep for them to work on. But the next guy to come was a completely different class of contractor. Jack, of Jack's Roofing Service, had learned his trade in San Francisco and he had absolutely no fear of heights, roof rakes or anything else. I thought at the time that he was a good example of why you shouldn't be in the roofing business at all if you are pansy enough to only work on single-story ranch houses.
Zoom forward to today. Different house; different country; one extra story.
Last winter was a doozy. Wind, power outages, 18 inches of unheard-of snow, endless rain, downed trees-- climate change in obvious forms. The gutters of this three-story house were (are) cluttered. I seek a solution and find an excellent technology from a company in the US called LeafGuard that looks exactly right for the job. After a false start -- with their web site not processing our information onward to the nearest distributor -- we meet up with a representative at a home show. An appointment is set for an estimate.
The estimator actually turned up early today; it had all the smells of being good.
Wrong! He takes one look at the southern side of the house and says he has to make a call. Two minutes later he's back with the news that they won't be making a bid on the job. It's too steep for them…
Why are they in the business? I don't just take on the things in my business that are easy to do; I have to do them all. Are there no professionals out there any more? "My kingdom for a gutter man!"
Or…"Hello, Jack?"
