Our Experience with Surface Shield Roofing Company

I believe in recognizing and promoting businesses that provide excellent service at a good price; And since we had such a terrific experience with Surface Shield Roofing, I wanted to share our story.

But before I do (and for those who don’t want to read a long winded review), let me summarize

why I like Surface Shield so much: Good Price, Excellent Quality, Excellent Service.

1) Good Price – Before selecting Surface Shield for our roofing job(s), I got price estimates from four different roofing contractors. Surface Shield offered the best price. Obviously, price isn’t everything, but their low cost estimate got my attention. Indeed, I was surprised by the wide range of prices provided by the different contractors. Most of the estimates were substantially higher than Surface Shield’s. In fact, the highest price estimate was about 40% higher than Surface Shield’s. Also, Surface Shield stuck to their estimate and didn’t come in with substantial extra charges after the job got underway.

2) Excellent Quality – They did a great job. Our job required substantial carpentry work to repair/replace rotted and termite damaged structural elements. Surface Shield did the job right. They didn’t cut corners – unlike other roofing contractors I’ve worked with (see below). Surface Shield was thorough and complete. Not only did they give us a fantastic looking new roof (which they warranty by the way), they also fixed our underlying structural issues. Our roof(s) should last for decades to come.

3) Excellent Service – Throughout the process, Surface Shield provided timely, reliable, professional service. In a nutshell, they did what they said they would do, when they said that they would do it. They were honest, straightforward, and easy to work with. And when one or two small hiccups occurred along the way – no job the size of ours goes without hiccups – they were there to deal with the problems and make things right in a timely manner.

Overall, our experience with Surface Shield was excellent. They did a fantastic job at a terrific price. I highly recommend them.

OK, now onto the details of our story.

My wife’s family owns a rental property in Kailua that consists of six plantation style cottages. The units are classic single-wall construction, 2 bedrooms, 1-bath homes, each with about 650 sq. ft of living space. Unfortunately, due to my father-in-law’s poor health (he passed away this past summer), the units have not been well maintained for years. Recently, my wife took over management of the property and asked me to help her renovate the units. It’s been a big job, but we’re making good progress, in no small part because of Surface Shield.

Of the six units, five needed new roofs. The roof on one unit was in good shape, having been replaced just a few years earlier. But the rest needed full replacement. Due to substantial deferred maintenance, pretty much every one of the five units had one or more sections of the roof that had serious structural damage – either rot or termite damage – especially under the eaves. This meant that the job would require a serious bit of carpentry, in addition to replacing the roof. Also, some of the units had carports with low sloped roofs and an asphalt roll-roofing covering. So, in addition to doing conventional asphalt shingle roofs, we needed a contractor that was good at carpentry and roll-roofing.

Before selecting a contractor, I called at least a half dozen roofing contractors, getting bids from four or five. I was impressed with Surface Shield from the start, as Zach, their estimator, was friendly, efficient and professional.

In the end, Surface Shield did four of the five roofing jobs. On the first unit, I gave the work to Surface Shield. They did a good job and I was happy.

However, on the second unit, I decided to bundled the roofing work with the cottage’s overall renovation project. In this case, our renovation contractor sub-contracted out the roofing job to a vendor of his choice. Wouldn’t you know it. I was unhappy with the result. My mistake. The other roofing contractor did a terrible job on the structural repairs. He cut corners. In several cases, he failed to replace badly rotted rafters under the eaves, but instead just covered the rot with wood fill – essentially hiding the problems, instead of fixing them. And when he did replace rotted sections of rafter under the eaves, he simply cut out the rotten sections and tacked up short replacement pieces in their place. These replacement pieces provided no structural support for the roof above. They were purely cosmetic; and unless you looked carefully, you wouldn’t necessarily notice. It was just terrible, even dangerous, as these sections of roof appeared sound, but weren’t. The moment anyone stepped on them or a strong wind came along, they could easily collapse. And wouldn't you know it, that’s exactly what happened.

After the roof of the second unit was done, we had it tented for termites. The tenting crew climbed up on the roof to pull the tent over the house. When they walked out on a section of roof that the roofer had supposedly “repaired”, it collapsed. The so-called “fixed” rafters pulled away from their attachment points and the roof sagged down. The hole thing would have fallen to the ground if it weren’t for the new shingles holding the entire assembly up. We were lucky no one got hurt. In the end, we had to pull that whole section of roofing down and fix everything properly. It was a painful waste of time and money.

After that, I awarded the remaining work to Surface Shield and kept an  eye on their work. It turns out they did a terrific job. When elements of the roof framing were rotten (rafters, decking, fascia) they replaced them. Moreover, they did the job right, ensuring that the replacement pieces provided adequate structural support. For example, when they cut out rotten rafters under the eaves, they replaced them with long pieces that extended deep into the attic – not just to the edge of the outside wall (an approach that provides no structural support). These replacement rafters were then sistered to the original rafters up inside the attic on both sides of the joint using strong plate pieces. The result was a rafter that was as good as new. One that will fully support the roof for decades to come.

My point is this. Surface Shield didn’t necessarily do anything super extraordinary when replacing the roofs on our cottages. In fact, they did what I would expect any self-respecting roofing contractor to do. However, my experience with other contractors suggest that not all roofing contractors are the same. Surface Shield did an excellent job in a timely, reliable manner. The other guy didn’t. So I’m happy to recommend them.

By the way, the renovation contractor we used for the second cottage had other issues as well. After he finished that unit, we swapped him out for another contractor (Wayne’s General Maintenance and Painting), who is doing the remaining units. So far, we’re very satisfied with the work Wayne and his crew have done.

We did have a few small hiccups with Surface Shield. When replacing four roofs that are in pretty bad shape, it’s hard not to have one or two things go wrong. However, when problems arose, Surface Shield stepped up and did right by us. So again, I was satisfied with their quality and integrity.

In one case, a Surface Shield employee, while working in the attic to replace a badly rotted rafter, accidentally pushed his foot through the ceiling below. Since the ceiling was made from Canec – an old fashioned building material – the hole wasn’t easily patched, but instead required an entire section of ceiling to be replaced. Surface Shield isn't a ceiling specialist, so they worked with me to figure out a good solution to the problem. Since I was renovating the rest of the house anyway, including making repairs to parts of the ceiling, we agreed to have my renovation contractor fix the ceiling and have Surface Shield pay the expense. I was satisfied with this solution, since I knew my (new) renovation contractor would do a good job – since he’d done something similar on a previous unit. It worked out great.

Another small hiccup occurred when Surface Shield finished our third unit. In this case, Surface Shield had replaced several rafters and some roof decking on one side of the house. In the process, a small piece of wood blocking, which was placed between two rafters and formed an attic vent, broke. When I pointed out the broken vent during my final inspection, they immediately acknowledge the issue and agreed to fix it. It was a small thing, but it was nice to see them take responsibility for it.

I’m sure there were one or two other small issues along the way. I don’t specifically remember now. But in any case, whenever something came up, Surface Shield took care of it, and at the end of the day, I was happy with the result.

I've included a few before and after pictures below to give readers a sense for the scope of the project. Check them out. But let me end here by saying this: Nice work Surface Shield Roofing! Mahalo Nui!

Before Pictures:

Five of our six cottages needed their roofs replaced. All five units had significant damage due to extensive deferred maintenance. Oops. On this cottage a piece of old carpet covered a leak around the plumbing vent. 

There was significant termite damage in places, especially under the eaves.

There were also areas with significant water damage and rot.

In places we had to replace not only the fascia, but also roof decking and rotten rafters. 

After Pictures:

An example of repairs that involved replacing fascia, decking and rafters. To insure structural integrity, the replacement rafters were spliced to the original rafters up inside the attic, giving us a strong joint that could handle a heavy load out on the edge of the eave.  

Another example of structural repairs. In this case, multiple rafters were replaced. Again, to insure the integrity of the roof (out on the eave) it was necessary to sister the replacement rafter pieces to the original rafters deep inside the attic. This definitely required more work, but it also was necessary to the do the job right. 

Once the whole thing was prepped and painted, you couldn't even see the repairs. The whole thing looked new. 

As expected, Surface Shield did a good job tearing off the old roofing (multiple layers), applying new underlayment and installing new shingles. It looks great!

A finished unit. When all was said and done, we were very happy with the result. Good job Surface Shield, and thanks!!