LESLIE: Paul in Indiana has a roofing question. What can we do for you?
PAUL: I have a house that was built in 1928. It is two stories and it has the red tile roof.
TOM: That sounds gorgeous.
PAUL: They’re nice. They’re nice looking. But during a heavy rain, we have recently developed a leak that will come to the main floor, basically in the kitchen area, from either the upstairs – not totally sure if it’s the attic or we do have a door to outside that looks like it might have been a patio design at one point. But on the red tile roof, I’m not comfortable taking that stuff off and I’m kind of looking for maybe a contractor that would specialize in that type of stuff if it’s determined to be that.
TOM: Well, first of all, in terms of sourcing out that leak, if you can get up into the attic with a flashlight, the place that I would check is specifically around where plumbing vents come through the roof. Very often you get a boot around that that will break down because it’s only rubber, generally, and it’ll break down. So matter how good your tile is – the chances are the leak is not coming through the main field of the tile; it’s probably coming at one of the points where there’s some break in the roof, like where a chimney is or where a plumbing vent goes through.
Now, in terms of finding a contractor, it is difficult to find good-quality contractors but there are some services that can help you do that, one of which is called Angie’s List.
LESLIE: It’s a great resource. In fact, every person who is making a recommendation has no affiliation to the business whatsoever.
PAUL: Ah.
LESLIE: They’re just regular consumers, like you and myself, who were really happy or unhappy with a job and then go ahead and post it there. So it’s policed in a way to know that the company themselves are not putting up good information about themselves. And it’s very local, so you can find a lot of folks in your area.
PAUL: Oh, OK. Great.
TOM: Sort of a social networking solution for finding a good-quality contractor.
PAUL: Very good.
TOM: Paul, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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