Double Check Your Home Renovation Warranty to Avoid Surprises

Thinking about renovating your home? If you don’t already have a trusted renovator, the first step is to find a company that can do the work within your time and budget expectations. If you’re like most homeowners, you will:

1. Ask friends and colleagues and/or search the web for recommended suppliers
2. Get estimates for the work from at least three of them
3. Check each supplier’s portfolio of work and maybe even talk to existing customers about their experience.

These are all fairly standard ways of finding the best supplier for your needs and preferences.

The Warranty

Many homeowners will also ask about warranty protection. Especially for roofs, a problem with the work and materials can have costly consequences far beyond repairing the roof itself.

What most people don’t realize is that when they hire a home reno contractor, they are really dealing with two companies.

1. The Renovator – The company that does the work on your home. They use materials, like siding, roofing tiles, doors and windows that they get from a manufacturer.
2. The Manufacturer – While the renovator is the one you deal with, and they do the work, a major part of your renovation, the actual materials installed, comes from a company that you do not deal with directly. And you often don’t even have a say in who they are.

Fortunately, major manufacturers of home reno products understand your need for a certain level of performance and they warranty their products accordingly. Roofing shingles are often referred to by the length of the warranty that protects them, such as “25-year” or “50-year” shingles.

But it’s when you get to the renovator’s warranty that you need to start double-checking. The renovator’s warranty covers the labour used to do the renovation.

Complicating matters is the fact that there are really two types of labour warranty. One protects against an issue that arises due to improper installation. So if your siding is not installed properly, it will be reinstalled correctly at no extra charge to you.

Another labour warranty covers the labour costs of correcting a manufacturer’s defect. Many homeowners have been surprised to learn that, after finding a problem in a recently installed roof, door or window that is “under warranty”, they are still charged for the labour to remove, repair and/or replace the defective part.

Of course, you will likely pay a little extra for complete warranty protection, but it is good to know what costs to expect if something goes wrong with your renovation.