South Thames Roofing are best avoided
Be very wary about hiring South Thames Roofing from Ewell for your roofing work.
Initially Stephen Baker (SB) the owner provided a middle of the road estimate, most other roofers were cheaper and some were dearer. The detail of his quote and start date in two weeks were acceptable considering 2 major areas of rainfall leaks that needed urgent replacement of a flat roof and chimney repairs, plus crumbling and falling concrete soffits and fascia’s back and front requiring replacement and all round replacement of the guttering on a terraced house. The cost of the work quoted was in excess of £10k.
First problem was that SB moved out the start date by a further 3 weeks, stating he had too much work on, but proved to be he had booked a holiday on receipt of our order.
Next problem was that on the planned start date the scaffolding was installed by SB own scaffolding company although the legally required scaffold owners sign was never fitted, our quote stated front and rear scaffold to safely access chimney top. Only front scaffold to the eves was ever installed, the chimney was accessed by ladders and the rear accessed by ladders lent on our first floor windows, a very dangerous practice. We complained and received 25% discount on the scaffolding, although 75% of the quoted scaffold was never erected.
The fitting of new roofing boards nailed to the joists caused severe damage to the ceiling under, that flexed at least 3mm during the hammering, this loosened the ceiling fixing nails that were left popped out by 3mm when the ceiling board flexed back. SB refused to repair the ceiling and make good the damage quoting his T&Cs that minor damage is to be expected. This was major damage that has cost us £500 to repair.
Whilst working at the rear of the house SB left the new patio door and front doors open and free to slam in the wind. This damaged the new patio door lock, that now works intermittently and will need to be replaced.
We had requested replacement of our concrete soffits and fascia’s front and rear, we received a patch up job with wood in places with the concrete soffits patched up and painted over and fascia’s clad in over sized UPVC. The soffit repairs were never detailed in the final invoice or guarantee. We believe these will crumble as before and soon require another repair, by not mentioning their completed repairs South Thames have an opportunity to deny their warranty. We queried thus but have been ignored.
We believe we received a rushed job, taking 3 men just 3 1/2 days and have paid an invoice far in excess of the work originally quoted. We suggest any potential customer of South Thames Roofing take note of our experience and go elsewhere, why pay for work not completed that required constant checking.
SB never answered his phone to us, rarely answered our emails in less than 4 days, if answered at all, but did on occasion what’sApp us to be extremely rude and abusive about us and our complaint of a damaged ceiling and intermittent back door lock that he claimed were perfectly fine and no cause for complaint.
We settled his overcharged invoice, just to rid this person from our lives, you would do well to not let him enter yours. His website testimonials must be fictitious as from our experience they give the opposite opinion of his company’s true actions.