DENVER — After Denver's first major hailstorm of the season, roofing companies are already canvassing neighborhoods — and not all of them have homeowners' best interests at heart.
Within 10 minutes of Monday's storm ending, Lizzie Landis said roofing companies were already knocking on her door in Denver's Cole neighborhood, asking to inspect her roof for hail damage.
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"There was about like three yesterday, three today," she said. "Of course, at that point I was just like, I don't know if I need a new roof, like, I need to go like clean up my backyard."
Local roofing companies said Monday's extreme weather has also drawn out-of-town contractors, sometimes called "storm chasers", to Denver neighborhoods as they look to capitalize on the damage to homes and roofs.
"It's a yearly occurrence. A lot of companies, contractors will come in from out of state when we have these storms, just because of the influx of work, and then they're nowhere to be found in the wintertime," said Curtis Johnson, a senior project manager with Precise Roofing, an Englewood-based company accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
Meghan Conradt, a BBB spokesperson, said while out-of-town companies can still be legitimate businesses, there are bad actors that may try to steal money by demanding large upfront payments and never returning to complete the work.
"In addition to asking for a large upfront payment, especially if it's more than 25% of what the total amount of work should cost, other red flags may be a lot of pressure. So when a company is trying to get you to make a decision quickly without having a chance to do your research," Conradt said.
She advised homeowners always get multiple bids before choosing a company and make sure you get a bid in writing with details of the cost and timeline for repairs.
"It's not always that the cheapest bid is the best. In fact, sometimes we'll see that businesses, especially if they are storm chasers, that may be trying to really give a too good to be true price to get you on the hook," Conradt said.
Mark Dulon, co-owner of Sky Manor Roofing Company based in Thornton with an A+ rating from BBB, said his company received quite a few phone calls after Monday's hailstorm.
"It did quite a bit of damage all over up on the roofs. We've been on quite a few roofs today, got a team of about 12 guys working the neighborhood to help the homeowners before all the storm chasers get into town," Dulon said.
Johnson said the bad actors make it harder for reputable companies to earn trust.
"Once there's a bad apple, once a homeowner has a bad experience with the contractor, or something like that, it's really hard to convince them again that, hey, we're not all like that," Johnson said.
