Look at the Roof, Not at His Men

The problem in one breath

The sub crew's roof looked fine from the driveway and the homeowner signed. Six weeks later she calls about a brown stain running down the chimney chase. Your name is on that warranty, and it's your truck in her drive on a Saturday.

Why it happens

It feels like there are only two ways to run a sub crew, and both are bad. Stand on the roof telling his men how to nail, and you're not buying a roof anymore — you're running his crew, which is the job you hired a company to do. Or leave them alone and hope, which is what most do, because nobody ever agreed on when you'd come look. So the first look lands after the shingles are on, when what you needed to see is buried, and asking now sounds like an accusation.

You didn't buy a crew. You bought a result. Look at the result, on days everybody knew about.

The play

Run the sub checkpoints: three times you look, all three written down before he starts.

1. Put the three checkpoints in the agreement, not in a phone call. Dates, what gets looked at, and that the last payment waits on the last one. It goes in with the rest of the paper (Module 12, Play 2); his certificates are a separate gate before any of it (Module 11, Play 5). Agreed in advance, a checkpoint is a delivery date. Sprung on him, it's an insult. He builds to the standard you already handed his company, not to a new rule at the ladder.
2. Checkpoint one, before the tear-off. Count the layers, walk the deck, mark the soft spots, and hold the spec you both priced next to what's up there. A surprise found now is a change order signed before anybody swings a hammer (Module 6, Play 17). Found later, it's an argument.
3. Checkpoint two, before the shingles cover it. This is the one that matters. Underlayment, ice-and-water, valleys, step and counter flashing, every penetration. It's the only one you can't re-do from the ground later, and it's where the callbacks that come back at you are born. Miss it and you find out when it rains sideways.
4. Checkpoint three, final, before the last money moves. Ridge and hip lines, exposure, the cleanup, the magnet run, nails out of the grass, gutters clear. Money is what gets a punch list finished the same week.
5. Photos at all three, every time. That's the photo habit (Module 3, Play 10) — same job file, his crew or yours.
6. Missed checkpoint two? Say so, before the last check. Go up and look at what's still showing — the eave, the valley surface, the flashing edges. Then ask his company for its own photos of what got covered; a crew that shot them hands them over. If nothing exists, don't pretend you inspected it — settle it with his owner while you still have money in your hand.
7. A miss goes back to the company, in writing, with a date. Name what's wrong, the fix, and the day, and hold the next stage until it's done. That's what the agreement bought you, and it's what keeps a fix from becoming money off his check (Module 12, Play 4).

Do this this week

Take the next sub job on the schedule and write the three checkpoint days beside it on the board. Then call the sub company's owner and tell him those days out loud, before his truck rolls. Twenty minutes.

The tool

Print the card and keep it in the foreman's truck with the ladder — it goes up on the roof, not in a folder. One card per job. The man who looks signs it and ticks only what he saw. Anything wrong goes on the NOT YET line with the day it must be fixed by, and that call goes to the sub company's owner, not to the man who did it. At closeout it goes in the job file with the photos.

THE SUB CHECKPOINT CARD — three times you look, before the money moves

Job / address: ___________________________  Sub company: ____________
Who looked: ____________________  Signed: __________________________

1 - BEFORE THE TEAR-OFF          Date: ______  Pass [ ]  Not yet [ ]
  [ ] Layers counted, deck walked, soft spots and rot marked
  [ ] What's up there matches the spec we both priced
  [ ] Anything different: change order signed before work starts

2 - BEFORE THE SHINGLES COVER IT Date: ______  Pass [ ]  Not yet [ ]
  [ ] Underlayment down flat, laps right, nothing torn
  [ ] Ice-and-water where our spec calls for it, sealed at the eave
  [ ] Valleys built the way we sell them, cut clean
  [ ] Step flashing at every wall, counter flashing at the chimney
  [ ] Pipe boots, vents and skylights flashed, not caulked
  [ ] Drip edge on at eave and rake

3 - FINAL, BEFORE THE LAST CHECK Date: ______  Pass [ ]  Not yet [ ]
  [ ] Ridge and hips straight, exposure even from the ground
  [ ] Nails picked up, magnet run twice, gutters clear
  [ ] Drive, siding and landscaping the way we found them
  [ ] Photos from all three checkpoints in the job file

NOT YET - what has to change: _______________________________________
Told (sub company owner): ________________  Fixed by: _______________

If your crew is 1099

Get this line right; it's easiest to cross here. Checking an agreed result at agreed times, and turning down work that misses the spec you paid for, is a different thing from running his men — the first is what you buy from a company, the second is what you do with employees (Module 12, Play 1 lists what running them looks like). The one that catches people on a roof is correcting a man yourself instead of taking it to the company that employs him. Where the line actually sits is set by your state and by the facts of your setup, so ask your own accountant or attorney how yours looks before the season. The habit fits on one line: talk to the company, about the work — never to the man, about how he works.

One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it's not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It's your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.