I was contacted by a lady today who wanted someone to finish painting her roof for her.
This lady was the victim of an unlicensed Cheap Roof Painting Scammer.
THIS SITUATION
This particular situation was that the roof had been undercoated and a $2000 deposit had been paid with a balance of $1000 still owing on completion, so total price $3000.
This is a decent sized roof we are talking about here, 375m2 of roof area, so thats $8 m2 to clean and paint the roof.
Simple mathematics will tell you that this can never work, the cost to buy the proper roofing membrane for a four coat painting system for a job like this is around $5000, thats just for the roof paint, not including labour, so you can see something is very wrong right from the start.
HERE IS HOW THE UNLICENSED SCAMMERS WORKS
- They dont have a QBCC licence, so they keep their price under $3300 which is the threshold set by the government to require a licence to complete building work, painting is considered building work
- They also dont pay home warranty insurance, this means you dont have any warranty on the painting work done for you
- There is usually no contract in place making it difficult for you to take legal action to have the work rectified
- They want you to pay in cash which is untraceable, inevitably they dont have the money to buy the paint to do the job which is why they want you to pay for the paint. Its likely that they are not paying the required GST either
- The deposit they ask for is more than the value of any work done, the maximum deposit for this kind of work is usually 10% and they are breaking the law if they ask for a larger deposit when the value of the work is more than $3300
- They often complete some of the work, but the standard of the work complete will be sub-par, in the above example was the roof even cleaned properly before the undercoat was put down ?
- No licenced contractor will want to continue painting on a dodgy substructure, so all of the work thats done will have to be stripped and re-done with the proper products.
HOW CHEAP PAINT WORKS
If you have received a really cheap roof painting quote you need to check the quote to find out the number of coats and the type of paint being used.
To paint a roof properly you need a minimum 3 coat membrane system that comprises undercoat, 2 top coats, its preferable to add a fourth clear coat for maximum anti-fade warranty – see here
The cheap 2 coat roof painting systems that you are being quoted are often normal house paints that will not last and will lead to disappointment, house paint is not the proper membrane system required for your roof. The coats can also be sprayed thinner to make the paint go further which will reduce the life of the roof coating.
There’s also some confusion that painting your roof will seal it and fix leaks, this isnt true, the only way to fix your roof leaks is to replace the cracked tiles and to redo the pointing on your ridges and hips (sometimes other work is required but most roofs are fixed using these methods), on a metal roof you may need a re-screw if your roof screws are rusty.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PAINT AND A MEMBRANE
The average person probably won’t realise that cant paint your roof with house paint and expect it to last.
In essence to break it down paint is mainly required for appearance to make a surface look good,protection compared to a membrane is minimal.
A Roofing Membrane is more akin to a durable and flexible barrier rather than just being paint to look good.
YOUR ROOF MEMBRANE MUST BE
• Protective membrane
• UV resistance
• Drinking water safe
• Solar reflectance
• Crack bridging
• 10 year material warranty
• Resists pollution
• Chemical attack
• Minimise dirt retention
WHAT ROOF PAINTING MEMBRANE DO WE USE
We specify and use Shield Coat Roofing membrane.
They offer a 10 Year Warranty on their product.
– Undercoat shieldseal CT401
– 2 x top coats Roof Bond Membrane
Adding a fourth clear coat increases warranty to 12 years
– 1 x nano protect anti-fade clear coat gloss