Almost nobody calls a roofer about gutter sizing. They call about a wet basement, or about water sheeting over the front edge of the gutter every time it rains hard, or about a gutter that… 

Every January the phone rings with some version of the same question. It is 19 degrees, there is a stain spreading across a bedroom ceiling, and the homeowner wants to know whether anybody can do… 

A coating salesman and I want the same thing to be true. We both want your flat roof to be fixable with a few pails of liquid and two days of labor instead of a… 

Most homeowners collect three roofing quotes, lay them side by side, look at the number at the bottom of each one, and pick. I understand why. The rest of the paper looks like the same… 

The wrapper says 30 years. The salesman said 30 years. You did the math in your head and figured you would be handing this problem to whoever buys the house in 2048. In Chicagoland that… 

People hear “price over the phone” and assume it means a number pulled out of thin air, followed by a guy showing up later to tell you it doubled. Fair suspicion. Plenty of outfits work… 

Somebody calls about a flat roof on a two-flat in Berwyn or a strip center in Bridgeview, and within about four minutes the question arrives: should I go TPO or torch down. They have usually… 

Every spring a hail line runs across Cook County and my phone starts going within about six hours. The questions are always the same, and they are always asked in the wrong order. People want… 

Every January my phone rings with the same call. There is a wall of ice hanging off the gutter, icicles down to the porch rail, and water coming through the ceiling by the front door.… 

A homeowner in Berwyn called me last spring about a brown ring on her back bedroom ceiling. She had already had two guys out. Both of them stood in that bedroom, looked up at the…