Daniel Arguelles, the owner, met with my husband and portrayed himself as a licensed roofer. He sold us on his imported handmade clay barrel tiles which we thought were a perfect match for our historic home. They agreed on a price and he provided us with a contract. He removed the handmade Cuban barrel tiles from our roof, made repairs and began the process of putting up the roof paper and copper flashings. We thought everything was going great until uniformed state agents came to our home and demanded that work stop immediately.
We were informed that Artezano's did not have Workman's Compensation which we did not know was required by law. Since we just moved to the area and were new home owners, we were in the dark about this. He had gotten a permit in the city so we thought he was OK to work. As it turns out, this was not the case. Danny begged us to please give him time to try to get workman's comp which we did because we still thought he was an honest individual.
In the meantime, it was rainy season and the water poured into our house on a daily basis. We had extensive wall, wood floor and ceiling damage throughout our home. Finally, Danny admitted to me during a phone conversation that he was in fact not a licensed roofer and had gotten out of roofing because the workman's comp insurance was too expensive. He had been able to get a permit through the city because he used his uncle's general contractor license.
At this point we decided we needed to get someone else to complete Danny's work so we could stop the water damage and asked Danny to sign a change of contractor form to expedite the process. He said he would not sign such a form unless we signed a waiver releasing him and his uncle from damages. I told him that we would absolutely not do that since he had lied to us about being a roofer and had not completed the job according to his contract.
Moreover, his negligence had caused extensive damage to our home which we would have to pay to have repaired. He told us he felt badly about the whole situation and promised that when our tiles were delivered from Colombia, he would deliver them to us since we had already paid him $25,000 (plus $3,000 for the copper flashing) and we did not even get close to getting our money's worth.
Since he didn't sign a change of contractor form, we had to wait 10 business days in order for another roofer to be able to start working on our roof. It rained EVERY DAY. We had two roofers come in and they both told us that Danny had done a terrible job. They both said the copper flashings had been improperly installed and would have to be removed and replaced or we would have water leaks within a year. There was wood that had to be replaced, paper that had to be taken off and many other repairs that had to be done.
Basically, we were starting from scratch again with a new roofer. We waited our ten days, got the new roofer working and our house was dry within a week and a half.in the meantime, Danny assured me over the phone that our tiles were on the way. Then he said they were at immigration at the port. Then he stopped picking up the phone.By this time, we half heartedly expected this would happen but held a torch that he would do the right thing. This never happened.
So, on top of the $28,000 we gave him and the copper company, we had to pay another $49,000 to a new roofer plus another $5,000 to a copper company for all new copper flashings and another $16,000 to order clay barrel tiles. (We tried to use "S" tiles to save some money but since our house is historic, the town did not allow it.) We are still waiting for the arrival of our tiles and coincidentally, the place we bought the tiles from told us that Artezano's had stiffed 3 of his customers as well.
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