I have learnd much, much more about roofs and roofing than I even thought I’d need before I moved into this house, which I now own with my wife. We had the roofing over the garage completely redone, because the previous (re) build had gone right over the exhaust vent for the household water heater. Amazing how we’d never noticed this before! By having this thing vent between the old (flat) roof and the newer (less flat) one, it ruined all the plywood and could have burned the house down.
The contractors we hired were lame. We never knew when they were coming or what they were going to do one day to the next. I always had to call them. On random days, we’d have footsteps on the roof at 6:00am. Our master bath has a skylight, so this was pretty inconvenient.
After they finally finished the job, we got some big rain and there was a leak in the house right away. I freaked out and called my good friend Andy Jennings (seen here: http://www.unicycling.com/things/index.htm#34). Andy has his own roofing business. He would have done our garage, except he doesn’t do construction, just the roofing part. Now we know we should have hired him for that half. Anyway, he came over and identified the error in workmanship that was causing the leak. I immediately hired him to be a go-between and work with Yancey Bros. to fix that, and the several other “wrongs” he found with our roof. It took them several more return visits, but now their work seems pretty solid.
Later this year, Andy will be redoing the remainder of our roof, which was also installed wrong many years ago, causing our fascia boards to rot away.
So on to your situation. From what I’ve learned from Andy, watching him sleuth various minor roof issues we’ve had over the years, materials are seldom to blame. A materials warranty is only meaningful if the stuff was installed as per manufacturers guidelines. Even then, leaks often come from seams, joints, corners and edges, not from the main roofing materials themselves.
Recently Andy was over to check out a minor skylight leak, and noticed a sealer that was crumbling. It was something he’d put on a couple of years earlier, from a sample from the manufacturer. He said he was going to contact them and describe what had happened to their product. He fixed the crumbly stuff.
So with a roof, the labor warranty is probably more important than the materials one. If you’re outside of warranty it could be a problem, unless your paperwork talks about “defect, error or mistakes” in workmanship (not manufacture).
Based on my experience, I recommend finding a third party to inspect your roof. My friend Andy does these in the Sacramento area, so I’m sure there are people available there as well. If you can’t find them listed as roof inspectors, just call other roofing companies and ask for an inspection. As they may see it as a potential job, they may do it cheap. Beware of anyone who wants to do it for free, because you want objective data, not a sales pitch.
Also don’t be fooled by a company having the biggest Yellow Pages ad, for instance. The company that screwed up our roof advertises plenty. They might be fine with “ordinary” roofs, but our house doesn’t have ordinary anything. Andy told me he was explaining stuff to their supervisor that he should have known before being in charge of any roofing projects. Did I mention that company’s name? Yancey Brothers Construction. Not to be confused with other Northern CA contractors from the Yancey family, apparently there are several and they’re not connected. I wonder why?
Good luck with this process. Let us know how it turns out!