After a 2nd poor experience with Welte Roofing, I'm sorry to say I'll never hire them again. Welte has an excellent name in the Mt. Lebanon area when it comes to the work they do on slate roofs. The quality of their workmanship, as well as most of their workers, is top notch. Unfortunately, their service experience has fallen off dramatically over the past few years. I've hired Welte about a dozen times since '03, and my first several experiences were great. Then, things started to change. After hiring them to clean out my gutters 3 years ago, I ended up having to call back when - 4 hours after their workers left - I ended up with a waterfall cascading over the edge of my gutter above my front door. In heavy freezing rain, I found myself up on a ladder, pulling several large clumps of leaves out of the gutter. Baffled, I called Welte first thing the next morning to let them know about my experience and to calmly voice my dissatisfaction. I was shocked when Pat, the person I spoke with, proceeded to first accuse me of lying before eventually throwing out several insults. As much as I had loved Welte for years due to their quick response time and workmanship, I decided at that moment it was time to move on to a different roofing company. Fast-forward 3 years to last week... After having tried out a number of other area roofers with mixed results, I decided to chalk up my bad experience with Welte a few years ago to a bad day on Pat's behalf and give them another shot. So, when I noticed a had an apparent leak in my downspout, I called to schedule to have them out to take a look. As is usually the case, they had a crew out to my house within no time (<18 hours in this case, which is fantastic). The nice & courteous crew quickly determined there were simply just a few exposed pinholes from where an old patch had corroded, and were able to patch up the area using putty within a span of 15 min. Two days later, I received an invoice for $200 with a description "Fixed Pin Holes in Gutter". I was surprised at the amount of the invoice, since it was literally a 15-minute job where the only materials used was a few dabs of putty, but I figured there was probably some sort of reasonable explanation, so I decided to call. I called and was connected to Pat, the same guy who I had spoken with 3 years earlier. I started by letting him know that I was calling with a question about my recent invoice. He proceed to tell me that $200 was their minimum service fee, and that I should know that since they always tell customers that when they call. I told him I was planning to pay the invoice, but that I wanted him to understand that nobody had told me that when I called to make the appt, and that there would've been no way I would've hired them for this particular small job had that been the case. I explained that my issue had nothing to do with the $200 minimum service fee but rather that nobody had told me about the fee, which is why I felt blindsided when I received the exorbitant invoice. He responded by hurling one insult after another at me. The guy literally berated me and ultimately told me not to pay the invoice and never to call them again. The thing is - we both lost. I didn't care about the $200 - I was prepared to pay it in full when I called. I lost because I had begun to think that my previous bad experience with Welte was simply a blip, only to find out I was wrong. Welte lost - because they had a customer ready to send in a check for $200 who simply called with a question about his invoice, but told me not to pay it and to never call back.
