Shawn Higgs Contracting

In 2015, I had a very minor leak in my second story bedroom skylight. During the worst of storms, there would be a leak of one to two drops of water per minute. The leak was inside the skylight tunnel area, not behind any drywall or plaster. So, while having a bucket in the middle of our bedroom floor to catch a few tablespoons of water was an annoyance, there was no damage to our ceiling drywall or plaster. Nonetheless, I knew that the leak would not go away and could possibly get worse down the road. It needed to be taken care of.
Shawn Higgs had done two small projects for me in the past. I had liked his previous work and gave him a call. I explained the issue and he assured me that he was an expert at roof repairs. I hired him to do the job.
In the summer of 2015, he told me that I needed wider flashing where my original roof met the addition to my house. He would also need to replace a few rows of shingles and the skylight itself. I paid him $1,300 for materials and labor. He came out and finished the job in two days.
Unfortunately, during the next rain, it was obvious that his repair had done nothing. The drip was still there. It wasn’t any better or worse than it was before. I contacted him, but he seemed annoyed. At that time, he didn’t have another solution. While I should’ve pressed the issue, I let it slide at that time.
During the spring of 2016, I contacted him again. The leak was still active, and I wanted to fix the problem once and for all. He said that he would like to try something different. He would build up a wooden frame underneath the skylight and replace all the flashing. He needed another $1,000 for the material and labor. I gave him the cash. He came over and finished the job that day.
As with his previous repair, nothing was any different during the next rain storm. A couple of drops per minute. At this point, I had $2,300 into the ‘repair’ and there was absolutely no fix or improvement. I contacted him. He told me that he was done helping me and that he had no more ideas on how to fix it. I asked for my money back, but he laughed off that idea.
Prior to Christmas 2016, I ran into Shawn at Walmart. He approached me and apologized for not being able to fix my roof. He said that he felt bad and just wanted to make it up to me. He couldn’t stand to have an unhappy customer. He said that he had recently done a lot of work with steel roofs and skylights and that he now knew exactly what he had done wrong in his prior attempts. He wanted one more shot of fixing the roof, and he would do it labor-free.
In the spring of 2017, we communicated back and forth. For only $300 more dollars for material, he would come out and take care of this issue once and for all. I was tired of having a leak for two years and already had sunk $2,300 into it. If $300 more dollars would make this nightmare go away, it would be money well spent.
In July of 2017, he came out and spent four hours on my roof. He told me that it was taken care of and that there would be no more problems going forward. I paid him the final $300 and was happy that this issue was finally behind me.
Although, it wasn’t. A few days later, numerous storms came through the area. I was at work. My wife called me and was hysterical. “Water is pouring into our bedroom through numerous holes. There are buckets everywhere.” I rushed home to find 19 different leaks in the ceiling and around the skylight tunnel. For the first time, water was clearly getting behind the drywall and plaster. Plaster was cracking and falling off. We only had 7 buckets in the house, so I ran to Lowe’s to buy many more. In the meantime, my wife and son were trying to soak up the water with towels and emptying buckets.
It took 21 buckets in all to cover the leaking area. Although the buckets were temporarily preventing water from damaging the bedroom floor, the water was coming in so fast that some of the buckets were filling up in less than a half hour. If we didn’t empty them constantly, water would spill out of the bucket and come through our first-floor ceiling.
It rained hard for three continuous days. My entire family was on bucket duty during that time. Even at night, I couldn’t go to sleep in fear of the buckets overflowing. My wife and son had to dump buckets while I was at work.
When this awful episode started, I contacted Shawn immediately. I asked him to do something, even if it was just to place a tarp over the affected area. He refused and told me that he would never again help me. I was on my own.
I had contacted my insurance company and they sent out a Certified Roof Inspector. The man was in such utter shock over what he had seen. Shawn left four holes in between two steel roof sheets. These holes were big enough for the inspector to get his large index finger the entire way into them. Shawn also created a dam directly upslope of the skylight to try to prevent water from reaching the s