If you consider Royal Roofing and Siding of Lewiston, Maine for any type of work, please do yourself a big favor and get your estimate in writing. The roof of my house needed to be cleared of snow and ice build up to avoid damage, and my wife contacted Royal Roofing to get an estimate. We thought it would be safe to accept a phone quote for this relatively small job, and since the Royal Roofing quote was similar to what we had paid in previous winters, we scheduled the work. When the job was done, we were handed a bill for nearly $500 - three times the amount quoted. We were in shock and argued the bill with the crew leader - I'll call J - who also happened to be the person who provided the phone quote. When J realized we weren't backing down, he reluctantly agreed to remove a $100 service charge. We were still unhappy with the amount, but saw no other recourse at that moment, so we gave him a check for the adjusted bill. It was only after the crew left that we realized J had also adjusted UPWARD the total time for the job, so most of the service charge "removal" was made up in additional labor charges.

Soon after the crew left, I called the owner, John Rawstron, to express our dissatisfaction with the bill and the obvious manipulation of the numbers. Before I could say a word, he launched into a tirade (he'd already been briefed by J). He refused to listen to my side of the story - continuing to loudly talk over me - and was clearly not willing to work it out.

One final note that when we were disputing the bill with J, he commented that customers are often surprised by the cost of snow removal. Yeah, I'll bet.