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View Full Version : To those who would "Volunteer" to help in Texas



Sandpebble
09-02-2017, 01:05
After Hurricane Charley devastated my area in 2004 people flocked here from all over the country to be part of the rebuild...and make money . Personaly I was glad to see them.

Roofs was our biggest need and for a year and a half all you heard anywhere in town was the endless stacatto of air guns driving nails through roof shingles ... 12 hours a day.

Where I happen to live the county is particularly stringent on the need to be a licenced contractor to do anything..... they want to know that you do in fact know what the hell you are doing.

What this created was contractors "renting" out thier licences and people doing the work didn't necessarily know what the hell they were doing.

Six weeks after the storm the wife and I obtained roofing materials. We went to the town and pulled a permit and we did our roof ourselves. We were the only roof in a multi block radius that passed final inspection on the first shot. The wife and I spent many months rectifying errors for free so that neighbors could get their roofs passed because the licenced contractors never came back.

The next problem... and the point of this thread ... is that many were arrested here in Charlotte County for contracting with out a licence. There was a poor guy from Georgia for instance. He came down here and rebuilt aluminum pool cages without a licence. Got caught finishing three of them making it a third class felony.... aluminum pool cages for Gods sake are non structural and he knew what he was doing. While parasite licenced contractors walked away with profit from shoddy work performed by those who worked under his"rented " licence.

Those of you in Texas ... God Love ... you'll get past these difficult times.

S.A. Boggs
09-04-2017, 04:04
After Hurricane Charley devastated my area in 2004 people flocked here from all over the country to be part of the rebuild...and make money . Personaly I was glad to see them.

Roofs was our biggest need and for a year and a half all you heard anywhere in town was the endless stacatto of air guns driving nails through roof shingles ... 12 hours a day.

Where I happen to live the county is particularly stringent on the need to be a licenced contractor to do anything..... they want to know that you do in fact know what the hell you are doing.

What this created was contractors "renting" out thier licences and people doing the work didn't necessarily know what the hell they were doing.

Six weeks after the storm the wife and I obtained roofing materials. We went to the town and pulled a permit and we did our roof ourselves. We were the only roof in a multi block radius that passed final inspection on the first shot. The wife and I spent many months rectifying errors for free so that neighbors could get their roofs passed because the licenced contractors never came back.

The next problem... and the point of this thread ... is that many were arrested here in Charlotte County for contracting with out a licence. There was a poor guy from Georgia for instance. He came down here and rebuilt aluminum pool cages without a licence. Got caught finishing three of them making it a third class felony.... aluminum pool cages for Gods sake are non structural and he knew what he was doing. While parasite licenced contractors walked away with profit from shoddy work performed by those who worked under his"rented " licence.

Those of you in Texas ... God Love ... you'll get past these difficult times.
Looks like an ill wind is about to come your way.
Sam

Former Cav
09-04-2017, 07:03
years ago had a major hail storm in Minneapolis/St Paul, MN.
Since our roof was only partially damaged, it took us going on THREE years to get someone to do it. Everyone wanted the "high dollar jobs"
Our Ins Company at the time would CANCEL our repair every year and we'd have to haggle with them to prove we made an effort to hire someone.
finally got it done. It was a cedar shake roof. I'll NEVER have another one of those. My neighbor used to light bonfires in his back yard to cook marshmellows. I mean like ELECTRIC WIRE spools he'd burn and hot cinders would go flying by my roof. Lucky it never caught fire.

Sandpebble
09-05-2017, 04:53
Looks like an ill wind is about to come your way.
Sam

Yeah Sam ... could be an Ill wind for sure. I just spent two days prepping elderly and getting their properties ship shape for the ugly possible..... and I'll be at it till the last moment.

Here in town there is not a store with a single bottle of water or D cell battery to be found..... or a store with a generator for sale within 300 miles and this is good ... people are preparing .

Should Irma come my way it will be my fifth hurricane and third major one. I still have so much to do on on other peoples needs list that it's likely I'll not have time to prep my own home by Saturday .

The position I'm in is not by choice... my wife says God put me here to do this .