The Hows and Whys of Warranties

Recently at Professional Remodeler we've had several stories related to warranties and the benefits associated with doing warranty work, so it made sense to gather this info in one place so our audience can take a deeper dive.

• It’s important to define the warranty and its terms in your contract. Andrea Goldman, of Goldman Law Group, provides specifics about how to avoid warranty problems.
• For many remodelers, taking care of warranty work is more cost effective than generating a new lead. When it comes to putting your warranty to work, remodeling industry speaker and consultant Dave Lupberger describes why it's smart to make warranty work part of your sales process. 
• Most remodeling contractors who want to back up their work generally offer some kind of full-service warranty. Those warranties are usually for one year, but unless a past client calls with a specific problem, few if any remodelers actively contact past clients to check in during that time. This is a mistake. There's real benefit in making scheduled warranty visits. 
• And although one-year warranties are a popular feature to add in subcontracts, construction lawyer Craig Martin's article on The Construction Contractor Advisor website says that a one-year "correction period" may be more effective.
• For residential roofing contractors, warranties are one of the leading causes of confusion among consumers. Explaining the terms of the warranty isn't a simple thing to do. Roofing material manufacturers provide product warranties, while residential roofing companies provide a workmanship warranty against installation errors, and the length of a manufacturer’s warranty is typically far greater than a roofing company’s warranty on installation. This is leading some roofing companies to reconsider the terms of their workmanship warranty. 
• Finally, if you're looking for more specific info on what to include in your limited warranty, here's a sample limited warranty from Dave Lupberger that you can download.

Don't think of it as a hassle; warranty work has its benefits—not least among them, the potential for generating more work