Roofing Contractor Software in West Virginia

West Virginia licenses at $5,000. Any residential job that reaches it, labor and materials together, takes a license from the Contractor Licensing Board under the Division of Labor. Behind the license sit a three-hour open-book trade exam, a business and law exam, and a wage bond affidavit. A roofer holds the Residential or General Building classification. The board's field inspectors are the reason a truck without a license number on the door does not last long here.

The roofing contract has been regulated since July 1, 2015. When a roof is being paid from an insurance claim, the contract has to carry a notice in ten-point bold type that the homeowner may cancel at any time before midnight of the fifth business day after the insurer says in writing that all or part of the claim is not covered. It also has to carry a detachable cancellation form with the roofer's address, phone, fax, and email on it. The roofer may not collect any advance payment, and a homeowner who cancels owes only for emergency repairs they authorized. A roofer may not offer to pay or rebate any part of the deductible or the claim proceeds. The homeowner or the insurer can sue for damages, and a willful violation is a misdemeanor with a fine up to $5,000 and up to a year in jail. The home solicitation law adds three business days to cancel any sale made in the home.

Water is the disaster here. On June 23, 2016 up to nine inches of rain fell on Greenbrier County in a day. The floods that followed killed 23 people, destroyed more than 1,500 homes and businesses, and damaged 2,500 more. White Sulphur Springs lost 132 homes, Rainelle lost 128, and about 400 went along the Elk River in Kanawha County. The derecho of June 29, 2012 left about 670,000 West Virginia customers without power, many for more than a week. Between them the mountains get ice, snow, and wind every winter.

West Virginia has a statewide building code, but each county and city has to adopt it before it means anything. Many never have. Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, and Martinsburg inspect a re-roof. Much of the rest of the state has no building department at all. The growth is in the Eastern Panhandle, where Berkeley County has grown 14 percent this decade, the fastest in the state, on commuters to Washington. Most of the rest of West Virginia is losing people, and the work there is replacing roofs that have been on since the coal money.