The roofer should have followed the mfgr's specs concerning the framing of the rough opening/curb for the sky light. This should have all been down in writing agreeing to re-frame to those specs and he could have based his estimate/costs from there. Concerning the inside opening, it sounds like the cieling wil need to be re-worked at your expense in order to make it right and workable with the new skylight.

That's right. It may seem unnecessary to a homeowner but even a simple agreement describing the nature of the skylight including the requirement that it must be installed according to the manufacturer's instructions would have forced the contractor to fix the problem at no additional cost to you.

In many states there are home improvement laws that require contractors to contribute to a fund that reimburses homeowners who have been cheated by contractors. I would investigate what is necessary to prove that this contractor has not performed to the minimum standards of such a law if it exists in your state.

Sierraeast and mightyanvil, I'm not quite clear...I'm getting that you are saying that it's all down to whether he said "acc. to manufacturer's specifications" in that particular part of the contract, whether or not he has to provide functioning products?

And the *roofing* section of the contract said "according to manufacturer's specifications", and the Additional labor and materials said "Supply and install 2 new opening skylights (does not include inside finish work)...

So is this really going to shield him? I can't believe that intentionally installing elements that the installer *knows* to be nonfunctional can be covered by not putting "to manufacturer's specifications" in one specific part of the contract. Isn't there a "standard industry practice" kind of assumption in contracts? I'm not asking him to do the inside finish work at all, but he says that basically he has no responsibility beyond having measured the outside curb, rather than looking at the thickness of the curb...he measured the skylights wrong, basically, didn't he?

It's not clear to me what the contract said.

m.a., I'm sorry, I'll try to be clearer. There were separate paragraphs for each aspect of the roofing job, and in the actual roofing part with Malarkey Legacy shingles, the phrase "according to manufacturer's specifications" was included.

With the skylights, he just said the above, "supply and install 2 new opening skylights", no "manufacturer's specifications".

Does that help?

It's just amazing to me from an ethics point of view that when they saw that they'd ordered the wrong size, they just went ahead and installed it anyway without telling us anything, even though there is no way, given the space between the rafters, that we can make it functional, other than taking some width off the rafters themselves (which concept concerns me, and shouldn't have to be done if the skylights were the right size!).

I think a judge would accept the argument that the "operable" skylights must be installed so they could be opened. It would probably be an easy case to win in small claims court. If a lawyer wrote the contractor a letter explaining that he must make the skylights meet the original contract he would change his tune but this is not part of my profession. There are others on the forum who could give you better legal advice.

Thanks, m.a.; I agree that it seems fairly clear-cut; I think the installer is just dragging his feet and hoping we'll get tired.

I have a feeling that an attorney's letter may be on its way to our hapless installer...