Not Pleased
"Why is my roof still leaking?"

Toronto’s Dynamic Online Roofing, once the darling of Canada’s Internet roofing industry, has filed for bankruptcy protection and closed its virtual doors for good, citing debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The company enjoyed brisk business when it opened in the fall of 1999, but saw a decline in recent months, especially after the industry was the subject of an exhaustive expose by theHammer.ca’s INVESTIMAGATIVE REPORTS.

"I don’t know why I’m even talking to you," the company’s founder and former president Dylan Noonan told our reporter. "You ruined my company."

We sure did.

We never had one single complaint about the quality of our workmanship - and Damn, we were fast.
Dylan Noonan, founder and former President of Dynamic Online Roofing.

Continued Noonan, after a couple of cocktails, (that surely were not purchased by our reporter, as that would be unethical): "Business really dried up over these past few months. Much like my liver."

The company’s closure represents the end of a brief era, as it was believed to be Canada’s last remaining Internet roofing company.

However, back in the late 90’s, Internet roofing was seen as the way of the future. By early 2000, there were an estimated 225 online roofing companies in Canada alone, according to ‘the dean of online roofing’ and the former host of Home and Garden TV's Internet Home Renovator show, Neil Wolstenstone, now a resident of Joyceville Correctional Institute near Kingston: "Online roofing was much more efficient than more traditional roofing enterprises, as there was no need to buy a truck, no need to go up on the hot roof with tar, shingles and labourers – everything was done online, saving you the overhead that more old fashioned roofers have to deal with. Plus, you could work all year round. A virtual roof goes on just as easily in January as it does in July."

With truckloads of venture capital money flying around North America at the height of the technology boom, scores of young information technology professionals looking for new business opportunities and for a chance to work with their hands got into the Internet roofing industry, said Wolstenstone, who was also the author of the home-repair bestseller Replace Your Roof With Just One Cheque, er...Click.

The process worked very simply, according to Wolstenstone: The customer would e-mail the dimensions of their roof, then they would send the Internet roofing company a cheque for thousands of dollars, and well, nothing happened after that, really.

"In hindsight, I can see why some people might have been a little angry with me."

Roofer
Slightly more waterproof than an Internet roof, but also more troublesome: A 'real-shingle' roofer engages in back-breaking labour.

"When we went IPO, our stock was up over 140 dollars a share back in the fall of 2000. But deep down inside, I think we knew it was too good to last," recalled a melancholy Noonan. "Even I realized in my heart that our virtual roofs probably weren’t as waterproof as a real-time, shingled roof."

That’s why thehammer.ca, protector of the little guy and the stupid, stepped in. We investigated the industry after a litany of complaints about online roofers was lodged to better business bureau offices across the country. One such victim was Ernie Quenten of Halton Hills, Ontario.

"I noticed their advertisement in the yellow pages, and, being a senior on a fixed income, I thought I’d give them a try," explained Quenten, 74, a notoriously slow-witted man. "I paid Dynamic online roofers $4,000 dollars to put a new roof on the house, which seemed like a good deal, but even after they cashed my check, I still kept getting leaks in my bedroom."

"I’m used to throwing money away, being a long-time contributor to the NDP, but even still, I felt as though I’d been had even more so than usual."

Quenten's daughter Sheila said that Dynamic Online Roofing put her father on the brink of financial ruin. "That company really cleaned him out," she said tearfully. "He hardly has any money left at all now for Internet scuba diving."

Noonan's failed business and angry clients now behind him, he said it’s time to look forward. He's now pursuing his newest business venture - an Internet ice cream parlour that he plans to open by next summer.

"Just ordered the freezer today."