The Important Parts of A Roof: Ventilation and Warranty

The two top issues with roofs are ventilation and warranty. Without minimum balanced ventilation you have no warranty and without certification your roof has a prorated material only warranty. That deductible might seem like a big hill right now but when you go to sell your home in ten years and the home inspector fails the roof  because you used cheap shingles like Atlas or Malarkey, or you failed to meet the 300 Rule of Balanced Ventilation, you might be surprised to find yourself coughing up over $10,000.00 of your equity to roof the home to complete the selling processes.

If you don't meet the intake and exhaust requirements, don't place the vents properly ( most aren't), your minimum and limited material warranty is void. If you followed the 300 Rule, you'll have a good prorated material only warranty. If you use a Master Elite Roofer or a Shingle Master Roofer and follow the 300 Rule of Ventilation and use the appropriate accessories, you'll have a 100% material and labor warranty for up to fifty years.

If the roofer isn't certified , your warranty is compromised.
If the ventilation is not balanced according to the minimum rules of ventilation, you not only do not have any warranty, your roof will fail early. So will your HVAC, paint, health, insulation, and deck.

Man it is hot out there. One customer was telling me how the shingles burnt his hand. Because the shingles are now thinner than ever, and still hot, the ventilation has become much more important. The roofing is hot, there is less asphalt, the warranties have been upgraded to fifty years pretty much across the board, but the caveats discrediting the warranties have increased. 

Application of the roof, ventilation, system components, and accreditation have all come into play to keep these pronouncements of better warranties in play.

Don't let these caveats come back to burn you. Follow the rules and you'll have a great money saving roof. Don't follow the rules and your last child might only go to junior college rather than that wonderful college your other kids went to. And they'll end sentences in prepositions too.

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

The Difference Between a Roofing Company and a Roofing Contractor

The differences between a company and a contractor are pretty important and a lot of it boils down to customer service. Companies do some contracting but they usually have their own staff and employees for sales, warranty work, supervision, and other administrative duties.
 Contractors sell jobs and have subcontractors do all their work. They usually have no staff to watch their jobs and perform all the supervision themselves. If the contractor has a lot of leads then his jobs go unsupervised.

With the recent hails storms all over north Texas, all established companies have lots of leads. The contractors are out canvassing door to door because nobody knows them. Now they have to find help because they will get some jobs. The comes the rub. With strangers on their roofs and more doors to knock, they usually let the job take its own course.

Time will tell, if the next wind storm doesn't, whether the contractor was good or bad and just like every time a storm comes through town, the people of Irving will find out if they had a roofing company or a roofing contractor. Those with companies with roots planted in the community will be there to service their roofing customers while those that had contractors will be lucky to find them.

Even though companies do some contracting, they have an infrastructure to handle situations as they become more or lass difficult.

After you've done your research on your roofer, you might want to visit his office. If he has no warehouse or equipment, then your suspicions should rise. Check with Angie's List, the BBB, the city building inspectors office, old customers, Complaints Board and other social sites, but don't just listen to the fast talker.

Does the roofing company have insurance? Are they certified in the product you're installing? Check with the roofing manufacturer.

With so called roofers canvassing Irving, Coppell, Carrollton, Farmers Branch, Lantana, Prosper, Dallas, and other towns, the good installers are pretty occupied. Best to take your time and get a good job.

Also make sure you get the enhanced warranty that covers material and labor for 50 years rather than the prorated material only warranty. When you go to sell your house it could save you a fortune,

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

The History of Class IV Roofing, UL 2218

Just how did we get here and where are we going on impact resistant roofing? I was there, in the field, not in the lab, and have watched the changes, so here we go:

Before, back in the day(I hate that saying), the ways roofing were made more hail resistant, also known as impact resistant, was to make sure you had a firm deck, proper ventilation, and, if you were lucky, had a steep roof.

The angle of a steep roof allows for deflection on large straight falling stones or one side damage on somewhat vertically zooming stones. But the roofers are lucky because they risk their health and lives when installing roofs on high pitches.

Insurance Companies Want To Increase Profits

Most of the greatest single losses by insurance carriers are hurricanes. They even get names, unlike hailstorms. But the hailstorm is the mass of losses as there are so many every year and the insurance carriers have accountants that see this. So after the 1995 storm, that surpassed the mother of all hailstorms in 1992, we had to change the name of 1992's storm to "that other storm that caused shortages of materials." 1995 became "the big one." We couldn't call them Charlie or Bob so we used phrases like ooh and awe.

But the losses were great and the mother of all insurance companies, State Farm, was pissed. If we speak internationally the mother is Lloyd's, the step grandmother of State Farm. Now I get serious.

People noticed that the SBS modified bitumen flat roofs held up pretty good against hail despite there relatively thin design. The great minds at SFI began to swirl and bob and someone shouted "we can exchange discounts if people will spend more money on roofs that won't come back to bite us in the rear.

Ha ha ha! Just like Texas tried to save energy with dual glazed glass statutes for windows, the evil manufacturers jumped up to ruin a great deal for the consumer. Do you really think a builder would put in a decent window on a $50,000.00 home. He won't even do it on a $5 million dollar one. So the energy efficient window fails in a few years and now you have a fogged non energy efficient window that makes your house look like doo doo until you have to pay to have it fixed when you sell it. Now the new buyer has a repaired cheap builder grade window. 

Similar happenings happened with roofing. The great culprits, Atlas and Malarkey, who never easily pay out a warranty claim, started making class 4 garbage. If I stumble across one of them that is over seven years of age that has not blistered, I think something is wrong with the product. I learned this in 1980 in the great organic shingle failure wars when Atlas and Masonite (another member of the crappy product lobby, although their namesake was a historical class action suit they now make awesome products) used to sell their factory back and forth and constantly claim the product was made by the other.

So these dogs come in and make a product that will withstand the dropped ball test when new, but not when exposed to the sun for a little while. That is why many insurers are getting away from the class 4 discount program.

If I haven't lost you yet I'll get back to some very interesting history:

State Farm invented a hail gun and started shooting man made hail, otherwise known as ice, at roofing products. Boy wouldn't have like to have seen the parties if they had done that in the eighties. Corporate drinking was phased out in the 1990's by the accountants because they can't hold their liquor. 

But State Farm needed a standardized test so they hired the experts, the Underwriters Laboratories. The white frocks of SFI and UL began their research hand in hand. somewhere after the "Mother of All Hailstorms" in 1995. They took steel balls, and not the Italian iron balls concept, of various sizes at different altitudes, and dropped them on different roofing products. After having gathered the data in a legitimate fashion by paying UL, the standardized testing agent everyone respects, State Farm went to the Insurance Board, which is staffed with insurance execs, and started the process of passing mandatory discounts for impact resistant roofs.


Caveats were laid out like that after January I, 1999, each and every shingle has to be individually stamped with its class 4 rating and manufacture date. Also appearance allowance disclaimers were written in but the homeowner had to sign a form to get his discount. I don't want the cheese anymore, I just want out of the trap.

So by giving back large discounts on premiums the insurers hoped to cut their losses. And they did at first. But the evil roofing manufacturers products started failing and some insurers wanted to give back the cheese too.


A few insurers like State Farm, USAA, Met Life, still push the non-mandatory discount program but Farmers and Allstate have opted out. Farmers has gone to a quality and newness discount program that incrementally raises your rates.


I believe that the products made by GAF and Cetainteed, as well as Gerard, will continue to hold up. We've had several calls here in Irving this year on Decra roofs that have been totaled but none on Gerard. Aluminum roofs fail under any circumstances. So does copper.


Never forget that proper ventilation is the best tool to keep you roof newer and better resistant to the forces of nature. If your roofer does not comprehend the minimum ventilation rule, the 300 Rule of Balanced Ventilation, then he's not much of a roofer. If he doesn't inspect your soffit vents then he doesn't care.


As James Burke said, "the only constant is change," we'll see what the future brings in the roofing industry. I expect it will be more synthetic materials that fail, as that seems to have been a constant for the last 25 years.


I recommend you stick to composition, steel, or even fire resistant number one perfection class 4wood shingles and class 3 shakes.
.  

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

Irving Roofer

Just who is an Irving roofer? There are about five of us who were operating in the city prior to the storm. The most active were Scot Horton's two businesses, Moore Roofing and Construction I believe and Evans and Horton. I never met the Evans guy and doubt his existentialiality. Robert Murphy worked for Mr. Moore for years and paid him too little, as was his nature. He promised Robert the business but when it was time to sell it he offered it to his two sons who wanted nothing to do with it. You see, they were his roof slaves as little children and learned their lessons and became some sort of engineers. I met one on a roof one day. He looked around and said" what am I doing here?" He left.

I warned Robert that Mr. Moore would not honor his verbal agreement and Moore didn't. Robert's last laugh was that he had his own phone number in the Yellow Pages add for after hours service. He just took the jobs. Plus a lot of the customers called him because he was the only field contact. Scott Horton has a salesman or two.

These two companies are pretty good guys but we have an edge. We are Master Elites. I believe Scott has renewed his Certified status after letting it go for a few years.

Adela and her boyfriend started their company a few years ago, American Roofing and Siding, and have done well chasing storms all over the country but have pulled in the reigns to their homes here in Irving. I always found it a little funny that a couple of Mexican immigrants, who are full fledged Americans and live here, call themselves All American. Sometimes the convert is better at something than those branded early in life.

All these Irving roofers are pretty good but might be a little weak in the balanced ventilation area. They are definitely better than the invaders.

I've seen some other names now and then but I don't know them. Of course I'd prefer you used us but if we can't get to you then I recommend one of them rather than one of the carpetbaggers. At least you'll keep the money here in Irving and if you have a problem they'll be here to take care of you.

So let's here it for the Irving roofing contractors. Protect yourself and make sure the roofing company is from at least 20 or 25 miles away. Otherwise you better know them well. You can investigate through the BBB, but that is not as good as it used to be. Don't just look at their rating but at the number of complaints. Angie's List is a great resource. You should join before you pick a roofer and check out what his customers have said about him. Also make sure the roofer is certified in the product he is installing on your home. The warranty is soooo much better. It goes from a prorated material only warranty to a 100% material and labor for 20 years on 25 year product and 50 years on lifetime. You'll never need to pay for a roof again.

Check on insurance too.
Don't use a canvassing carpetbagger. If he was any good he'd be buried in business. And don't get in a hurry. If they need an answer now the answer is no.

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

Dallas Roofing Stories Part 12: A Bunch of Malarkey

Can you believe there is a roofing manufacturer named Malarkey? They do live up to their reputation though. Also notice the root of the name: mal or mala. Mala means bad in Spanish and mal is a prefix attached to arkey.
I'm starting to sound like a bitter old man but I've only been around the sun 53 times, 32 of those times as a Dallas Fort Worth based roofing contractor. The previous six rotations were as a roof installer and student.
My brain may be sun bleached but I know when someone treats their customers fair or not. And my hair no longer turns blond in the sun but I still have it. You can't bleach out color from something with no pigment.
We put on a few Malarkey roofs because people wanted them and the only other class IV roofing product available in Dallas Fort Worth at the time was Atlas, a company that has been turning down claims on roofs since before I became a roofing contractor. We'll discuss their lack of quality control on another roof blog, er, forum.
Both of these products blister. That is where little warts form on the face of the shingle, lifting the granules from the asphalt that they were embedded in. These granules protect the asphalt from the searing hot North Texas sun. The inferno that inferns us.
So we sold a roof a second time to a nice lady in north Dallas, near Carrollton. The first time we put it over the wood shingles. After a big hail storm we redecked it with a full pop radiant barrier deck mounted on 1x2 furring strips with continual eave venting. We balanced the ventilation with ridge vents. At this point in time we were light years ahead of everyone in the field of roof ventilation and now some other Dallas roofing companies have seen the light as well, just not with the same precision and exactness of detail.
This lovely lady had squirrels chewing up her abode and she called me for assistance. I found the blisters. The home had the dreaded "Roof Herpes." So we called Malarkey and they said they would handle it. Luckily, we thought, the roof was under five years old, the cut off date were all non extended and enhanced warranties become worthless prorated material only pieces of paper, like the roof in this case.
No one came out. Calls were taken but with less frequency. Then no one would talk to us and the shouting began. They responded.
The president of sales said he would be in Dallas in a few months and he'd look at it. This didn't happen. Then they said they'd send out their local rep to meet us if we'd take out two shingles for them to test. This is standard operating procedure for all roofing manufacturers but usually the company picks up the product.
We waited for hours at the home a finally made a call to everyone involved. We left the shingles on the side of the house where they killed the grass. Now we had dead grass, mad roofing contractors, an upset homeowner, hiding roofing manufacturers and reps, and a bad roof. To boot the home was for sale.
Since then I've heard the same story from other roofers in Dallas and from the Dallas roofing suppliers. This reminds me of Alexis de Tocqueville line about history being like an art collection: a lot of copies and few originals.
These guys are hiding up in Washington State and have developed a bad reputation amongst the good roofing contractors in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Since that time GAF and Certainteed have developed lines of class IV roofing that get the homeowner discounts from some insurance companies. The discount was mandatory but recently the Great State of Texas (I'm an indigini) has let the insurers do what they want, as if they has never happened. I know that State Farm, Allstate, and USAA still offer the discounts, which vary from county to county, but Farmers doesn't. Since they no longer do the synchronized rate swim I can no longer refer to the entity of All-State-Farmers for the big three: Allstate Insurance, State Farm Insurance, and Farmers Insurance. Now Farmers has a program that rewards homeowners with a discount for new roofs and better materials. Still the sun revolves around the sun, so the discount wanes, while the class IV discount remains static as long as you have the policy. In Dallas a class IV roof earns a 27% discount and Tarrant County is blessed with 30%. Their museums and Zoo are better too. Darn.
Oops, my ADD kicked in and I fell off the story line. Anyway, I believe all men except for accountants are ADD.
Now to the conclusion of today's story.
The lady didn't want to sue; she just wanted to sell her house.
I forgot that Malarkey said we didn't ventilate the attic properly. I asked how did they know? Are they mind readers? Guess what: they were liars. Yes, I said it. A strong word used for special occasions when people lie to you, without shame or concern. Kind of like Bill Sharp. That's what he does. Ask any of the suppliers in Dallas and Fort Worth. That is Sharp Exteriors.
The lady didn't want to sue either. Malarkey won. They successfully avoided all responsibility. The home did pass inspection and the roof won't leak for a long time but it won't last 50 years. It might make twenty and hail will probably get it since it will become fragile.
I have this same story for Atlas Roofing products although I did see an old Atlas roof in Irving without blisters. Something must be wrong with it.
As long as I'm a roofing contractor in Dallas I'll continue to tell the truth about how different manufacturers treat their ultimate consumers, the people who raise families under their roofs. If you ask me for a roofing product from a manufacturer that is naturally evil, I'll tell you. I probably won't get the job but at least I'll feel good about myself. We never tell people what they want to hear. The truth will set you free.
www.jonwrightroofing.com
Jon Wright Roofing Dallas

Roofing and Recycling in Dallas Fort Worth

Years ago in Colorado, a roofer went into the wood shingle and shake recycle. He charged roofers to dump their nearly clean cedar shingles and shakes in his yard but he charged less than the landfill. Word spread fast. He then used small chippers to grid it up for landscaping. He sold it to convenience stores, Home Depot, Lowes, landscapers and anyone who'd buy it.
Once he saturated the market he fled leaving a mountain of trash. I never heard if he was ever caught but the local authorities had to clean it up.
We've received calls about recycling our asphalt roofs but nothing has come here yet. We'd really like to do that. Some cities have rubber and polyisocyanurate recycle centers.
Country rods, pot hole repairs, retaining blocks, and other products could be made from the millions of tons of roofing thrown away into landfills annually. Just one thirty square Timberline with accessories is 10,000 lbs. of debris. Do the math if a hail storm wipes out a city.
We already, like most roofers in Dallas and Tarrant Counties, recycle aluminum and copper roofing products but we go a step further.
At a loss we cull the metal edging, flashings, stacks, lead flashings, and any other metal we can find and every once and a while sell it.
My industry needs to get with it and start a bandwagon.
www.jonwrightroofing.com

Jon Wright Roofing

Too many calls. Too many bad roofs out there. What a nightmare the last few weeks have been. Ten inches of rain on the 8th in a few hours changes everything.
The calls are slowing down now and we've made some friends but we also made some enemies. We tried to handle everyone and we shouldn't have. We have found out we can turn off Angies List when this happens and a few other resources we have when a natural disaster hits.
Alex called a potential customer and told him I'd be there in about an hour. All he said was fine. I didn't have time to stop for lunch so I stopped at a convenience store to grad some poison. When I came out a bum was digging in my truck and talking to himself. He had my phone and wouldn't give it back. A struggle ensued, more like a slow dance, and I slowly began to get it back until he jerked it away and disassemble the battery.
Boy was I freaked. He saw my rage and threw it down and ran but these Blackberry devices take some time to start back up. I was already a late and now I was really late. My phone had over a dozen missed calls.
When I got to the appointment no one was there. The problem was obvious. No maintenance and no paint. An old wood louver on the side poorly designed, falling out, and a hurricane.
I resumed my frantic catch up mode knowing this guy would be mad and wouldn't do business with me.
Correctomundo. He gave me an "F" on Angies to go along with all my "A's." We didn't do business with him so our average is not effected but he's on top. Funny how when you swallow too big a bite it can cause pain, even death.
We've changed things up and are preparing for the next tsunami.
For anyone else who fell through the cracks, er, I mean gaping holes, I apologize.
We really got more calls in a week than we had in three or four months. I had just let some of my staff go at this time because there wasn't enough to do.
Feast or famine? I don't think so. Normally people wait for hail storms to replace their roof and many look to get out cheap because they are not spending their own money but nobody spends their own money better than they do.
Now people are buying better roofs, better guarantees, better ventilation and better Energy Star decking and shingles. With their own money people seek value but when Allstate or State Farm pays for the roof most go cheap. Those don't tend to be our customers. Long and short term saving is what we offer, not a bottom line so cheap a good roof can't be put on and continue in business.
We are competitive but with better systems. We are the extended warranty energy saving beautiful roof store.

www.jonwrightroofing.com