Re-roofing America's homes with metal

By Jim Austin, senior editor

The definition of insanity, according to Ben Franklin, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. And while most homeowners probably don’t expect their asphalt shingles to last forever, they keep putting them on their homes with the hope they won’t have to re-roof again. It’s almost sad, isn’t it?

One could argue the only sane residential re-roofing option is metal. You can certainly expect different — and much better — results with a quality re-roofing installation of a metal system.

Installers from across the U.S. are employing this strategy to achieve success. It’s not easy, but it’s better than the cycle of insanity.

Keep talking about metal

Wayne Stanik, president of Lifetime Shingles with offices in Marshfield, Wis., and Jordan, Minn., installs stone-coated steel shingles from Metro Roof Products. He started his metal roofing career installing MetalWorks shingles (now owned by TAMKO Building Products) before discovering stone-coated steel. He calls himself a “displaced farm boy” who has been installing metal roofing systems for 9-1/2 years.

“It was not my goal in life to be a roofer,” he says. “And it took me awhile to figure out how to sell it, especially when I was the only one out there with it. Now, more people are putting on steel roofs, so it’s easier to sell the product and sell people on the product.”

The average customer understands more about metal roofing than customers 10 years ago, but not enough to make a decision without being sold. Stanik says, “It’s getting better, but we’ve just scratched the surface. The more people we can get talking about steel, the more customers will think about steel. To me, it seems like a no-brainer. I won’t put asphalt shingles on a roof. I believe if people become educated on metal roofing, there’s no way they’d put anything else on.”

Many installers feel the same way, but educating customers is time-consuming. Some customers aren’t looking to be educated.

It’s been Stanik’s experience that home-owners looking to replace their roof with a check they got from an insurance company following a storm are not the best customer leads. “Those are people that generally weren’t thinking about roofing when their roof was damaged and they’re probably only willing to spend what the insurance company paid out,” he says.

Many of Stanik’s customers come from leads through the Metal Roofing Alliance — he answers every lead with at least an e-mail. He works Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas and Iowa. The two biggest residential re-roofing jobs were in North Dakota — one was 140 squares and the other 126 squares.

Those are not typical jobs for Lifetime Shingles. Stanik was as excited to talk about a roof he sold last summer — to a 94-year-old man in rural Wisconsin. “He saw the value in it and was happy to pay for it,” Stanik says. “His daughter will get the house someday, and obviously she’ll benefit more than he will, but it made sense to him.”

Consumers feel there is safety and strength in numbers. In other words, if someone else bought one, on some level, it must make sense. The installation of the roof on the home of the 94-year-old customer led to the sale of another roof in the same neighborhood — people are always curious about what their neighbors are doing and maybe how much they’re spending — it’s human nature. Take advantage of the opportunity to talk to those people. “A lot of people stop by to see what their neighbors are doing and they’ll ask questions,” Stanik says. “I always take the time to talk to them.”

Like most roofers, Stanik has seen a lot — maybe not everything, but a lot. Many of the homes he re-roofs are less than 10-years-old. He recently put a new Metro roof on a home in Milwaukee — the 4-year-old shingle (which was advertised as a 45-year shingle) was curling and had “pock marks” all over, about the size of a quarter or larger. Stanik says it was simply a failure, not damage caused by hail or some other phenomena. “Did he plan on putting a new roof on his house in four years? No way,” Stanik says. “He thought he bought a 45-year shingle.”

He’s got one now!

Stanik is a believer in generating discussion about metal roofing — any way possible. “The first guy to put a saddle on a horse and tell his friends this was the new way to get around instead of walking was probably laughed at,” Stanik says. “Most probably thought it was a harebrained idea. It’s the same thing with steel roofing. I’ve run into customers who have had friends try to talk them out of it. We just have to get everybody talking about it, learning about it and understanding it.”

Stanik believes it’s relatively easy to find customers who have had bad experiences with asphalt shingles and that they make good customers. They should be looking for a better alternative, even if they have to pay more for it. “You hope you can find the switch to make the light go on,” he says, but warns against pre-judging customers by how much money they appear to have when you’re looking for that switch. “Money really doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Stanik says. “There are people who have money who won’t spend it and there are people who don’t have money, but see the value and will get the money to invest.

“When I got the call from the 94-year-old guy, I wasn’t jumping up and down to get over there. I was extremely busy and figured the price would scare him away. But it’s people like that — it’s very gratifying to do their roofs. They’re always happy when it’s done.”

Provide quality to ensure satisfied customers

Residential re-roofing is something Terry Lamb of Sunshine Metal Works in Anniston, Ala., can talk about all day. “It’s all I do,” he says. “I’ve carved out a comfortable niche for myself. I like dealing with people eyeball to eyeball. I like to see the fruits of my labor and the satisfaction of my customers.”

Lamb installs products from Classic Metal Roofing Systems, Metro Roof Products, Arrowline and McElroy Metal. He says he is successful in his four-state area because of the quality of work he does. “Nine out of 10 roofers are jacklegs,” he says. “They’re not licensed and they do substandard work. They don’t want a relationship. They’re just looking for a payday.”

Lamb works leads hard, cultivating a relationship and staying in touch with those customers after the jobs are completed. “They like to know you’re still around,” he says. “No one else out there is doing that.”

Lamb’s customers, on average, are over 50-years-old. “They’re toward the end of their careers and they’re cash-paying customers,” he says. “I had one customer ask for a $75,000 roof and they were paying in cash.”The worst thing that’s happened to Lamb is the drought that has settled in the Southeast. “I’d like to keep guys working,” he says. “People aren’t looking for a new roof. If it’s not raining people don’t know about their leaks.”

Larry Lake of Lake Metal Roofs in Fayetteville, Ga., likes to talk to all of his customers face to face, let them know they are a priority to his business. Lake works a seven-state area in the Southeast, installing stone-coated metal roofing systems from Metro Roof Products and Gerard Roofing Technologies, along with some standing seam products from Fabral, McElroy Metal and Wheeling Corrugating.

His wife Linda and sons Justin and Andrew are key to the success of the operation. “We do some light commercial, churches, motels and condominiums, but we don’t go after projects with huge GCs. We’re not going into a planning room and bidding on jobs. We’re just not going to deal with a GC who may or may not pay his bills. Projects like that have put a lot of people out of business.”

Lake’s idea of doing business is looking his customer in the eye, telling that customer what his company can do, and then seeing the satisfaction when the job is completed. “It’s about relationship building with people,” he says. “If you deliver a quality product and a quality installation, you don’t have to put up with too many problems. That’s what keeps it interesting and fun. Every customer is different.”

Lake’s customers generally are middle-aged — the empty nesters. They’ve worked hard to take care of a family and their home. They realize the value of investment grade roofing for their homes. “Young families, in our market, are generally buying a home to be a stepping stone to another home. It’s not a priority to invest in that first home, so they’re not in the market for a metal roof.”

Lake Metal Roofs installs mostly on high-end homes. Those customers generally can afford metal, so Lake’s customers pay cash. “If they want to finance, we usually don’t go after them,” he says.Lake says he offers the kind of quality product and installation interested customers sell themselves. “With us, they can verify the quality of work we do with any of our former customers,” he says. “And we encourage them to talk to our former customers. They’re going to spend $20,000, $30,000 or $40,000 on a new roof; it’s the second or third largest purchase they’re going to make. They feel more comfortable knowing others made the same decision and are happy with it.”

Lake believes the biggest hurdle is still the customer’s lack of knowledge about the benefits of metal. “It’s still all about educating the customer,” he says. “People still like to put money into bathrooms and kitchens, not roofs.”So keep talking about the benefits of metal roofing. There’s a lot of educating to be done.

Customers have specific needs

Paul Lacinak of Factory Direct Installations, headquartered in New Orleans, refers to himself as an “old siding guy.” He understands the mindset of residential customers, so Factory Direct has successfully worked its way into New Orleans, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Atlanta. After beating the market over the head with local television commercials, it sinks in and Factory Direct experiences a boom. Factory Direct hires subcontractors for its installs.

“That’s the scoop here. It takes about three years to educate people on all the benefits of metal roofing,” Lacinak says. “We pump it out there for three years on TV. At about three years, the growth takes off. The first three years are tough.” It wasn’t always easy to keep the faith, especially when it takes years and your initial market (New Orleans) is “in the poorest state in the union and the average annual income is about $25,000,” Lacinak says.Factory Direct finances about 85 percent of its projects, with the term of loans ranging from one to 25 years. “It’s like a high-end auto dealership,” Lacinak says. “If you were selling Cadillacs for cash only, you might sell enough to keep the doors open, but when you sell them for $599 a month, they’ll roll out the door all day long.”

Every home needs a roof, whether it’s a temporary asphalt shingle or a metal roof. Lacinak says in his markets, it’s almost impossible for re-roofing residential customers to get a home improvement loan for an asphalt roof. “Most banks don’t want to finance asphalt shingles because once they start to curl up, crack and look bad, the payments start falling off,” he says.Factory Direct got into the residential re-roofing world in 1996, installing its exclusive product from Classic Metal Roofing Systems. It’s similar to Classic’s Rustic Shake; it’s the same size shingle but it doesn’t have pre-punched nail holes. The profile, called DL-40 Plus, is installed with clips so the installer can use as many clips as needed to achieve the necessary wind uplift certification — an important consideration in the Southeast where hurricanes are a part of every summer.

Narrowing the gap in initial cost

In every market, there are ways to push customers’ buttons. Metal costs more than asphalt shingles. How can you narrow the initial cost gap between metal and asphalt?

Steve Struensee, owner of Custom Metal Roofing in Oshkosh, Wis., installs standing seam roofing he runs off his New Tech Machinery roll formers and metal shingles from Gerard Roofing Technologies on homes throughout the Midwest and in Florida through a branch office. “We do some commercial and new construction, but 90 percent of what we do is residential re-roofing,” he says. “It seems to be taking off because of the cost of ripping off the old roof. The cost of putting a metal roof over the top of an asphalt shingle is getting closer to the cost of tearing off a couple layers of asphalt shingles and installing new asphalt shingles. So we’re not ripping it off.

Standing seam and the Gerard product go right over the top of the old roof.”Struensee covers a lot of territory to sell metal roofing — he’s got more than 80,000 miles on his year-old truck. It’s still challenging finding the right customer, the customer that appreciates and is willing to pay for the value of a lifetime roofing system. He says many of his customers are looking to put one final roof on second homes, homes they’re going to pass on to the next generation of their family.

Those homes — usually located back in the woods near a lake — are nice projects and usually look great in a brochure. Struensee prefers installing metal roofing on homes in a busy residential area. “People buy what they see,” he says. “When you’re installing roofs back in the woods, you don’t get many leads from that. Some jobs located on a busy street, we can get 10 more jobs off of that.”

If that’s where you can make your money, those are valuable leads. Odds are someone else in that neighborhood is in the market for a new roof. They should want you to install a metal roof.

Seeing the light

Jack Gugger of Gutter Home Improvements in Madison, Wis., was lured into the metal roofing industry. A little lure got him to jump in with both feet.

In early 2006, he received a package in the mail from Classic Metal Roof Systems of Piqua, Ohio. The package contained an iPod, a nice iPod, with a video presentation on Classic’s product line. It concluded with an invitation to a Florida meeting from Classic president Todd Miller to learn more about becoming a Classic installer.

“I was there about 15 minutes and I was hooked,” Gugger says. “I’ve been in the home improvement industry for 17 years and I didn’t have any idea of how big the swell was in the metal roofing business. I took the family to Florida with the idea there was no way I was going to be a roofer. I left Florida a roofer.”

So now Jack Gugger is a metal roofing installer, having completed more than 20 residential re-roofing projects since signing on with Classic and joining the Metal Roofing Alliance in March 2006. He is excited about the possibilities in southern Wisconsin.

“We’re kind of the pioneers for metal roofing in our neighborhood,” Gugger says. “We’re just getting started, but it’s exciting.” Gugger believes residential roofers, like many in the construction or home improvement industries, are creatures of habit: Installers are having a tough time finding a reason to change over to metal after years of installing asphalt shingles for re-roofing projects.

Gugger’s customers for metal re-roofing projects are “predominantly on the north side of 60,” he says. He believes they’ve got money and have experienced the hassle and cost of as many as or more than three re-roofs on their home or homes during their lifetimes. They’re going to do it with metal and not worry about it anymore.

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but the biggest challenge Gugger faces is educating the customer. Thanks in part to the MRA, the word is getting out about “investment grade roofing” for re-roofing residential projects. Because various products can range greatly in price, the installer has to deal with handling the sticker shock of some customers.

“The biggest challenge is getting people to understand the value of metal roofing,” Gugger says. “The price ticket can be higher than they can stomach. We’re getting tons of leads. Everybody wants a metal roof, but the price is scaring some of them.”

Gugger wanted to grow his home improvement business, expand to different parts of the Badger state and beyond to other parts of the Midwest. “I wanted to build a business I could expand,” he says. “But there are too many variables in home improvement. I’ve been trying to grow our window and siding business for about four years now, but we can’t break through. There’s so much competition we were beating our heads against the wall.”Gugger believes metal roofing is what takes his company to the next level.

“The metal roofing industry found me at just the right time,” Gugger says.And the metal roofing industry, specifically the residential re-roofing market, is looking for more quality installers all the time. The demand is there, so keep talking.