Articles by Rick Damato

Owing to a convergence of a changing world economy and an oil market gone mad, the price and availability of one of our industry’s most treasured commodities is spiraling out of control. The price and availability of asphalt is taking the industry into some uncharted waters.

As if the economy and the price of a barrel of oil were not enough to upset the roofing markets this year, we are witnessing a record year for hailstorms

A little off topic this month since the main purpose of this column is to offer up the announcement that our Best of Success conference scheduled for October 2008 has

I sold kettle parts to Brice’s dad when he was a kid in school. That was a long time ago, and he has long since carved out a niche of

To some of you, welcome to the Web version of Roofing Contractor. To many of you, welcome back. To all of you, thanks for reading Roofing Contractor and for putting up with this unvarnished bit of self-promotion for our Web site. But that is the point of this note: self-promotion.

New Year’s celebrations are always closely followed by the tradeshow season in the construction and roofing industry. It is that time of year when the vagaries of winter weather slow or stop most of the productive work in our business so contractors can devote some attention to new products and trends. Most manufacturers of building and roofing products and equipment take this opportunity to announce and show their new offerings during the winter tradeshows.

The term “value engineering” is one I have heard spoken by commercial roofing contractors as long as I can remember. In this context it is a fairly straightforward process whereby a given design or specification for a roofing system is pulled apart, analyzed, and reconstructed in order to achieve more bang for the owner’s buck. In an economy with more than a few challenges, it would seem a good idea for all of us in the roofing industry to consider turning our value engineering skills inward. In other words, should your enterprise be constructed differently to meet the challenges of 2008 and beyond?

The term “value engineering” is one I have heard spoken by commercial roofing contractors as long as I can remember. In this context it is a fairly straightforward process whereby a given design or specification for a roofing system is pulled apart, analyzed, and reconstructed in order to achieve more bang for the owner’s buck. In an economy with more than a few challenges, it would seem a good idea for all of us in the roofing industry to consider turning our value engineering skills inward. In other words, should your enterprise be constructed differently to meet the challenges of 2008 and beyond?

It seemed that green products took center stage and solar applications provided the spotlight as more than 9,000 industry professionals converged on the Las Vegas Convention Center Feb. 21-23 for the International Roofing Expo. There were 442 exhibiting companies and 1,060 booths in 106,000 net square feet of space in the exhibit hall. At press time, final verified attendance numbers were not available, but preliminary numbers indicate that attendance was flat from last year’s record-breaking number of 9,020.

So you think you have a best-in-class safety program at your roofing company? No, you know your safety program is top-notch. You may have a good safety program, and you may even have a great safety program, but the bar has just been raised by the Evans Roofing Company of Elmira, N.Y.