Roofing Contractor Blog

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I spent a few hours last week visiting with the owner of a third-generation lumberyard in Atlanta. His claim to fame was having outlasted a number of yards that had already succumbed to a residential construction market that evaporated over the last couple of years.

If you're struggling to meet payroll (and ends meet in general) follow these four tips to get the cash flowing again at your company now.

For those of us in the Midwest, it’s been a cold start to spring. Winter has held on a bit longer than usual, and it’s just a hunch but I think that’s part of the reason the economy is still in the doldrums. It seems people have been in a sort of hibernation, waiting for things to pick up.

There is still a common misconception in the design community that Factory Mutual (FM) I-90 represents winds of 90 mph. In fact, the standard requires the roof system to withstand 90 pounds per square foot (psf) of wind uplift tested pressure.

Walking through downtown Nashville last week, I heard a country singer lamenting that he lost his girlfriend, his pickup truck and his construction business. OK, that last one was actually his hound dog, but it won’t be long before we hear songs about the heartbreak of losing construction work.

Have you been wondering where all the money is coming from to fund all of these 4LA’s (four-letter acronyms) the government has been cooking up lately? The TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) and ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) will be funded by taxpayers, but especially the guy or gal looking back at you in the mirror every morning as you prepare yourself to go to work in your roofing business.

Providing “Extended Hours” of service is something that I’ve always preached as a key to creating additional profitability at any company.

New Jersey’s Atlantic City Convention Center is the largest roof-mounted, grid connected, solar system in the United States. If you’ve read the recent article in The New York Times or seen it on CNN, you already know that. However, none of the primary media outlets discuss the real story, which is the roofing project itself.

Here’s what I’m teaching my clients to do right now, and it’s paying off for them during these recessionary times.

There’s a new water-based coating on the market that is taking roofs and building envelopes by storm. It’s called Kynar Aquatec, a platform of emulsions developed by Philadelphia-based Arkema Inc. What this new coating is doing is raising industry standards for durability and performance of water-based roof coatings.