Well, did we get your attention?  The dab and dashers are the repair people who get up on the roof, look at something that might have leaked, put a dab of roof mastic on the area and dash….Dab and Dashers!

Here is the problem, it usually doesn’t work.  Leaks are quite complicated to find.  They come from many sources in the building.  Of course most of the time people assume they are roof leaks.  Probably 75% of the time that is true.  The balance comes from a variety of sources.

Leaks can come from HVAC units with rusted out internal metal parts, missing parts, clogged condensate drains and a host of other causes.  Skylights leak when they lose their seal or weep holes plug.  Electrical connection box leak when seals fail or the conduits fall apart.  The cable guy comes by and adds several new cables and puts a dab of cheap caulking that lasts six months because it is not compatible to the roof membrane.  Roof drains clog up from lack of maintenance during the fall.  Sheet metal flashing is damaged from winter snow, ice or wind. Windows leak, doors leak, as well as the metal flashings over them.  Brick and concrete walls can leak.  Where is water coming from into our building?

Once the water gets into the building then it goes downhill.  The kind of structure you have, whether it is a wood frame structure, metal framed structure or concrete deck all affects the method of looking for a leak.  We have seen leaks travel over 200 feet from the actual leak source of a hole in the roof on a concrete structure before it got into the building!  Add to this is the type of building system components in the ceiling.  Is there insulation, HVAC ducts, sprinklers, low voltage wiring, regular wiring, vapor barriers, light fixtures, suspended ceiling bracing and hanging  support wire and just about everything else you could think was up there!  Water hits all that stuff and runs down hill.

So the trained and experienced roof repair technician will want to meet an onsite representative to find out where the leak is coming into the building.  They will ask questions about when it leaks.  Active leaks show up as gray stains on ceiling tiles and sheetrock.  They’re usually damp to the touch.  You can assess a lot just by knowing if it’s leaking near a drain or if water is coming out of the middle of a heating duct.

Once the leak is examined from inside we go outside and start looking.  A good trained eye partnered with good conversations from inside will help us solve the leak problems.  Mr. D ‘n D will not take these steps to correctly find your leak.

The un-skilled D ‘n D’er can void roof warrantees by installing the wrong product.  The roof membranes of today are very complex products. They last a long time and the chemistry is very high quality.  Can you image a piece of plastic, like your car dash board lasting over 20 years with no maintenance?  Well, many of today’s roof membranes do just that! So, if you use the wrong product you can destroy a very costly roof.

Finally, the National Roofing Contractors Association has a number of technical manuals. Many studies have been accomplished on roofing performance from organizations such as the University of Maryland, The Oakridge National Laboratory, Factory Mutual, Underwriters Laboratory and most roofing material manufactures.  The manual, Repair Manual for Low-Slope Membrane Roof Systems specifically outlines proper procedures that will last the length of the roof system.  Mr. D ‘n D has no idea that even a book like this is available or that he should be reading.

It pays to work with a contractor who does know how a building is assembled, why things leak, where they leak and most of all, how to do the correct repair.  The same thing issue is at hand to protect your investment in a valuable building with valuable contents, valuable activities and most of all valuable people.  It is good practice to hire a reliable, educated and properly trained roofing contractor to service and repair the correct way for long term results.

“If automobiles had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.”

Robert Cringely

Columbia Roofing & Sheet Metal is proud to be sponsoring the Friar Trot in Sherwood, OR this weekend, May 15th

100% of the net proceeds will help raise the funds needed to build a gymnasium for the St. Francis School.  This gym will serve not only the school kids but also the greater Sherwood community. If you would like to participate you can use this link to their website:

http://www.thefriartrot.com/id5.html

The supply chain of products in our country is one of the foundations that have made the United States the country that it is today.  Many things we take for granted including finding fresh fruit at the grocery store, lumber at the lumber yard, computers and televisions to buy off the shelf.  We have all benefited from the process of getting raw product from the source to our end use.  That is one of the great inventions that we all benefit from today.

But, today is becoming different.  The supply has been emptied.  Well, not totally, but when the recession started the retail sector cut back inventory based on current sales and demand.  The retail outlets cut inventory for the consumer as did the commercial distributors.  This trickled down to the wholesale distributor, back to the manufacture of the finished goods and back to the source of the raw products.  The entire inventory has been drastically squeezed back by lower demand.  Just simple demand supply economics.

I had lunch last week with a friend who is a top level accountant in the lumber industry at the manufacturing level.  I asked him why the lumber prices had virtually doubled in the last six months when construction, especially home building, was so slow.  It was a very simple answer, supply and demand.  It turns out that the supply chain had too much inventory.  In fact, the cost of the finished framing lumber at the lumber yard or the retail home improvement a year ago only covered the cost of cutting the log into finished product.  The retail price charged did not cover any value of the raw log, the process of cutting the log and shipping it to the mill, the mill shipping it to the retail outlet nor any of the retailing cost.  As a result, the logs were not cut, the mills were closed and the inventory was exhausted.

Now that export demand is strong and a bit of new construction and remodeling is going on, the supply chain is empty.  There is no log inventory, the mills in many small towns have lost their skilled work force, the trucking efficiency is gone on back hauls and the retailers are low on finished goods.  This makes the supply and the demand not equal and is allowing for strong price pressure and we have seen the cost of these products jump a great deal in the last six months.

It is just not lumber, it is many items.  Again, same issue from raw product to end user in the fastener industry for specialty manufacturing.  Small item, but without the fasteners, the goods do not ship to other manufactures such as computers, automotive products, transportation products and you name it, it probably has fasteners, except toilet paper!

So, what does this mean to the roofing industry?  Has the supply chain been damaged? Some!  What is happening is the raw products that go into roofing products are having a good deal of upward pressure.  The basic raw product in roofing is petroleum based.  No surprise as oil is the basic product in asphalt shingles.  The commercial roofing products have asphalt in the buildup roofing assemblies.  But, the single ply products, such as TPO, PVC and EPDM are all plastic and as such are a petro chemical based product.  All of the raw ingredients are going up.  Is roofing going up?

Well that is the big question.  Again, supply and demand.  In the case of shingles the production capacity in the United States and Canada seems to be about matched in manufacturing capacity and demand.  Demand is getting a bit higher as people feel a bit more comfortable and remodel or reroof their home.  The same is true with large residential buildings of condominiums and retirement homes.  So in the case of shingles the market has been able to hold pricing and is starting to push up pricing.  This will translate into higher cost to replace your roof the longer you wait, this year, next year; the prices will be going up.

The flat roof market for build up roofing is dropping in demand.  Hot tar roofs are becoming a less used option as the costs have risen significantly over the last ten years and the reliability, service requirements and costs have not gone down.  Single ply roofing has made significant inroads in this market segment.   The raw products of both systems are being moved up in the market cost.  While raw product cost is moving upward the supply of finished product is still larger than the market. So, currently the finished costs of some products are stable to the user.

That is today in the flat roofing area.  We have had several pushes to push the material costs up, but the price increases have not been able to be sustained in the marketplace.  We don’t know how long this condition will last.  With cost of raw product manufactures will raise pricing, when is the question.  Traditionally, when the roofing season goes on stronger the longer the summer goes and so does pricing.  To get the best value this year, as in previous years, regardless of the over manufacturing issue, prices will most likely go up the longer you wait.

Time and money, value and performance, those are the questions each year to ask yourself when consideration of a new roof.  The sales project managers at Columbia Roofing and Sheet Metal will be able to help you understand the process, the costs, the risks and the true Value Proposition of the roof consideration. Give us a call.