Expert Tips for Hail and Hurricane Resilience - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Cody Raymond and Lindsey Riddle of Westlake Royal Roofing Products. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's Metal Talk. My name is Karen Edwards and I'm your host for today's conversation. And our topic is ... If my slide will move, I'll show you. Our topic is going to be expert tips for hail and hurricane Resilience. Just a little bit of housekeeping before we dive in. First of all, this is being recorded and it will be available online on metalcoffeeshop.com within 24 hours. So if you see something you want to share or you know somebody that this would really be of interest to, feel free to grab that link and share it with them. Second, I did open the chat so everyone can talk to everybody else. Feel free to say hi, tell us where you're from, what part of the country. That would be great. And if you have questions as we go along, please drop them in the chat and I'll be keeping an eye on that and we'll try to answer your questions as we go. All right. So let me introduce our guests today from Westlake Royal Roofing Products. First is Cody. Cody, please introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do there at Westlake.

Cody Raymond: Perfect. Thanks, Karen. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about our product today and some of the different weather events that we struggle with across the country as a roofing segment in general. As you mentioned, my name's Cody Raymond. I've been with Westlake for nine years, coming up next month. That'll be my nine-year anniversary. I started in West Texas, so in Hill Country when I first started with this position. And I've moved into the Intermountain states covering Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Utah. And recently coming up here in July as well, I'll continue to expand back my role to all of the state of Texas back in the heart of Hill Country. So I really love this product. I'm a big believer in stone-coated steel and the benefits that it has. I look forward to talking about it today.

Karen Edwards: Awesome. Okay. And also with us is Lindsey. Lindsey, please introduce yourself and tell us what you do there.

Lindsey Riddle: Hi. Like Karen said, my name is Lindsey Riddle. I've been with Westlake for just over a year and I, similar to Cody, started in a pretty intense market. So my territory is in Florida, from North Florida about Gainesville all the way down to Naples. So definitely an interesting start into the roofing specific side of the industry. Before I was in the home building side of the industry and construction. So being a Floridian myself, definitely nice to have a product that is meant to stand up to the different sort of weather systems that we experience here in Florida and having a company that really stands behind the product with our warranties and everything we provide for our contractors. So excited to talk more about that today.

Karen Edwards: So as you can tell, Cody and Lindsey both are very familiar with extreme weather being in the Midwest and Texas and Florida. There's some of the parts of the country that are really putting up with a lot. And in terms of extreme weather, we've got hail like never before. I think we're setting records in terms of hail sizes and I see in our classified ads on the website on Metal Coffee Shop and Roofers coffee shop, people are posting, I need people to work the storm in Iowa, in Nebraska. It's kind of going nuts. And obviously this is June, that means it's the start of hurricane season. So we've got predictions from NOAA, which is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that we're going to have a higher than normal active season. And we've already got Alberto churning out there in the Gulf coming affecting Texas and the coast. I don't think it's going to get any quieter. And then high wind events. That's another thing that we've been seeing a lot of. So let's take a look a little bit closer at what do these events look like, where are they happening? And it's not just limited to one specific part of the country as you can see from this map. Lindsey, do you want to talk a little bit about this?

Lindsey Riddle: So far this year, this is provided by NOAA like we mentioned, and this is just classified as severe wind. So not even touching yet the tornado side of things have confirmed touchdowns, different things like that. And as you can see, we've had quite a bit of severe wind events across the country. And this is something that is pretty standard for this time of year to have an increased amount of severe winds, but this is something that I like to mention with all of my contractors is with Westlake, you actually get a wind warranty with our product. So we have 120 mile per hour wind warranty just kind of standard. And then based off of where you're at in the country, different codes [inaudible 00:05:24] , different things like that. You can install to a much higher wind uplift, all of those things. But to put it into perspective, nowhere in the country are you experiencing zero sort of severe wind. So this is something that's always really important to kind of monitor throughout your time as a contractor and where you're installing things like that.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. If you look at those numbers, this was from January 1st of this year until June 13th. So just six months, not even six months really. And there were 7,152 reports of severe wind and 5,400 of those reported damage. And then the gusts over 75 miles an hour. Nearly 200 of those had over 75 mile an hour winds. That's crazy. So this is the information that if you're looking, okay, what part of the country do you service? Well it is probably going to be affected by wind at one point or another. All right. Let's keep going and let's add in the other severe weather. Okay. This is tornadoes and hail added to that map.

Cody Raymond: Yeah. So if you take a look at those. Sorry, I was just going to touch on-

Karen Edwards: Yeah. Please do, Cody,

Cody Raymond: ... [inaudible 00:06:41] the green dots there. You can see that that's kind of showing us how many hail events we've already had through the first six months of the year and we're already over 3,700. And if you can look even closer on the bottom left, over 600 of those exceed two inches in size, which as Karen touched on earlier, with all the coverage that we have on weather events, our weather reporting seems to be really good at showing some of the devastating effects this can have on people in their homes and their vehicles and different things like that. And so it's just pretty wild to see that we're only halfway through the year and we already have over 600 instances of two inch size hail falling in different areas of the country. That's one of my favorite parts about this product really. Not just the aesthetics and the performance, but how it performs in these extreme weather events. It really is a product that keeps people safe and that's probably the number one priority in some of these weather events as well as how it holds up in these different weather events.

Karen Edwards: I bet if we added in markers for hail that was under an inch, that half inch, three-quarter inch that still can do damage, this map would be probably just completely full. We wouldn't be able to see any of the outlines of the states.

Cody Raymond: 100%.

Karen Edwards: All right. So let's dive in a little deeper on that severe hail and talk a little bit about just the Westlake stone-coated steel product and how you test it and the classifications that it qualifies for.

Cody Raymond: Absolutely. I would love to touch on that. So across industry standard, what you often hear is class four impact. That's known to the insurance companies, that's known to the contractors, that's known to the homeowners, that's heard and referred to most often. And we've passed that test for many, many years. Basically we go to some of the most stringent testing, which with the UL 2218 testing. It's basically a two-inch hail ball that's dropped from 20 feet and then it shows what different roofing products can do as far as holding up to that. Our product obviously passes that with flying colors. But as Karen touched on, weather events only seem to be getting more intense and they only seem to be getting more dangerous and bigger hail sizes. And so we've tried to continue to increase our testing in a new category that's called VSH or very severe hail on that second bullet point.

So what this does is it actually doubles some of the testing requirements from class four. So it often doubles the impact energy of that two inch hail ball to make sure that there still is no penetration. And as I checked three weeks ago, we are still the only sloped roofing product that is in that category, of that VSH, very severe hail category. And so that's a big benefit that we have that we can even exceed class four into that category of VSH into steep sloped roofing. So it's all about keeping the hail on the outside of the house and we have gone through some of the most stringent testing to show that we can keep that. The last thing you want to do is be in your living room watching American Idol or Monday Night Football and have hail balls come into your living room, which with social media these days, I'm sure people have been able to search different wind and hail and weather events and people post softball sized hail that is entered into their home. I've seen that. And luckily, I've never had an instance that I've seen that our panel has been penetrated. So I'm grateful for that and I know that that helps keep our customers safe across the country in these events.

So just to touch on some of those bottom worlds, we'll even get to them more as the presentation goes on, but we always are trying to help connect homeowners in these markets with experienced contractors. And what we do at Westlake better than I feel like almost any other manufacturers, we have boots on the ground, we have sales reps in all these territories that allow us to either connect the homeowner with experienced contractors or help contractors in that area become experienced contractors so that way they can feel comfortable from start to finish on these jobs that obviously require a lot of attention and a lot of steps throughout the process.

Another thing we're going to touch on is the insurance inspections because insurances are getting quite a bit smarter these days. Obviously if you watch a commercial these days, every other commercial seems to be an insurance company. And so they obviously know how to make money. And a benefit from our product is they love our product because they have less claims. And so because of that it allows the homeowner to oftentimes get reduction in premiums because insurance companies like to see products go on roofs that they're going to be less to have to replace. Obviously when you have these kinds of testings, then we obviously are reducing that for the customer and for the insurance company. So oftentimes this is a double win for both the insurance company and the homeowner because they're going to see reductions in premiums because they're reducing their likelihood to have to exercise a claim.

Lindsey Riddle: Absolutely.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So I'm curious. We have a bullet in here on full system protection. Can you tell me what are the components that go into the system and is that part of the reason why it can earn that very severe hail rating?

Cody Raymond: Yeah. Our product is basically ... it's a full roof system. We have accessories for all the different parts of your roof, which we're going to go into when we talk about some of our resources that we have for the contractor later. But basically we have caps and we have stone-coated valleys and we have basically the entire roof is going to be covered in steel, which allows the entire roof system to be protected as opposed to just only the field panels being steel. So it's an entire system that works together hand in hand, whether it be the hips or the rakes or the valleys, the ridges. They're all going to be protected by that same class four impact to the very severe impact rating.

Lindsey Riddle: So like Cody mentioned, our product, it's going to be covering the entirety of the roof with that steel. Our product is actually 26 gauge steel. So when you're thinking about different flashing materials that you would use with other roofing systems, their same gauge is 26 gauge. So you're covering the entire roof system in almost like a flashing detail. So we're making sure that that roof is completely protected at every possible area so that we can achieve that very severe hail rating, high wind uplift ratings, all of the things.

Karen Edwards: Thank you for explaining that. All right. So we've talked about hail. Let's move on to talk about hurricanes and high wind because hail is one thing, but wind is an entirely different. And sometimes the hail is included in the wind, but often we looked at that wind chart with all of those events, over 7,000. Let's talk a little bit about that. Lindsey, do you want to get us started?

Lindsey Riddle: Yeah. So like I kind of briefly mentioned before, we have a high wind warranty within our manufacturer's warranty. So with Unified Steel, we're manufacturing the product and then as contractors, that's where you would come in with your homeowner and offer some sort of workmanship warranty if that's how you chose to go about. But with Westlake and Unified, we cover you guys an additional step with having that manufacturer's warranty. And in our warranty, it's a one-page warranty, you can find it on our website. We try to put it as much as layman's terms as possible, so it's easily digestible for both the homeowner and the contractor to be able to explain it. But we have 120 mile per hour wind uplift value within our warranty. That's with the base amount of fastening patterns because with every install, there's a different fastening pattern, things like that, where you can achieve above a 200 mile per hour wind uplift if that's what you want for your customer or the base sort of level is we will warrant 120 miles per hour.

We don't have a name storm cause which in Florida and along the coast is super important when you get. Like Karen mentioned earlier, right now Texas is experiencing that cyclone Alberto. And then when you get into the hurricanes or any name stormed events, we don't have an act of God clause, a named storm clause. So in that regard alone from our wind warranty perspective, we are truly covering what could happen with that roofer because oftentimes with other roofing systems they'll say, "We have 160, 175." But it's like when are you going to experience that wind without it having a name? More often than not, it'll have a name associated to it and then they'll have a clause in their warranty where it's like, "Oh, we won't cover that." Once it has a name. So that's something that I always-

Karen Edwards: Tricky. Yeah. Tricky. Wow!

Lindsey Riddle: It's very tricky. And like I said, I'm from Florida so I have lived through all of the storms, all of the names, all the things. So that's been something that's really been a game changer for a lot of my contractors in this territory, is that they can offer that homeowner not only peace of mind from their workmanship, but then they know that the manufacturer, we will cover that roof for 50 years. So it's a great way for us to be able to offer additional support and then we'll get into the Dade County of it all. So if anyone is familiar with the Miami-Dade County requirements, it is intense and there's a lot that go with it. But with Westlake and Unified, we make sure that ... Cody mentioned the same sort of deal with hail where we're constantly trying to see what we can do to achieve these different certifications and different things like that. We're doing the same thing with wind. So like product approvals, all of those things.

So we do have all of our Miami-Dade approvals, Florida approvals, we have approvals for Texas, California and even Canada. We have Canadian approvals, which are some of the most stringent approval process that companies can go through in order to have that product be recognized as an approved product for the area. But everything truly does come down to the installation. So like Cody mentioned, we are constantly as territory reps and managers and as a company, constantly trying to get in front of all of you contractors to make sure that you have the experience to be confident, comfortable and put on a great product. So the installation not only affects the different benefits that you can get with this roof for your homeowner, but everything down to how you install. And that's something where we ... Please reach out to your local rep if you need training, if you want to learn more about it, all of the things because that's where we really come in handy with making sure you guys are up to speed on everything.

And then timely response. So with hurricane and high wind events and even hail events like Cody mentioned, we have a lot of boots on ground. We have a lot of different resources. Here in Florida, we're constantly doing trainings this time of year to make sure that we're getting in front of all of my customers to make sure you're prepared and can speak to the product before the storm hits. And then we do also keep in mind different inventory levels and we're constantly working with our distribution yards and our teams to make sure that we have enough product on hand to be able to help out in a timely manner after these storms hit and you're not experiencing crazy lead times.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. And we have a question from Chris. Thank you for sending this, in Florida. He wonders how Citizens Insurance views that warranty.

Lindsey Riddle: Yes. So I think we mentioned it a little bit before. Insurance is a case by case basis, but generally speaking with every insurance company we are considered a metal roofing system. So you're already looking at the 30, 40 year mark until insurance starts kind of knocking on your door to check how things were installed, all that jazz. I'm not sure. I don't want to say any sort of specifics with Citizens Insurance, but that's definitely something where if you have a homeowner who has a representative they're working with and they have questions, our document library is going to be your best friend. That's where we have all of our installation methods, our specs, our code. Anything that they could ask, it already lives. I'm telling you it already lives in our document library. So that's a great resource to be able to pull from in order to get any sort of breaks or make sure that their insurance company is up to speed on what we offer and the different levels of approval Unified already has.

Karen Edwards: Thank you, Lindsey. We could probably do an entire webinar on the insurance market in Florida in general.

Lindsey Riddle: It's gnarly.

Cody Raymond: Karen, if I could just interject one thing that Lindsey did such a good job touching on, which I want to just continue to stress because it's one reason why I've stayed with this company for nine years. And that's talking about our warranty and how we stand behind it as a company at Westlake. You can get online with any product and start reading warranties and what you're going to constantly find is loophole after loophole after loophole and how can that company get out of that warranty in various different fields across products in the United States. But what I love about our product is we've eliminated so many loopholes as Lindsey mentioned, the named storm loophole or an act of God event. But it even goes past weather events to where don't register a homeowner, we register an address. That way it's going to be fully covered for 50 years as opposed to the second that person moves out and the next person doesn't register it, it's null and void or anything like that. But we kind of have done a really good job of creating a warranty that protects the customer, not the company. And most companies like to protect themselves and not the customer with warranties that I've noticed when I've started reading different warranties across all products in America.
So I really love that we have a warranty that looks out for the customer and then it makes sure that that warranty stays in place as opposed ... Because the reality is, when are you going to need that warranty? When the act of God happens, when the big wind event happens or when something like that happens and that's when the company just needs to show up and be a resource for the customer as opposed to saying, "Well, when it's 75 and sunny we've got your back, but maybe not so much when it's 140 mile an hour winds and sideways hail."

Lindsey Riddle: Right.

Cody Raymond: Yeah. And this is so important. It's really important because this is what's predicted for 2024. Lindsey, do you want to talk a little bit about this?

Lindsey Riddle: Yeah. So if you're on the coast, specifically the Atlantic coast, you've probably already heard the news reports, seen the things maybe even seen this chart. So again, this is pulled straight from Noah's website, but the Atlantic coast, the Atlantic seaboard of the United States this year we expected an 85% chance above normal hurricane season, hurricane and cyclone season. So this year it's really important to make sure you're really speaking to a product that can withstand these different types of severe weather. And then of course on the Pacific side, so the opposite side of the country, they're projecting in a below normal season for tropical cyclones, wind events, hurricane events. But the waters right now in the Atlantic and into the Gulf are super warm and that is typically an indicator that you're going to have a pretty intense hurricane season.

So we've already had a cyclone in the Gulf and we're already kind of seeing and tracking some different weather events in the Atlantic and how they're going to progress and move closer inland towards Florida. So this is a great sort of indicator to be able to speak to the additional benefits that come with the Unified Steel roof, speak to our warranty when you're meeting with your homeowners is because we are projecting a pretty intense, I think it was like 45-ish name storm event projection for this season. So it's a great way to put into perspective the reality of the situation this year.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. It's a good sales tool to have in your pocket and talk about this information and talk about that warranty. And Chris said thank you. He always tries to tell homeowners that warranties are not insurance policies, but they see it differently sometimes and that's so true. So let's say we've got a hurricane, we've got to deal with some damage. What does that look like?

Cody Raymond: Yeah. So we've talked about with dealing with insurance, whether it's from a hurricane side or a hail side or really any event where as I mentioned earlier, you're kind of dealing with a company that ... Insurances, how do they make money? By not paying claims, right? And so the homeowner now has a process. I've had an event where I have a claim and so insurances will have an adjuster come out and determine the damage and then determine what's their value and replacement is. I think it was Chris maybe out there in Florida had a question specific to the insurance. No insurance policy that Lindsey talked about is ... They're not all the same. And not all insurances treat stone-coated steel the same. So what we've seen is we've seen some companies will give up to a 25% reduction in premiums by having a product like stone-coated steel like ours that is going to perform through these events.

What I would say to the customer, to the homeowner, if they aren't getting those premiums, maybe ask your insurance company why. Maybe look into other insurance companies that are in your area because the reality is if they're going to receive savings from you having your roof, then they should pass that onto the homeowner as well. And so that's something that I always say is to ask. Insurances are getting harder where for instance, it used to be where if there was any damage cosmetically done to the product, then they were going to replace that roof. But now they've put in these things called cosmetic endorsements or cosmetic waivers where if it's just cosmetic where the damage is, then they're not going to replace that, which brings another benefit of having our product as well because we're very repairable. We can repair panel by panel. Some products are installed with a hidden fastener, which means you're going to have to take off entire slopes of roof to make individual replacements where our product can be replaced panel by panel as opposed to removing entire slopes of roofs.

In addition to that, if there's a cosmetic being here or there, we have touch-up kits to be able to reapply potential granule loss that may have happened by a two-inch hail ball or something like that to get your roof back to looking like what you were used to it. So rather than having to have that stay with exposed steel or anything like that, we can touch that up and it can look as good as new. So those are some benefits of our product on the insurance side of it because as this says, the homeowner is going to have to go through the process of dealing with their insurance and that's always a headache. We have a slide later that talks about getting ahead of that. Yeah. They're going to have to work hand in hand with their contractor. So it's important like Lindsey said, for the contractor to be reputable experience established in that area because we obviously when storms come, a lot of times different contractors or different companies will maybe come in there for a couple of months and then they're gone and then the homeowner doesn't know, where's my contractor that installed my roof, right?

So it's important to have a contractor that is going to be local, reputable, experienced, established, all those things. And we like to work hand in hand with those contractors to help them be experienced with our product, to help them be comfortable with our product so they can get in front of a homeowner and feel comfortable talking about it, feel comfortable that the install will go smooth. We know that it's a product that is very high performing, but not every contractor is well versed in it yet. And so that's our job to help them get well versed and experienced in our product. So we try and be around and be available from the first step to the last step so they feel comfortable with dealing with these damages and these events.

Lindsey Riddle: And then going back to tying into all of this, so the response and dealing with specifically hurricane and then other sort of storms. The contractor knowing what they're doing during this install process is imperative. We've had quite a bit of storms over the years here in Florida and then specifically with insurance, there's a lot of things going on right now with the roofing industry in Florida specifically. And you just hate to see it when you're driving through neighborhoods and they're all just blue tarped because they're waiting for an insurance check or waiting for something so they can repair that roof. So it's really important to make sure that you're communicating with your Unified Steel rep in your area to ensure that you have all the details possible, you know what's going on in your installing to that highest performance ability.

Karen Edwards: That's a great segue into having a disaster response plan. As a company, you got to know what you're going to do if bad weather or a storm or a hurricane hits the area that you service. And then let's talk a little bit about, Lindsey and Cody, how Westlake supports the contractors in this kind of plan and what to do.

Lindsey Riddle: Yeah. So we mentioned it before and I keep kind of touching on find your local rep, find your local rep. It is so important for you to have your local reps communications. So to have their contact to be able to give us a call, send us an email, do whatever, that's imperative because we are around, we can help. So if you need a training, if you need a crew training, we can do a technical based crew training with a deck, we can work with your distributors to have a larger training. We can do an on the job sort of first job sort of training situation where we can go out there, meet with your crew and send a technical advisor to be able to help you get started off on the right note. And then in addition to that, I know our marketing department is constantly tweeting out things, so be sure to follow Unified Steel on our LinkedIn and Facebook pages because we do constantly want to make sure we're putting out all the right information and documents that you may need. So we are very dedicated to keeping that sort of ahead of the game standpoint and making sure that you have everything you can possibly need.

Cody Raymond: Karen, I think it might be helpful, as Lindsey alluded to, finding your local rep, finding our documents' library. Those things can be a huge resource to you in the field as a contractor. So maybe if we could just throw in the chat the link to our website. It's westlakeroyalroofing.com. I don't know if that's something that you can throw in there, but that's just something that can allow maybe some of the contractors listening to this live or on recording that they can go onto our website, look around, look at our resources and find a rep. We have that westlakeroyalroofing.com. There it is. I just saw it popped up. So anybody that's listening to this, if they want to be able to find those things, you just go to westlakeroyalroofing.com and you click on steal and there's going to be all kinds of resources there in our product library. It's going to allow you to be able to find your local rep or ... Our customer service team does a great job of fielding any phone calls to be able to direct people in the field to their local rep so they can get help.

Lindsey Riddle: And if anything, if there's a situation where you can't ... you're on the job and you need to know a specific detail on that roof, our YouTube channel is a great resource. It's one of my favorite things to be able to just shoot off a three minute or less video on a specific detail of the roof. It's a great resource. And we do have installation manuals in English and Spanish, so we try to stay as up to date with everything as possible to be able to provide you guys some real time tangible resources and links that your crews can look at as well.

Karen Edwards: Thank you. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about the types of technology that you have that can help not only with severe weather response, but also with maybe doing a little prevention before the severe weather happens.

Cody Raymond: So I'll go ahead and touch on this a little bit. So one thing that we try to do as a company is just be proactive with the contractor to help them be ready in the field to be able to not have to wait a day to get a hold of somebody or find out how they're going to contact their local rep. We're happy to be a resource, but we have also started to build things with our marketing department that can help the contractor in the field. And one of those things is when insurance claims happens is to build a materials list. And that's on our Material List Generator.

Ator that you'll be able to find on that website link that you just shared that we will be able to click on that. And what it basically requires, I think most contractors have heard of an eagle view or a roof report or a hover. These are different systems and programs that basically give you basic roof measurements of the total square footage of a roof. It's going to give you all the accessories from your ridge and your hip and all these linear footages. So what we've done is we've built a system, a web-based ... That link was just shared by [inaudible 00:33:29]. It's a web-based-

Karen Edwards: It's Karen. I know.

Cody Raymond: Yeah.

Karen Edwards: Sorry about that.

Cody Raymond: Perfect. Anyway, you can get on there. You can type in those measurements from an eagle view or a roof report or a hover. And what you do is you basically put in, okay, there's 32 squares, there's 100 feet of ridge, there's 20 feet of valley. You go through those and then at the bottom you can click on the product that you want to build that for. I want to install this direct to deck with [inaudible 00:33:58]. And you click on that and then it just populates a PDF for you right there that has all the materials you're going to need with that job. And so that's something that just helps a contractor that's getting started to be able to say, well, what are the parts and pieces that I'm going to need to be able to take to a distributor to get pricing? To be able to go to a customer and tell them, "Okay. Well, these are the parts and pieces that we will need for your roof."

So we just try and make it as friendly as possible. If you're getting into a new product, the biggest thing that I've seen that contractors struggle to take on a new product is because they don't want ... they might not be comfortable with that new product. So we try and make it as comfortable as possible because they want to be knowledgeable in the home. So as Lindsey said, use your local rep, use our resources to help yourself get comfortable so you feel educated when you go into that meeting with that homeowner. So they feel like, "Okay. I'm dealing with a professional that knows what this product is." And we want to be a resource to help that contractor feel that way. And so we just try and be as proactive as possible with creating these systems.

Karen Edwards: Cody, didn't the Material List Generator just come out within the last year? This is a new resource for you guys?

Cody Raymond: Yeah. So we've kind of had it internally with our company where we used it to help contractors build materials lists, which we're happy to continue doing as reps. We're happy to continue helping those contractors, but as I said, I might be in a meeting, a contractor might call me and it might take me an hour or two to call them back. Sometimes they're wanting it as quickly as possible. So yeah. Just within the last year we made this web-based version that can be accessed by a distributor, that can be accessed by a contractor, by a homeowner, anybody that visits our site and then [inaudible 00:35:45] our marketing down on the back-end to help that be visible and executionable for anybody that wants to do that on our webpage.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. I think that's cool. It just shows that you are continually looking for ways that you can provide tools and support to a contractor and homeowners to help make their lives easier. So maybe, Lindsey, you can touch on some of the communications and marketing tools that are out there.

Lindsey Riddle: Yeah. For sure. So I know Cody mentioned the Material List Generator. That's definitely one of our biggest highlights that we have right now. It's to be able to give you that real-time sort of idea of all the parts and pieces you'll need. In addition to that, when you're in home, I always suggest check out our Dream Home Visualizer because you can go in there, upload a photo of the home while you're with the homeowner and then be able to specify things down to the profile, down to the color so the homeowner can get an aesthetics view of what their roof will look like with a stone-coated steel product on their roofing system. And then in addition to that, again, all of our social media platforms, we're constantly pushing out different details and different tips and tricks on how to navigate the website, navigate the Material List Generator, the dream home Visualizer, all of the things.

So use us as a resource. You can pull from our website, our social media, all of the things. You can obviously talk to your rep in your area as well to be able to help you make that sale along the way, either in real-time, if it works out that way with your homeowner or even just ask us for links. We can send you all of the links, all of the things. We try to make communication our top priority in pushing this along because it is such an impressive and high-performing product. We want to make sure all the cool details about it, because what's going to sell it.

Karen Edwards: Okay. So we mentioned this briefly, but let's talk a little bit about proactive storm protection. I think that as a contractor, it's an education process for the homeowners or the building owners about why this matters. So let's talk a little bit about this. Lindsey, you have a great story too to share.

Lindsey Riddle: Yeah. So a couple of years back in Southwest, Florida, we experienced Hurricane Ian. So there are a couple of areas where it was up to a category four hurricane and it was just honestly devastation. So super high winds, very intense rains, flooding, all of the things. I have a contractor who I've worked with since then who was really a prime supporter for Unified Steel and stone-coated steel in general. And I just got to talking with him and checking out his website. And one of their videos was actually taken right after Hurricane Ian and it's just a drone video. And it goes through this neighborhood and it starts off in its standing seam roofs that are all bent up, completely warped, its shingle roofs that are missing half the roof, its tile, where again, they're missing tiles. There's a bunch of heavy damage. And then they go over this beautiful PINE-CREST Shake charcoal, so our black PINE-CREST Shake profile and it is completely intact. Not even a cut piece missing. And he was really fantastic because they had actually just installed that roof in that area that experienced the category four some of the height of the damage of that hurricane. And they had just installed a couple of weeks prior to the hurricane making landfall.

So to be able to have that be one of his prime marketing tools for the area, for him to be able to go back to that neighborhood while they're trying to figure out their insurance claims and the re-roof process and be able to sell more stone-coated steel Unified Steel roofs because they have a real-time perfect example of how high performing this roof is was incredible. And it really as a rep helped me feel even better about all the things that we're offering through our warranties and through our trainings and what we really speak to, is to be able to have that as a reference point of being like we can withstand this incredibly severe storm system and be not even a ridge cap missing is kind of crazy. And it's something that's really been helpful for not only him, but so many of my other contractors here in Florida.
Karen Edwards: Yeah. That's so impressive. And Cody, when we were talking beforehand, you emphasized that really what it comes down to is safety. So do you want to expand on that?

Cody Raymond: Yeah. 100%. Just to continue on with what Lindsey was talking about. So basically there's two ways. This is a consumer education product. And so if you have a customer that just had one of those other homes that had asphalt shingled or had a product that didn't perform as well in the storm. A lot of times contractors will use this as an opportunity to say, "Hey, well, for the next storm, let's use some of this insurance money to get your house safer or to upgrade to this stone-coated steel product." Which is a great thing because the next time they'll be prepared and they'll be protected. But what you're talking about and what I want to get on is if we can educate the homeowner and get in front of it's kind of our responsibility to give the customer all their options to make their family as safe as possible.
As you see this picture on this slide that has the family, there's so many people across this country that just want to keep their family safe. I think that's our responsibility, that before the storm comes, to educate these homeowners rather than being reactionary saying, "Well, maybe for the next one, now that we have insurance money, let's get on top of this." But if we can talk about it beforehand and get preventative, we can say, "Hey, here's this product."

As you mentioned so beautifully earlier, and as well as Lindsey did, there are so many events that are projected or predicted to happen this year. That if we can get those installed before, then it's going to allow that homeowner to have the safest protection possible on their roof before these events happen. So that's one of the biggest things that I think is ... that it's so important to just educate the homeowner beforehand and say, "These are the options that we have. Here's a product that has 120 mile an hour wind warranty. It has a class four or VSH, very severe hail impact rating. You can look at our warranty. We also perform really well in fire and in other areas of severe weather and severe events." It's just I am a big believer of how this product is truly one of the safest products on the market for the ultimate customer, the homeowner. So I just think it's our responsibility professionals to educate the homeowner that they have this option before those events happen.

Karen Edwards: Very well stated. Yeah. We've been emphasizing these points throughout this presentation, the benefits of these high quality roofing materials. Lindsey, you were talking a little bit about the longevity. Talk a little bit about that life cycle of roofs and how long this stands up to it.

Lindsey Riddle: Yeah. So a little bit of background, our product, we use the same stone chips as every shingle or other stone-coated metal products do. So we get all of our stone chips, fine grain, granite stone chips from 3M. And back in 2017, so a couple of years back now, they did a survey and they reached out to all of their roofing products customers who utilize their stone chips to see what their inventories needed to look like. So they did a life cost cycle analysis and they compared a standard asphalt shingle, a premium asphalt shingle and then a Unified Steel roof. And they compared it over the 50-year timeframe that we as a manufacturer are warranting that project. And they found that within that 50 years that you'll be covered by one Unified Steel roof, you're going to have to re-roof that shingle, whether it's the standard shingle or the premium shingle minimum three times.

Now, again, I keep talking about Florida because I'm here and it's on my brain. Now with our insurance, all the different changes that are happening, that's looking at minimum four to five re-roofs in that 50 year timeframe. So a lot of times when I'm speaking with a contractor who does mainly shingle work or mainly standing seam metal or that's kind of what the expectation that the customer has if they're re-roofing from their existing shingle roof is cost. I'm not going to lie to you, this is a specialty product. We back it up, we support you in all these different ways that we've talked about today, but it is a specialty product. It's going to run you more than shingles. So sometimes what I most often get is the sticker shock sort of value of, "Oh, well. I'm coming from a shingle." And that's their expectation cost-wise. Being able to speak to all these benefits with our warranty, with all the protection that we offer, both being able to withstand these severe weather systems, that is where you can speak to, "Well, okay. In 50 years, you're going to have to re-roof with that shingle minimum three to four to five times. You're going to be spending more by doing all of those re-roofs over this time than you would with paying that upfront Unified Steel cost."

So it's a good way to put it into perspective for homeowners and even some contractors who don't love the idea of that specialty cost that comes with this product. But being able to speak to the benefits and all the values that come with the Unified Steel roof is really imperative when you're looking long-term. Is this their forever home? Is this a home that they want to pass down? All of the things. It's very, very important.

Cody Raymond: If I could add to that, just based off of what Lindsey said. If you look at just products in general, obviously every climate is going to have different average lifespan of the roof. In Texas and Florida, they're going to be replaced a lot more. In places with less weather events, average roofs might last longer. Regardless, you're going to be replacing that roof more times and the life cycle cost of that roof is going to be turned over many more times than with a stone-coated steel roof. So if you're looking at it in general, I don't know any products that become cheaper over time. So in 20 years, let's say you put on an asphalt shingle roof today and have to replace in 20 years. Well, in 20 years that asphalt shingle roof might cost as much or more than a Unified Steel roof costs today.

So really what I always say is you're probably going to have to replace this roof two to three times minimum in my area before you have to replace this stone-coated steel roof. So you're going to be paying for that roof two to three times, but you're also going to be paying for the inflation of that roof. You're going to be paying for the tear off of that roof, for the labor of that roof. So there's a lot of other costs that are associated with it other than just the roofing material that you're going to have to do multiple times. And then the other thing is, regardless of cost, you also have the headache of having to go through that process multiple times as well. So there's multiple reasons why having a roof that's going to sustain longer is going to be a benefit to that homeowner, even if they're passing it on to the next generation, like Lindsey mentioned, or if they're just going to outlive a life cycle or a re-roof one time in their time in that roof. There's a lot of benefits to going with a Unified Steel roof upfront and it actually saves you money long term if you're going to outlive one lifecycle.

Karen Edwards: Yeah. I didn't even think about that, prices rising, because they do. Like you said, nothing really gets cheaper. So that's very, very good points. Okay. So we touched on this a little bit throughout the webinar, but just to wrap it up here, talk a little bit about the training and resources. And you've got a word for it. It's like first nail. Tell me what that is. I can't remember.

Cody Raymond: Yeah. I'll touch on that as well because let's be honest, the product is only as good as the installer. We need it to be installed correctly, and we understand that as a company and we want to make it as easy as possible and as seamless as possible to install this product correctly. So we have multiple technical trainers across the country that will ... What we normally do is we will eat the cost. We don't charge the contractor a dime. We will send our material to a distributor in a local area. So let's say we're going to do it in Florida. We'll send material to a distributor in Florida. We'll just use ABC Supply as an example. We build a roof deck there in their yard and we invite roofing contractors to come practice on our material and be trained by our installation professionals, our technical trainers. And what this allows them to do is it allows them to get familiar with our product on our roof deck that we've paid for so they're not out of dollar. They get to come and they get to make mistakes on our roof instead of making mistakes on their job. So that saves them money, obviously, and makes them more efficient when they start doing their job.

The other thing that we do is what you referenced is this first job, first nail. I have a contractor in St. George, Utah, who installed his first job last week, and he was a little nervous that he was going to make a mistake. And so what we did was we scheduled. You have to be proactive with your rep to schedule because the installation trainer has to be able to plan it. But as long as you tell us a couple of weeks or a few weeks in advance, a month in advance when you want to start this job, we can get that trainer onsite to help walk your crew through the installation process as they're starting their first job. And they can ask questions specifically about, "Oh, look at this chimney transition right here. What do I do there? What's going on in this valley transition?" And then we can walk them through that. So they're making sure that they're going to do this installation properly.

Maybe there's other companies that do this out there, but I know that this is something that we've prioritized to make it as friendly as possible to start doing our product. And so those are things that we offer to the contractor free of charge just so they can be comfortable that they're not going to make mistakes or that they're not going to make these really costly mistakes that are going to make the job unprofitable. We don't want to make it as seamless as possible for them.
Karen Edwards: All right. Lindsey, you mentioned earlier that you have an extensive YouTube channel and the videos are in multiple languages, right?

Lindsey Riddle: So with our YouTube channel, most are in English at this point. We are working on revamping all of our install videos as well as our installation manuals to make them more user-friendly. And within our installation manuals, we currently have them in English, Spanish and also some in French. Our Granite Ridge installation manual is in French. So if that works for y'all, that's great. But with our YouTube channel, most of them at this point are in English, but you can obviously dub them with Spanish just in your settings. And then we are working on getting additional videos put up for every different type of installation of different types of profiles, different specific pieces that you're needing to look at on the roof. So those are already there and available. The videos are very digestible. They're in less than three minute long lengths.

So being able to at least reference that. For example, this morning I had a contractor reach out to me regarding a chimney and a skylight feature on a specific roof. So being able for me to not only explain it over the phone, but then to provide a link of exactly how it would be done per their installation method, it's a game changer. And that's one of the first things I always encourage even my brand new crews to look at, is in addition to the trainings that I can do in your office for product knowledge and technical trainings, we do have the videos and the resources and the installation manuals that you can refer to as well.

Karen Edwards: Who hasn't watched a YouTube video to learn how to do something? We're all used to that. So it's great that that resource is out there.

Cody Raymond: One thing I'll add as well is we like to use whatever technology is available to us. And so a lot of times what I've seen happen is a contractor or the installer comes up on a detail that is confusing them and they'll literally call one of our installation trainers, they'll FaceTime them or they'll video chat them and they're in a different state and they'll say, "Hey, look. This is what I'm dealing with right here." And just do it right through the phone. And they'll say, "Oh, yeah. I've seen this before. Do this, do this, do this." And then that de-stresses the situation where they go from very stressed on how they're going to handle this situation to, "Oh, okay. Now I feel comfortable that I'm going to do it correctly. So there's countless of ways that we try and use whatever technology is available to us to make it as seamless as possible.

Karen Edwards: And to get the answers right away. Not having to wait a day or whatever and have to stop working in a certain area or lose time on that job. That's fantastic. So if there are any questions, we only have a few minutes left before we are at the end of the hour. This was just a fantastic learning opportunity for me I think for the United or Unified, sorry, product and the warranty and the resources and the support. It's just been fantastic. I think what you guys are doing is great. Thank you for being here, Cody, Lindsey. Like I said, it was a great conversation.

Cody Raymond: Thanks so much, Karen. You did a great job putting that on and hosting it. And I appreciate being a part of it.

Outro: All right. So let's just wrap things up here because I did not see any additional questions come in. First of all, thank you for being here for the live webinar and thank you if you're watching on-demand as well. If you want to learn more about Westlake Royal Roofing and the Unified Steel, they have a full directory on metalcoffeeshop.com as well as rooferscoffeeshop.com. You can check them out there and contact information will be out there. So you'll know how to find Cody, Lindsey, your local rep as well. And thanks for being here. Visit metalcoffeeshop.com. You can see other episodes of Metal Talk and we hope to see you on a future episode. Thank you, all.