Exploring Metal Roofing Resources - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Renee Ramey of Metal Roofing Alliance. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to MetalCast, the podcast where we're turning up the heat on all things metal roofing. On this show, we'll explore the world of metal roofing from its durability to design, expert insights and more. Join us as we bang out the details on the toughest roofs in the game. Get ready to unleash the power of metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: Hello, everybody and welcome to another episode of MetalCast from Metal Coffee Shop. My name's Karen Edwards and in today's episode we're going to talk about some new important resources for both contractors and home and building owners that were recently released by the Metal Roofing Alliance. And I'm delighted to welcome Renee Ramey to the episode.

Renee Ramey: Hello. Thank you for having me.

Karen Edwards: It's great to see you and to be talking about this today. Can you just, for those who don't know who you are and what the Metal Roofing Alliance does, give a little introduction for our listeners?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, I am the executive director of the Metal Roofing Alliance. I've been in this role for seven, going on eight years and have been in the industry for over 25. So worked in various aspects of the industry, fell in love with it, have stayed. And I'm super happy to be in the role that we are now because what we do is exciting and that is we educate and promote metal roofing to homeowners with the intent of giving them as much information as possible, dispelling myths, giving them third party resources, just everything that they need to learn more about metal roofing. And then if and when they get ready to install a metal roof, we have the ability to connect them with a local professional in their area, so we are the resource for homeowners when it comes to metal roofing.

Karen Edwards: Excellent, thank you. And metal just is really growing in popularity and we see more contractors choosing to offer metal. Why do you think that the popularity is growing so much?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, I think there's a lot of benefits and reasons why, but just to name some right off the top are the longevity and the durability aspects of metal roofing. So with metal roofing, you can put one on in the same length of time and that will last the same length of time as two to three or more asphalt roofs. And so from that perspective, it's a nice product to offer because of that longevity. Not just for the installer who only has to install it once every 40, 50 years, but to the homeowner who also doesn't have to mess with it as well. And I know in that regard a lot of contractors are like, "Well, why would I want to install something that'll last that long? That's taking away future business." The number of households in the United States of America and Canada for that matter is astounding.

There is no lack of homes that need new roofs. You will not run out of audience or clients for new roofing, so I just want to put that myth to bed right now, but the other benefit I mentioned is the durability of it. So we are seeing unfortunately a lot more weather events, extreme weather in certain areas of the country and the metal roofs just perform better in those events during that weather, whether it be hurricanes and high winds. And metal roofing is one of the highest rated, if not the highest rated, roofing material out there to wildfires because it's ember resistant, which makes it harder, obviously then, to catch fire.

I mean, you go on. The ability to bear the weight of heavy snow and ice loads, the ability to withstand or resist hail. The list just goes on. And I think for those two reasons alone, contractors should be excited about the product. Moving past that, the ability to make more money because you are installing something that requires a little bit more skill typically than an asphalt roof. The margins on a metal roof typically are going to be better than an asphalt roof in almost every situation. From an industry perspective, you're making more bang for your buck, if you will, on a roof by installing a metal roof versus asphalt.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, and the manufacturers are doing such cool things with the designs, right? There are different colors and patterns and textures and it's really impressive. And so I can tell that you love advocating for metal roofs and I'm excited to talk about the guides. And the first guide that I have here is the Residential Roofing Basics Guide for Metal. Now, who's that for and what does it do?

Renee Ramey: Good question. It's actually, in my opinion, for both contractors as well as homeowners or building owners and here's why. It's very basic. So if you are a contractor that is thinking of entering the roofing market and/or is new to the roofing market, it just gives you just the bare bones basic 101 on different components of a roof. What are the different angles called? What are the different sections? How do they come together? Why are they important? So just, again, the basic of a roof. And for a homeowner, I'm a big proponent of the more prepared you are, the more knowledgeable you are, the better the outcome will be. So if you're going to be going through either a new build, where you're a roof on a home or a re-roof, I think it's important as a homeowner to understand the components of your roof.

What's the shape of your roof? Are you dealing with gables? Are you dealing with a lot of valleys, a lot of different angles coming together? What does that look like? What does that mean? And so those are things that the Residential Roofing Basics Guide will answer as well as it provides a little bit of information, very high level, just cross-comparison pros and cons I guess, if you will, for every roofing material out there. And it's just kind of a quick cheat sheet, if you will, for how the different roofing systems compare.

Karen Edwards: So it can be useful for contractors in educating the homeowners if they haven't found the guide ahead of time, right?

Renee Ramey: True.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, and let's talk a little bit about you mentioned just some terms, some material options, what things are. It's great 101 for contractors who want to learn about it, but what do they do? What do you recommend for that next step? It's one thing to read about it and get excited about it, but actually doing it and learning, what kind of training resources do you recommend?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, so you look at the basics guide, you figure out I can tackle this roofing thing, I'm interested, I can do this, get a hold of MRA, first and foremost. We have a number of different references we'll give out for regardless of where you are located. East coast, west coast, we have a couple of partnerships with training companies that are third-party training companies that aren't linked to any specific manufacturer, so there's that. We can get you connected with some people in your area, figure out what works best for you. If you do know what kind of roof you're interested in installing, what kind of metal roof you're interested in installing, so are you looking at starting with a standing seam? Do you want to go with a preform shake? What are you looking to get into based on where you're located?

Well, then I can also recommend some MRA manufacturers, most of which going to have pretty good training programs for their products. And I've not come across or heard of any MRA member manufacturer that has not offered some sort of training or reference to someone who's interested in getting in the industry.

Karen Edwards: And yeah, every manufacturer is going to have instructions and guidelines and a lot of them have people out in the field who can show up on a job and answer your questions. I'm going to give a little plug here for METALCON that's coming up at the end of October and there's a training zone there. And you can show up and they can teach you right there on the show floor. And I'm sure MRA is going to be there, right?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, we're going to be there. We're partnering with MCA for the training, installation training on the show floor. And we do it at IRE as well, but yeah, METALCON is going to have a robust program and I would highly recommend. The other thing I did not yet touch on is MCA and MRE have both partnered with NRCA on a comprehensive pro-certification training that exists and so I would recommend that as well. So there's a lot of opportunities out there for training.

Karen Edwards: So the MCA is the Metal Construction Association and NRCA is the National Roofing Contractors Association. Just in case you're a newbie, we love our acronyms in this industry.

Renee Ramey: Don't we?

Karen Edwards: And that training zone at METALCON, this is the second year, I believe and the floor space has doubled in size because it was so popular last year with so many people wanting to learn metal. So be sure to check it out, if you can get there. So the other guide that you have just put together is a Regional Considerations Guide. Tell me a little bit about that and how it can help.

Renee Ramey: Yeah, and to answer the initial question from the last guide we spoke about, this can also be industry or homeowner. But from an industry perspective, this is more of a sales tool. So print it, send it in an email. MRE just wants to spread the word and educate homeowners. It's free, so whether you're an industry or residential, a homeowner, go to our website, download it. It's free. But for a homeowner, this was designed specifically for a homeowner and we have a larger buyer's guide. It's very comprehensive. It goes into detail on a lot of different things to consider when you're re-roofing, but we really felt like we could elaborate on a few different sections of the guide with more detail if a homeowner wants to go into that greater detail. And the Regional Considerations Guide is that it's a homeowner who maybe looked at the MRA Buyer's Guide and saw the regional considerations section, which is like two pages and thought, "Huh, that's interesting. I'd like to know more about that."

Well, now we have a slightly more in-depth guide specific to regional considerations and why they're important is I think where you live often goes overlooked by a homeowner. And that's unfortunate because where you live really does impact your roof. I mean, if we think about it from just a logical perspective, the roof is what protects your home. It's what protects inside your home. It's what protects you when you're in your home and it's the one thing, the most square footage I guess, if you will, that is taking the beating in weather events or during weather events. And so it really is kind of important to where you live. And so the Regional Considerations Guide goes through, based on the region of the country that you live in, what are some things that you should consider?

And it touches on weather events and the different testing that Quality Metal Roofing systems have gone through, some questions to ask related to that testing, but also, the part I love, so it kind of walks through all that really important stuff from a performance perspective and from a benefits perspective. If you live somewhere where it's hot and you're constantly running your AC, what type of roof you put on a home is very important, too. It can have an impact on your cooling costs for your home, so there's some solar platform. I could go on and on. So it goes through kind of the weather performance in your region, the cost savings benefits and other benefits in your region from using a metal roof, but I also love and like to finish with it touches on the funner side of roofing as well. And again, I'll say that I think a roof gets overlooked a lot, but, again, if you think about it, it's one of the largest surfaces that it reflects your home's personality and your aesthetic.
And if you put just some ho drum looking roof on there, is it really giving your home that added pop, that added wow? And metal roofing really has a benefit, I believe, above other roofing materials because of, as you mentioned earlier, the colors and the different style options and whatnot. It can literally look like any roofing material out there, but with more color options and more depth and more pop. And it really can set your home off from other homes and just really make your home something beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to look at. And I just think that gets overlooked, so the Regional Considerations Guide is more comprehensive, talks about all those things in more detail. And I would highly recommend if you're a homeowner, especially in a region where you get a lot of bad weather. I think it would be worthwhile to read.

Karen Edwards: Absolutely. And yeah, I love all the options because you said there's different styles in different parts of the country and there is an option in metal that looks like that style, whether that's barrel tile or it's slate a shake. It's out there and I don't think people realize the depth and breadth of their options when it comes to metal. A lot of people I think of the standing seam on a barn look and they don't realize where it's come.

Renee Ramey: Yeah, and I think we're making headway there. I think that in large part is why we're seeing the market share for metal roofing continuing to trend up, is I think we're making a dent as an association, the MRA, but certainly also as an industry, in getting in front of the homeowner, educating the homeowner. And I do think they're starting to see that it's not just, as you said, that tin roof on a barn. It's endless options and it's quite fascinating, the product.

Karen Edwards: All right, so where does one get these guides?

Renee Ramey: Absolutely. So for those of you that don't mind hopping on a website, our website is Metal Roofing, M-E-T-A-L, Roofing, with an I-N-G, .com. You can download them. Again, both guides are free. We don't charge anything for our guides. On our website you can also find the More Comprehensive Buyer's Guide, which is right on our home page. So I would encourage you, if you're interested, to go to the website. If you don't really want to get onto the website and do that yourself, our general email is support@metalroofing.com. Shoot me an email, let me know you want a copy of the guide or which guide it is and we'll fire that off to you. So whatever way you want to receive it, we will figure out how to get it to you.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. So if I'm a contractor, I've been listening to this podcast, I'm signed up for METALCON, I'm going to check out the training zone, I'm reading the guides, why should I consider joining Metal Roofing Alliance?

Renee Ramey: Right. Well, again, we are the resource for homeowners. So if you are an MRA member, it adds some credibility to your business, I believe. Some of the other harder benefits are everything that we do to educate and market to a homeowner drives them back to the website where they have the ability to find a local professional. And if you're an MRA member, you would be receiving any inquiries that came in from people in your area, so that's always a nice benefit. But even more important from my perspective are just some of the things we've talked about today, the marketing tools and resources that are available for free to you as a member of MRA. And we encourage and we'll support you in developing whatever else you find you're bumping up against and need some help with, so it's really that having kind of that extra marketing department, if you will, in your back pocket.

But really, again, to sum all that up, I'd say just that third party validation that you're providing quality product, you are a quality installer. We have an MRA member certificate that you can get to just showcase that as you're going into homes and talking to people. And we really think that goes a long way towards helping you grow your business. And at the end of the day, that's really why we're here. I mean, we want to educate and promote to homeowners, but we need contractors, installers that can install a quality product out there doing this business because we can't grow that market share without you.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, and we love our associations and being a member of an association brings so much value and the ROI that you get, even just from meeting other members and learning and networking and all that wonderful stuff. So sign up, join, become a member.

Renee Ramey: We'd love to have you.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, so I want to just thank you, Renee, for being here today and telling us about these new guides and about everything MRA does for the metal roofing and metal industry. It's wonderful and thank you for being here.

Renee Ramey: Always love being on here. Thank you for having me.

Karen Edwards: And thank you everybody for listening. Metalroofing.com to find these guides or you can go to Metal Coffee Shop and Metal Roofing Alliance has a full directory on there with links of how to contact them and how to find them. So thank you all for listening. Please follow us on social media. We don't want you to miss a thing and hopefully we'll see you on a future episode of MetalCast. Bye.

Outro: Ready to raise the metal roof? Subscribe to MetalCast now and stay tuned for all things metal roofing. Go to metalcoffeeshop.com to learn more. Rock on and we'll catch you on the next episode.