Contractor Corner: South Texas Metal Roofing

• Contractor Corner:
  South Texas Metal Roofing

Contractor Corner:
South Texas Metal Roofing

12:05

Edward Montemayor of South Texas Metal Roofing in Corpus Christi shares insights on metal roofing in coastal regions, common misconceptions, and industry trends.

Give us a quick background about yourself and your company, so our audience knows what we're talking about today.

Yes, sir, we're South Texas Metal Roofing . We're out in Corpus Christi, Texas. We've been around for a long time. Before we started South Texas Metal Roofing, Inc., we were South Texas Metal Roofing and Construction in the early nineties. Then, around 2002, my father, the CEO and founder, changed it up and stuck with South Texas Metal Roofing.

So obviously, you're focused on metal roofing. What are your top-selling or most frequently requested projects that you work on?

We mostly do about 85% standing seam metal and aluminum out here in the coastal bend. We do a lot of aluminum in the coastal areas—Galveston, Port Aransas, Rockport, and Padre Island. For homes and ranches that are a good enough distance away from the saltwater, we're using 24-gauge metal.

Right now, we're about 85-90% standing seam, and the rest is probably steel shake, rustic shingle, our commercial line, TPO, modified bitumen, and silicone systems. But our leading seller is going to be standing seam mechanical lock.

Do weather and storms drive that trend, or do people want a more robust roof?

A little bit of both. We get many hurricanes out here. The last one we had was Hurricane Harvey in 2017. A company flew a drone around in Rockport, and some of our homes came out on the news, so people could see a lot of standing seam homes that weren't blown away. Since then, the standing seam has been growing big down here.

When you talk to homeowners or building owners, what myths or misconceptions about metal roofing do you hear?

The main one is going to be the rain. Many folks think that they'll hear the rain on standing seam or metal roofs, which is what we hear a lot.

The second one is going to be cell phone reception. I hear that a lot—folks will say, 'Is it going to mess up my reception in my house?'especially on their cellular phones.

How do you answer those questions?

Well, we've never had that problem. I had one customer, maybe back in 2014, tell me their reception was a little rough after a metal roof, but that was the only time. We've never really had that problem again. I think folks hear it and maybe do some research on Google and get that misconception.

The same thing applies to rain - I tell them that you won't hear any rain because the standing seam system is installed directly on a flat surface decking. But if you had maybe an R panel or a ribbed panel with spacing in between, those might be when you might hear a little bit of rain.

Let's discuss your selling process. Is selling metal roofs becoming easier or more difficultthese days?

When the election happened, things slowed down a little bit.

Folks were a little afraid to make a big purchase. Everything was going steady for us right before the election. But right now, we feel it's picking up a little bit.

Insurance companies are reaching out to many homeowners down here. They're basically giving them that ultimatum: 'If it's been 20 years, we need you to put a new roof on. 'So we're getting a lot of calls right now from homeowners hearing from their insurance that they're going to get dropped if they don't get a new roof onsoon.

That's very interesting. Do the insurance companies recommend a metal roof?

That's a good question. No, and I didn't ask the homeowners that. But now, homeowners are saying, 'Look, the insurance is making us get a new roof, so let's go ahead and put a metal roof on. We want this to be the last roof we put on our house.'

How do you find leads and prospects?

Our main ones are word of mouth and our reputation. We also use a lot of social media marketing, and the last one will be referrals.

We know many folks in the coastal…