Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of South Charlotte.
Good Neighbor Podcast South Charlotte
Ep. # 125 Getting to the Top: Charlotte's Best Roofer Reveals Industry Secrets
What does it take to build Charlotte's top-rated roofing company? Chris Merritt, a native Charlottean and lifelong craftsman, shares the remarkable journey that led him from working summer roofing jobs at age 14 to winning "Charlotte's Best in Roofing" for 2024.
With disarming honesty, Chris pulls back the curtain on an industry filled with both skilled professionals and concerning scam artists. He reveals why pipe flashings are the number one cause of roof leaks in our region and explains how simple maintenance every few years can prevent thousands in damage. His shocking story about a Charlotte homeowner who paid for a new roof only to have her existing one painted black underscores why proper vetting is crucial when selecting a contractor.
Most homeowners don't realize that North Carolina recently changed its laws, allowing roofing work under $40,000 to be performed without a license. Chris walks us through exactly what to look for when hiring a roofer – from verifying insurance coverage to understanding the difference between workmanship and manufacturer warranties. As an Owens Corning Platinum Preferred Contractor, he explains how manufacturer vetting provides an additional layer of consumer protection and enhanced warranty options.
Beyond business, Chris shares his passion for family life at Lake Wylie with his wife, three daughters, and two dogs, plus his community service helping underprivileged homeowners affected by severe weather. Whether you're facing immediate roofing concerns or simply want to properly maintain your home's most critical protective system, this conversation delivers valuable insights from one of Charlotte's most trusted experts. Visit meritroofing.com to learn more about their services and access their instant quote tool.
Merritt Roofing
Chris Merritt
704-610-1692
126 North McDowell St. Suite 201
Charlotte, NC 28204
home@merrittroofing.com
merrittroofing.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Regina Lee.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. My name is Regina and I'm here in South Charlotte and my favorite thing to do is talk to local business owners, and I'm super excited today to talk to Chris Merritt. He owns Merritt Roofing and they were just awarded Charlotte's Best in Roofing in 2024. Congrats.
Speaker 3:Chris. Well, thank you, Regina. Thank you for having me, hey everyone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what an honor.
Speaker 3:Yes, it was an honor. We were voted by the people of Charlotte, so we are really happy that we were awarded that.
Speaker 2:Well, that's incredible. So tell us a little bit about your journey, who you are and how you got into roofing and why you decided to open your own business.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am a native Charlottean. I was born in Charlotte, grew up in the Waxhaw area actually Middle Springs, not far from Waxhaw, and so kind of what got me into roofing is a lot of people. After high school went to college, I went to work and I did a lot of jobs framing, roofing, siding and I actually started roofing one of my first jobs when I was 14 or 15, in the summers, and so that kind of started my journey in the roofing industry and so and I've done a lot of different things in the construction industry besides roofing. But I landed here in 2009 and we've just been at it ever since.
Speaker 2:I landed here in 2009 and we've just been at it ever since. That's fantastic. I love that. You're a unicorn. Did you know that's what you call a charlatan?
Speaker 3:There's not many of us left me and my sisters and my cousins. We all laugh about that. Yeah, I was born in Presbyterian Hospital.
Speaker 2:That is so cool.
Speaker 3:I have a two-year-old daughter who we live in South Carolina now, but we took her to Presbyterian to be born as well.
Speaker 2:Wow, love it, love it. So walk us through all the services Merit Roofing offers.
Speaker 3:We primarily focus on roofing. I'm a licensed general contractor. I'm also a licensed commercial roofer, but we also do windows, we do siding, we install garage doors. Every now and again we'll do painting, but we try to stick to the exteriors. Like I said, my primary focus is residential re-roofing. We don't do a lot of new construction. We like to do renovation.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. What are some of the most common roofing issues you see in our area? The?
Speaker 3:number one leak offender is always the pipe flashings, or pipe jacks as you call them. All my realtor friends that are listening, we work well with realtors and you see that a lot. You have plumbing pipes, plumbing vents that go through the roof and they have rubber flashings that go around them. About every 10 years that rubber flashing will crack. It's kind of like an old bicycle inner tube. The sun will crack it and water will get in and you'll see a stain on your roof. So that's probably the number one thing. And then not far behind that is just lack of maintenance. A lot of people they won't have a roofer on the roof every three to five years to caulk the exposed nail heads and that kind of things and keep the gutters clean, keep water backing up. But I would say pipe jacks are just, you know, standard roof maintenance is the number one cause of leaks.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, most of us don't know until there's a problem. I remember at a house I had in Ballantyne it was our neighbor who could look down on our roof that called to say hey, something's going on. It was actually squirrel damage, but you know one thing leads to another. So what is your advice to homeowners? You know you just indicated you need to have your roof checked every so often.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and another. You know it needs to be checked out after every storm by a vetted contractor, obviously, but yeah, every three to five years you need to have a good roofer up on your roof Just looking at the flashings, the pipe jacks, any high traffic areas where leaves might build up, those kinds of things where water would back up and reside. So just you know it's not maintenance like a car or anything, but you do need to have someone check your roof about every three to five years and or if you have a high wind storm, a hail storm, you need to have a qualified roofer on your roof just making sure that it's sound.
Speaker 2:Well, you are definitely in a very competitive industry, so it is a challenge, I'm sure, for consumers to decide who to call. So what advice would you give a homeowner when choosing a roofing company, and what sets you apart?
Speaker 3:Well I would say, do your research, get on the Better Business Bureau, look there If, if, if someone has a complaint, see how they resolve the complaint. See if they were nice and they were courteous. So that's a good starting point. Also, check out the reviews on Google, where we have, I think, 195 star reviews in the Fort Mill office, about 85 star reviews in the Charlotte office.
Speaker 3:So just taking the time to check, check the reviews, check the license, and one tricky thing in North Carolina that a lot of people don't really understand is you could be a roofer in North Carolina and do a roof and I think it's under 40,000. They just changed the law last year and you don't have to have a license. So it's better if you have a licensed contractor on your roof, but in North Carolina you don't have to have a license to be a roofer. So you know, checking the reviews, checking to see whether they're actually licensed and then checking if they're the workers comp and general liability those things are very important in case someone gets hurt. Accidents do happen. If a ladder falls off and hits a car in high wind or something like that, you want to make sure that they have the insurance to take care of you.
Speaker 2:That's a very good point. Well, what are some of the misconceptions when you're talking to clients? You know calling you, looking for quotes. What do you run up against?
Speaker 3:Oh well it's. You know a lot of people want to use price comparisons because you know, like I said, a lot of roofers don't even have to have license. A lot of roofers don't have general liability or workers comp, and so a lot of people will think they're comparing apples to apples. Because you know a roof is like you said earlier most people can't see it, so they don't understand what's being done on the roof. And if you don't, you really want to vet a contractor, make sure that they know what they're doing, make sure that they're licensed, make sure that they have the proper insurance, and if you've got a level playing field then you know that kind of eliminates a lot of people who may not do a good you know as good of a job. Typically even a bad roof install might take three to five years before you know it. So by the time you realize that you know you've got a bad install, it's too late. So just using a qualified contractor, vetting them, that really helps eliminate a lot of misconceptions yeah, well, it's a big expense too.
Speaker 2:So you know, is there a warranty on a roof when a new one's put on?
Speaker 3:uh, yes, there are workmanship warranties. There's generally two types of warranties. You have a workmanship warranty. That's where, if I was driving a nail and I drove it in crooked and it leaked around that crooked nail, that's considered work. And then you have a manufacturer's warranty. We're at Owens Corning Platinum Preferred Contractor. The majority of our shingles have a limited lifetime, which is a 50-year warranty on it. So there's generally two types of warranties on a roof.
Speaker 2:Gotcha. So are there scams that you're seeing happening in your industry you can kind of share with us?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the biggest scam we do is we do a lot of restoration work when someone has hail damage or wind damage and there's insurance involved. What a lot of these storm chasers will do. They'll come to town and they'll talk someone into giving the roofing company the first check, because generally in insurance there's two checks right, a deposit and then a finish up check, and the guys will take a deposit and then they'll just split town. Um, so that's the biggest one that we see. Now we've actually we've helped people who have been scammed out of that. Um, we I've seen a lot of different kinds of scans. We saw a lady in Charlotte that got her roof painted. One time Some guys showed up with with paint and they painted her roof black.
Speaker 2:And she thought she was getting new shingles.
Speaker 3:She paid for new shingles.
Speaker 2:That's correct. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Going back to what I previously stated, vetting a contractor is is really important. A lot of times, like we're Owens Corning, we install their shingles, their asphalt composite shingles, more than any other, and they actually vet us. Because we're a platinum contractor, we're able to offer warranties that just normal roofers can't offer because we have been vetted by them. So that's, you know, that's another way that you know consumer can protect themselves. It's just doing proper, proper vetting.
Speaker 2:That's very good information. So how does the process go? Okay, I'm looking for a roofer. I call you guys. Do you do estimates? Free estimates.
Speaker 3:We do. There's a lot of different ways to get a hold of us. The best way is through meritroofingcom, and there's actually a tool on I think it's the right hand side, that you can click on and it'll give you an instant quote. And that'll give you an instant quote and that'll give you an idea. That tool is really good for realtors as well, if they just want to have a general idea of what a roof's going to cost. It gives three different breakdowns and prices pretending, uh, depending on what material you use. Um, you know that the website is is the best, the best way to get us, and that's meritroofingcom. There's a form you could fill out that comes directly to me, and we monitor that seven days a week, so we'll get right back with you perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we haven't had a hailstorm in a long time in Charlotte, have we?
Speaker 3:we had a. We serviced about 90 miles 90 mile radius of Charlotte Rock. South Carolina had a huge hail storm last year with two and three inch hail, which is very, very unusual.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, what month was that?
Speaker 3:April 20th. It's etched in my mind because we had 150 phone calls the first day.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, think of that situation when everybody got the damage. I mean that has to be incredible to have all that thrown at you at one time and impossible, I guess.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't hit up. Unfortunately it hit a lot of underprivileged homes and we were part. We work with the city and helping a person that didn't have insurance and didn't have money. So we help, work in conjunction with the city and helping a few people get back and not having to pay anything out of pocket. So we try to give back to the community as well.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, Chris. So when you're not running this fabulous company, what do you like to do for fun?
Speaker 3:I love spending time with my family, a beautiful wife. I have three daughters, one stepdaughter, a 16 year old daughter and a two-year-old daughter. We have a new addition, wow. So at 52, that's very interesting. I have a French Bulldog named Lola, who is very, very undisciplined. She doesn't listen to anything. She is a lot of fun, uh. And I have a um, she's three, three or four, and I have a new puppy. I have a lab. That's almost a year and she gets bossed around by the, the frenchie. We live at lake watery. We moved there last year. That was my life, life, uh, long dream is to have a lake house. So we moved south a little bit and have a boat on the lift so we get out on the water. Me and my father fish together a lot, so big fishermen. So that's about it. The business keeps me really busy. Love spending time with my family and my wife and my kids and then getting out on the boat and see if I can't talk a fish in the boat.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just thinking, all those female hormones you have in that house, that's a lot.
Speaker 3:Yeah, story of my life I've got three sisters on top of that.
Speaker 2:Well then, you know how to handle it. Well, chris, it's been a pleasure getting to know you, and congrats on that amazing award of being Charlotte's Best in Roofing in 2024. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:All right, well, thank you, regina. Thank you for having me, it's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPSouthCharlotte. com.