The Full Rundown on Roofing: Storm Damage & Insurance

A windstorm can be a nothing-burger for one house and a total mess for the next. We open with a real North Carolina damage story where a single tree managed to split a carport and detached garage almost perfectly, then use it to get practical about what homeowners should do before and after severe weather. Our goal is simple: help you spot roof damage early, avoid unsafe shortcuts, and make better decisions about repairs versus replacement.

We walk through an easy pre-storm habit that can save you real money later: take date-stamped photos of all four sides of your home. Those baseline shots make it much easier to prove what changed after wind or hail and to avoid the “was that already there?” argument. From there, we dig into roof inspections, attic warning signs, and why it’s worth having a qualified roofing contractor document what’s happening up top, especially when you’re thinking about a homeowners insurance claim.

Then we get honest about the insurance side of roofing: storm chasers, manufactured damage, why claim history matters, how deductibles should guide your decision, and how depreciation and recoverable depreciation typically work. We also shift into materials and craftsmanship, including shingle brand comparisons, what modern roof warranties really mean, and how installer details like starter strips, ridge caps, pipe boots, and valley protection can decide how long your roof lasts. If you’re choosing GAF shingles, comparing CertainTeed and Owens Corning, or just trying to pick the right shingle color, you’ll leave with better questions to ask and fewer regrets later.

If this helped, subscribe, share the show with a homeowner friend, and leave a quick review so more people can find practical roofing advice when the next storm rolls through.

Transcript

Windstorm Stories And Real Damage

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show with your host, General Contractor Donnie Blanchard. It was March 16th, 2026. There was a windstorm coming, so they shut down the state of North Carolina. Do you remember the windstorm we had a couple weeks ago, Donnie? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Kids ate all day at home for no reason. And I realize some people had significant damage. We're not making light of it, but back in my neck of the woods in Wilson, I have plastic that I put around my screen porch during pollen season because I don't want all the pollen coming in. And uh one corner of it came down and untaped. So Wilson's strong, man. We survived that. Now who was it, uh your relative, Donnie, that had a tree come down?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Um, it is my fiance's grandmother, and she had a tree fall just perfect. In all my days I've never seen damage hit like that. And and basically she has a carport that sits right beside of an enclosed garage, and both are detached from the house, thank God. But she had a sweet gum tree, and they have strong roots, so I was surprised that it it fell. Um, fell perfectly between the trusses on the carport first and perfectly between the trusses of the detached garage second. So same tree crushed both structures, but it hit so perfect that it just really split them in half from the top down. So it looked really bad, but the repairs aren't going to be crazy. And it's it's one of those things where it could have been a lot worse.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, you'll have to put a picture up on the website because that's an amazing photograph. If you look off in the distance, you can see the tree outside the house where it's been cut. But man, talk about dropping the tree right down perfectly between a house. You don't want a tree to land on your house, but in this case, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

It was it could have been a lot worse, like I said. And um, the insurance folks, um, I'll just go ahead and give the shout out to Farm Bureau because they took really good care of her. They were super responsive, and and uh we were very pleased with the end result.

Why Roof Checks Matter

From Adjuster To Roofing Owner

SPEAKER_00 1:53

And this isn't a commercial for Farm Bureau insurance, but that's who we have on our house. So hey, there you go. It is what it is. And again, welcome to the Carolina Contractor Show. My name's Eric Smith. I do sell lumber. Uh Donnie Blanchard's a general contractor, also owner of Sure Top Roofing. You can visit their website, suretoproofing.com. We're gonna be talking about roofs on today's show. First, when you hit the website, the Carolina Contractor.com, you can find past shows that we've done. You can download them, listen to them in podcast form when you're sitting around the house or maybe you're traveling or whatever, sitting at work. You know you're not doing anything at work. Also, check out our social media. I I still can't get over this, Donnie. Literally now we have videos up on IG and Facebook with two, three million views. Did you ever thought you'd see the day? No, no, that was totally accidental, but I'll take it. And we had weird weather this year and a lot of it. We had the windstorm we just talked about. We had a lot of snow, a lot of ice. Man, it got so cold for so long. And a lot of stuff can happen to your roof, and that's why it's good to have somebody look at it. I'm assuming insurance inspectors and adjusters are out there. And Donnie, back when you were a young buck, you were an insurance adjuster, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Yeah, yeah, that's how I basically learned roofing. And uh and the roofing company came about accidentally, and and I pretty much just knew the business in and out, but kind of saw it as a conflict of interest to start a roofing company. And then I kind of got sick of going out of town every time a hurricane would hit, and they'd send me out west when a hailstorm would hit. So living in a hotel is not what it's cracked up to be. The money was great, but that was when I was a single man, when I started a family, it just didn't, it didn't fit, didn't work. And I remember looking in my rearview mirror every time I left the house, knowing I wouldn't see the kids again for about three or four weeks, and I had to do something different. So sure type roofing was born.

Before And After Storm Photos

SPEAKER_00 3:38

And as Paul Harvey would say, now you know the rest of the story. Now, for years, Donnie, you and I have talked about on the show how important it is to check your roof after a storm. You can just take a walk around and look and get an idea. Yeah, I don't remember those shingles being turned up like that, and I don't know if that was there before the storm. So, what should people do after a storm?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Well, I I'll start by saying what you do before the storm, and we've said this a million times on the show, is take pictures of all four elevations of your house. It takes you about five minutes, and it's just a good thing to do for record keeping purposes anyway, because what we see in the roofing world is people see things damaged on their house after the storm, and they really don't know if it happened during the storm. So it's good to good to keep that. And um uh if you can have a way to time and date stamp those photos, that's even better. But you know, take those pictures, take a good look at your house at least two or three times a year, you know, when that when the weather breaks, is a good time to just do a walk-around and give it a glance top to bottom. But after the storm, you know, you want to kind of do the same thing. And the measuring stick is is you looked at it, you know, yesterday and it looked this way. And if you're missing shingles or you've got gutters or fascia blown off, you know, that's that's one of those things where it should be pretty apparent if you just took a look recently. So uh keeping tabs on it and and knowing what you're looking at is probably the key. Are you keeping a three tab on it? Uh keeping tabs, not three tabs. I'm anti-three tab. We'll get into that.

When To Call A Pro

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Little roofing joke right there. Shingle jokes, we got them all day on the Carolina contractor show. See what you did there. But seriously, Donnie, nice when there is a storm and we can walk around, I can walk around my house and look for damage. Um, I need a new roof, but it was because I found a leak in the attic by looking up at the roof, and I could see some of the OSB was had a damp mark on it. So you couldn't tell there was a problem with the roof by looking at the outside, but on the inside, I'm not climbing on top of my roof after a storm or anytime anymore. Is that something like when sure top roofing comes out to a house that they can get up on that roof and really look for stuff that the average person will never see? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

And we, you know, in all fairness, we don't charge anything for that, but it is good to have an indicator to prompt the phone call. So if you do see a water spot like you mentioned, or something just doesn't look right and and uh and and you know that that was probably storm related, then we we do that. A lot of people charge for that service, but just for good customer service, we're a local company, and for relationship building, we we try to take care of everybody that calls. So yeah, having somebody qualified that knows what they're looking at, and I would say the next most important thing to take note of is if that person knows uh the next steps. So if you have a storm chaser, they'll often knock on your door, tell you you have damage, whether you do or don't, and you know they really they don't understand the implications of making a uh faulty insurance claim because you know your claim history is a real thing. It doesn't matter who your insurance company is for your homeowners, that claim will follow you from company to company, and of course that affects your your premiums, and you know, the storm chasers just don't care. So we try to look at it from a standpoint of is that going to exceed your deductible? Would you be better off probably paying out of pocket? Because if it's gonna be a a thousand dollar repair and you've got a thousand dollar deductible, then it doesn't make sense to have a claim on your record, you just pay the bill and move on. But um I would say that's what sets us apart. I have a couple of guys that that work with us or former insurance adjusters as well. So um, you know, we try to take care of people best we can.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

So true story. One time a guy knocked on my door and he was a roofer or worked for a roofing company and he was canvassing trying to get work. And what bothered me was this was years ago when we had had a drought and there was no rain, there was no wind, no nothing. And he comes out, he's dressed really nice. He has a collared shirt on, he's got his name tag on, his brochures are really shiny, and he was well spoken. And the first thing he said was, Hey, I just want to let you know we noticed you have some roof damage from the recent storms. Everything he said after that I didn't hear because my brain was now going, we haven't had a storm in weeks and weeks. This guy's full of crap. And I didn't really appreciate that. And I wanted to go on social media and say, hey, if this company comes out, they're straight up lying to you. You don't necessarily have roof damage because there's been no storm recently. So they just were trying to drum up business. And hearing what you talk about doing people right is it's a big deal. I just got really mad that someone would come out and basically try to take advantage of maybe using your insurance company to get a new roof, and they'll use slick talk and say things like, Oh, we notice your architectural shingles have hail damage. They might be making it up, and then after they put your roof on, they're out of town. You'll never see them again.

Storm Chasers And Claim Risk

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Well, I'll connect some dots and tell you how they have affected the roofing industry and and for homeowners and roofers alike in a major way. They usually target houses that have three tab shingles because they're so much more prone to wind damage, and wind damage is a lot easier to get bought than hail. Wind is pretty black and white, where hail damage uh you have to have so many hits in what's side of what's called a test square. So a 10 by 10 test square on a roof for one company you may have to have 30 hits, and another company you may have to have three. So wind is a lot more um a lot more black and white, like I mentioned. And if they say you have a three-tab shingle, they'll usually they just want access to your roof. And so many times, especially ten years ago, because they weren't policing this sort of thing like they are now, they would get on that three-tab roof and they would crease your shingles, so they'd bend your shingles back, and it's a little trick, they all do it, and um unfortunately that they got away with it a lot more than than not. And so what happened is that's millions uh and millions of dollars across all insurance companies, across all roofs in the in the United States, and the insurance companies got wise to that, and so they started making it harder to get a full roof replacement. So fast forward to now, if you have a legitimate claim and you have wind damage and it's lit it it's to the tune of um you know ten missing shingles on each slope, and that could has a potential for water intrusion in your house, then there's certain insurance companies that will still fight you on that instead of paying you what they owe. And that all goes back to the storm chasers and their and their uh criminal approach to that.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

So when sure top roofing comes out and they look at the roof and there's genuine damage that needs to be taken care of, you can give the homeowner ideas or give them a couple steps they need to take to contact their insurance agency to get the ball rolling.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Oh, yeah. I mean we we basically let them deal with the adjuster. So we we we give them the advice and let them do what they want with it. We don't call the insurance company. We're happy to provide any documentation that the insurance company asks for, but we keep it between the homeowner and the insurance company. And um, you know, in most cases we can do the work for what the insurance company pays, but if the insurance company tries to shaft them on the dollar amount, then you know, we go to bat. And for little old ladies who they're wanting to cancel their insurance, we go to bat for those folks. But um, you know, for the most part, we we keep our nose out of it and um we just want the work and want to do a good job.

Deductibles Depreciation And Discounts

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Correct me if I'm wrong, Donnie, but if you get your old 25-year-old roof replaced, you want to contact your insurance company because a lot of them, your mileage may vary, but a lot of them will give you a discount on your premium when you go to them and say, Look, I've got all the paperwork. It was a certified installer, it has a 50-year warranty, it's brand new. True, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:09

That's very true. And and most insurance companies are on board with that. As a matter of fact, the other direction is that insurance companies are are being proactive about forcing you to replace your roof. So uh they'll actually drop you if your roof is so old and not very well maintained. So so yeah, that's that's definitely a thing. And I'm uh I'm glad you said that because the insurance companies um uh basically depreciate your roof, but if you have a homeowner's policy uh that uh instead of a dwelling policy like a renter would have, then that depreciation is recoverable. So people often think like you mentioned that my roof's 25 years old, it's on its last leg anyway, but then if you have legitimate wind damage or hail damage on that roof, then they are still obligated to replace that. They will depreciate it, meaning they'll give you a flip-flop uh percentage of a settlement up front, but they owe you that depreciation on the back end if you go through with the roof replacement. So if your roof's uh, say, for easy math, a ten thousand dollar roof, they may depreciate it by eighty percent because it was at the eighty percent lifespan. So they'll give you two grand up front and they'll give you the rest of the eight thousand on the back end. And uh most of them don't do that. They play ball uh, you know, then give you more than that, but um that's how the depreciation thing works. So it it the impact the root the age of the roof does not impact it like most folks think.

Roof Age Questions And Covered Perils

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Let me flip the coin. If you go to an insurance company, a new one, and you get coverage for your house, usually they ask you, how old is your roof? And you might have to sign a piece of paper attesting to that. If you do that and then you have a tree fall through your roof, and then they come out and look at it and say, Wait a minute, this roof isn't eight years old, like you told us, this roof is twenty-five years old. They're not gonna have to pay anything, right? Um maybe.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Yeah, they may fight you a little harder on that, but there's really no way to tell unless you have uh documentation from a shingle warranty, which we do on every one of them, but you know, 20, 30 years ago, they didn't do that. That just wasn't a thing. And they they bought the shingles at at you know wherever they could get them from locally at big box store, what have you, and uh most of these companies weren't certified with the manufacturer, so the paper trail was very limited. And and um, you know, yeah, yeah, it's it's not one of those things where they have a an actual way to take that shingle, put it under a microscope, and say, hey, this thing is 28 years old, man. You you told a story.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Okay, one more question related to this. What if it's you have an old roof, it's 20, 25 years old, and you call up your insurance company and say, Hey, uh, would you be able to give me a little bit of money to help me get my roof done? Can I make a claim even though I don't have damage? You know, if they throw$1,000 to a homeowner and the homeowner pays$7,000 more and gets a new roof, you know, the insurance company comes out good too. I mean, do you think they would do that?

How Adjusters And Inspectors Work

SPEAKER_01 14:06

That's hard to say. That that's that's that's one of the that's a higher-up decision, and certain insurance companies I could see where they would make it go away and throw a little money at them and say maybe they'll be quiet and they'll pay the rest out of pocket. But no, to to qualify for a claim, you have to have what's called a covered peril. And so uh in in the insurance world, they still consider things acts of God. I mean, that's that's funny that they might be the some of the last folks standing that aren't afraid to say it that way, but um, you know, uh a hail storm and a windstorm are the two main things that would uh qualify you for a replacement, but it doesn't matter how old it is, if you don't have any wind damage or any legitimate hail damage, then then it's a no-go.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Aaron Powell How often are adjusters sent out to check a roof for damage today? Or is it something they just let the professional roofer do the inspection, file some paperwork, and say, all right, we trust you. Go ahead and make the repairs.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

There you that used to be a thing. And I had a great relationship with a couple of them who would say, hey man, if you go out and you tell me I know you know what you're looking at, so we're gonna believe you, and you know, we're we're understaffed, so we're just gonna go ahead and pay it if you can give us you know some photo documentation, but that's not really a thing. They've they've since incorporated these people who are um they they're not roofing engineers, they're just roof inspectors, and so they're a third party, and uh they don't actually work for the homeowner or the insurance company, and they go out, they don't have any skin in the game because they make the exact same amount of money uh either way. Whereas certain insurance companies, and gosh, I don't I can try to summarize this pretty quickly, but but the big people, uh the the you know, state farm, I'll go, I mean the heck with state farm, you know, uh Allstate, uh nationwide, all those people, they're so big, they have in-house adjusters, and so those people are on staff, they probably make a salary, so whether same as the roof inspector, no matter what they pay you, they make the same thing. I advise people who ask to go with the smaller insurance companies because they have what's called an independent adjuster. They're a 1099 employee. Uh they basically bring them on board when a storm hits because they don't have the staff to accommodate you know a thousand claims when they hit in one zip code. So they'll bring these independent adjusters on and they'll go immobilize to that particular area and they'll work all the claims until they're done. But those guys are paid on a fee schedule, meaning the more they pay you, the more they make. So their incentive is to do right by the homeowner.

Choosing Shingle Brands With Confidence

SPEAKER_00 16:24

All right, let's move over to the subject of shingles. Uh my company sells Certain Teed. You are certified with Certain Teed. Uh GAF, of course, they're a big player. Uh Owens Corning. Um, those are like the big three. Who's your favorite?

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah, we're certified with just about everybody. But I'd I'd have to say GAF, and I'll I'll tell you why. Do you remember what uh the GAF rep said that the acronym stood for?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

No, I can't remember, but he talked about those little 3D viewer camera things.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, General Analyne Film. So GAF started uh as the film company that used to do the slideshow. You know, it was basically the closest thing we had to the internet when you and I were younger. Uh or at least me, you're a lot older than me, but that's neither here nor there. Um Okay, Mr. Laughs, remember that. I had to. I had to hot water heater. Anyway, General Analyne Film is what and and they eventually, you know, uh changed the focus of the business and they ended up in the shingle world. And and fast forward to now, I'd pretty much say they they took over. But the household names of Owens Corning and Certainty, they make a good shingle as well. And I think the common theme between the three is that they all have this 50-year non-prorated warranty. Um what differentiates GAF is the other two have a 130 mile an hour wind rating. Uh GAF changed their wind rating to unlimited when the ASTM standards came out for the 2019 codebook. So I think they the test was that they put the shingles up there and sealed those on it with heat, and then they just nailed the perimeter. So they had a square of shingles up there, 10 by 10, and they tried their best with the uh wind simulator to blow those off of the sample board and they couldn't. So they had to grant them the unlimited wind rating. And what that means is if you lose shingles because of wind, that GAF will actually take care of those shingles and you don't have to go through insurance. There's never been a warranty like that in the roofing world, and uh and and I think that's just very strong. Homeowners seem to like it. And I guess the even better news is I've never had to call in on it because we've got what 200 plus beachfront roofs, and we have uh those back when it was still a 130 mile-an hour wind rating in 2018-2019, and we've never lost a single shingle. So um another point with GAF, and a lot of people don't realize that uh that they're an American-owned company and they're headquartered in New Jersey. And Certain Teed, uh, you know, I didn't know this until I got in the roofing world, and this isn't a knock. You know, my last name is uh Blanchard, so obviously that's French descent. But uh Certain Teed is owned by a company called Saint Gobain, and uh and they pay taxes in France. So Certain Teed isn't even an American-owned company, and you know, they're the closest to GAF in terms of all the uh check marks, but but I gravitate to GAF just because you know they pay taxes here, and I think that's only fair. Uh Owens Corning, their pie chart has everything from insulation to roofing, so they just don't do the market research like GAF to improve their product and and um is is not a bad shingle. It's a good look if that's what you like and and all the things, but I've had a lot of success installing GAF for the last 15 years.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

I was actually upset that Ron didn't take my advice and say the Z stood for zombie and HDZ. No. It was zone, but I'm like, zombie's kind of cool. Why don't you he never took it to the higher ups.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

Yeah, he might not have a job if he did that. I don't know.

New Shingle Colors That Actually Fit

SPEAKER_00 19:37

Still would have been worth it, but let's talk about GAF and colors. We think of shingles being just a few basic colors, black, brown, maybe some slate gray colors, but man, GAF has a bunch of stuff out, and they even dropped some new colors.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, they uh the Timberline series, uh, they've always had a good-looking shingle, and and the high definition in GAF is standard on the pricing. So all the high defs for the other uh competitors, they charge extra for an HD shingle. But um in the HD line, they came out with a new one that's Chestnut Valley, and it basically looks like the hickory shingle with a better mix of brown and I say orange, but it's not really orange, it's it's an orange tint. Uh Cliffside's probably my favorite new color because we don't have anything in the gray family that's just a straight gray. You know, we have pewter gray and we have slate. The slate has a slight green tint to it that resembles, you know, traditional slate, and the pewter gray has a slight blue tint. So if you've got gray or blue siding, it looks wonderful. But this cliffside color, you know, it's just a traditional gray. And um, you know, really, really good look. Uh Midnight Mesa is or Mesa is, you know, sort of like a uh more of a consistent brown than a weathered wood, where weathered wood picks up everything. This one has more browns, and then the Sierra Sand is more of like a gray and a brown shingle had a baby. And uh is that fair?

SPEAKER_00 20:56

That's that's just a horrible visual. Honey, what are those three tabs doing on the roof? Oh, Junior, avert your eyes.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Oh, that's even more smooth. Yeah, yeah. I tried to make it sound good.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

But seriously, that's kind of something people don't give the pros credit for because you could come out with sure top roofing and look at somebody's house and give them ideas of shingle colors that they may not have considered before. They might think, well, I'm just gonna get black shingles or gray shingles, but you could look at it and based on the siding and the trim, go, hey, here's a couple colors GAF has that you might want to consider, and they might not be original to the house.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah, absolutely. And um, a lot of times it's not the existing color. So um I've seen so many color combos that that didn't work, and and I'm a dude, so I'm really not I'm not even allowed to pick out colors at my own house. And um and as sad as that is, I still wouldn't know what looks good on a roof. And my recommendation to people is don't go buy a small sample board. If you're narrowing it down between two colors, sure. Go grab the sample board, take it home with you, and make the call. But uh we try to take drone shots of just about everything we do. So that gives a better perspective of what that shingle looks like. And, you know, if you have a shingle on a shallow pitch roof and you pull in that driveway, you're looking straight across the roof. You're not looking at the shingle the same as you would on a steep roof where you know you're looking more perpendicular into that roof pitch. So uh those drone, those drone shots are a really good way to gauge the color, and we can always fly the drone to the side that has the best sun exposure, like you said, and uh that seems to be the most effective way to choose.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

You could also drive around your neighborhood or town and look at houses with the same color siding and maybe the same color trim and get some ideas. I mean, my house is white with black trim, black shutter, so I'm getting a roof this spring. And uh I I think maybe I I'm a little bit in my feelings, and I could be wrong, but I'm just thinking my options are gonna be black or black or somewhat black. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yeah. Well, I think the difference there is is with Certain Teed, they've got the color charcoal, which GAF does as well, but Certain Teed has moray black and charcoal. Charcoal is black, black. So if somebody wants the blackish shingle with no variation, then that's the way to go. Um the moray black has a mixture of black and gray, and they Certain Teed has a nice shadow line that uh where the next shingle up overlaps, it's about an inch and a half down where uh it has a hard line, so there's no there's no blend in the gradient change. Whereas GAF on the high def is a six-inch exposure from one shingle to the next, and they go from the darkest version of black to the lightest version in that same uh six-inch exposure. So that's how they achieve the the high def look. And um, you know, but that but charcoal in GAF is is our number one selling color by a long shot. So, you know, obviously it goes with everything. It picks up anything brick or white, and it's just a no-brainer.

Installer Choices That Affect Warranties

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Yeah, and I have a brick fireplace, so it really will work better if I get the black shingles because with the white siding and the black trim and that fireplace, it's going to stand out a lot better. I do drive around once in a while and see houses that have maybe a red tint or even a green tint on their shingles intentionally, or some that have that gray, and it looks really good, but it's because it matches their color scheme of their siding and their trim. Something else it comes in uh to play here is who puts those shingles on your house. Let me say there are a lot of independent roofers who do fantastic work when it comes to repairs or can put on a brand new roof. But if they're not certified, they can affect the warranty that comes with those shingles.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah. Um the one thing we see most common when tank top Tommy or Chuck in a truck, you know, snag a roof away from us, and they they're not familiar with the right components to use for an extended warranty, is they'll flip a three-tab shingle upside down and they'll use that sealer strip at the top of the three-tab, which is it's really not at the top, it's about halfway down, so you know, wind can still get up under that, and they'll run a three-tab shingle on the eaves only, where we do a full perimeter starter, and our starter strip has the sealing agent right out there next to the edge of the roof. That's number one. Number two is instead of buying a ridge cap that goes with the 50-year shingle, they'll use a three-tab for that as well because it's cheaper, and they they can take uh SNPs and they can get a you know, three ridge caps out of every single shingle. So they save less than a hundred dollars, and basically they throw a 25-year ridge cap on top of a 50-year shingle at the point of more the most sun exposure. So which do you think is going to wear out first?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

And there's other things they might not take care of. You know, pipe boots, the flashing around your PVC pipes that you have for ventilation. They might not put new ones on, which kind of defeats the purpose of giving getting a new roof if you've got rotten pipe boots on, or if they don't put them in correctly, they can cause some damage because you know they don't use any um MP1, say, and when they put it on, they just jam it under the shingles and nail it down. Now you got multiple water intrusion points that could pop up and they could be long gone. So you know, you got to do a little research, I guess. Absolutely.

Bad Wood Valleys And Extra Protection

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Well, it's always good to be educated a little bit on the homeowner side and know the right questions to ask. That'll um that that'll prevent a lot. And ask them up front, ask them during the quote process, not while they're doing the darn roof, because you know, at that point it's kind of too late.

SPEAKER_00 26:15

Now, if you're up on top of the roof and you're taking the shingles off, you probably come across once in a while some additional problems, you know, rotten or cracked OSB. So you have to tell the homeowner, hey, we got to go get four more sheets of OSB to finish this job because a couple of the pieces were bad. You know, how do you how do you work that in?

Warranty Options And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Yeah, we put that in the quote, and basically we we just cross our fingers that OSB isn't up fifty dollars a sheet like it was during the post-pandemic, you know, and and now I want to say it's it it dances back and forth between ten and fifteen dollars. But uh I would say the the likelihood of you having bad wood if you have a lower pitch roof is probably higher. If you have a steep pitch roof, that watersheds more aggressively, so the chances of it sitting in one place, you know, is a lot less. So um you even still, you know, valleys are a vulnerable point. So we often see bad wood in valleys if people don't have the ice and water shield in there on their old roof. And um, you know, for instance, with us, we do uh three layers of protection where we run ice and water shield right against a plywood and uh underlayment on top of that and shingles on top of that. So if uh somebody walks up that valley to check the roof in ten years and they, you know, a 200-pound man steps in the valley with his heel and breaks a shingle, you still got another couple layers of protection so that water doesn't make it into the house.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

So if somebody has an old roof or maybe they think they have damage or maybe they're just in the market to change their shingle colors, can they just go to suretoproofing.com and get some ideas and information?

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Yeah, yeah. Any of the three is fine. But um the website's a great place to start. I mean, the direct line to our office is 336-270-9292. And um, you know, we're we're usually able to get out within 24, 48 hours and take a look at what you have. And I want to add one more thing to what you said with the warranty options. You know, that 50-year non-pro rated warranty is really strong, but uh GAF has has stepped up a another notch in the last few years and offered something called a golden and a silver pledge warranty. The golden is 25 years of workmanship coverage. The silver pledge that we started to do standard is 10 years of workmanship coverage, meaning uh if I check out of here, you know, I hope I don't, but if I check out of here early and sure top roofing goes away, then then you have a uh 10-year workmanship guarantee with a six billion dollar company. So um, you know, it is very strong. And um, like I said, we side with them for a reason, but they really they they back up what they say.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

And we've preached it for a long, long time. Take care of your roof. If you're not sure of the condition of your roof, visit suretoproofing.com. They'll give you a free inspection. Maybe you had some damage or you're not sure if you have damage to your roof and you want it checked out, or maybe it's just time. You're like, yeah, I'm at I'm past 20 years. It's time to get a new roof. Go ahead and visit Donnie at SureToproofing.com and let them take care of you. And I tell you what, Donnie, how about we do another show like this next week? And I tell you what, Donnie, you up for doing another show next week. I'm down for show. Well, we hope to see you next week on the Carolina Contractor Show. Thanks, everybody.