Bo Copeland, Business Development Manager, Integrity Metals, a Beacon Building Supply Co.
It likely comes as no surprise that up to 20 percent of the Florida residential re-roof market is estimated to be metal roofing. With its weather resistance, aesthetics, longevity, efficiency and availability, metal roofing has quickly consumed a portion of the residential market. With this growth, more contractors are offering metal. However, do you ever wonder why or how some contractors are able to price a project several hundred dollars per square less? What might be a surprise is the lack of regulation or oversight of metal roof manufacturing in Florida, creating numerous unequal metal products, despite being offered and sold as the same quality. This lack of regulation is one of the biggest factors in how bids can be much less than the guys doing things by the book.
Metal roofing is one of the only residential roofing products that can be manufactured, sold and installed by one company. This fact is due to metal's simple manufacturing process that requires a relatively small investment to become a manufacturer. For metal manufacturing, facilities and machine costs are only a fraction of the cost compared to every other type of product manufacturing, allowing more and more companies to enter the metal roofing manufacturing space, either as manufacturers or as roofing contractors who manufacture their own products. Though this low minimal barrier to entry can make it very enticing to jump into the metal roofing "game," it has opened the door for many companies to begin to manufacture metal roofing without following state code requirements. While many companies operate a legitimate metal roofing manufacturing business, the lack of regulation enforcement has led to a lot of unscrupulous conduct as well as unskilled operations creating an uneven playing field and inconsistent product in the market today. Ultimately, it is the consumer who suffers.
Let’s dive deeper into some of the basic requirements for rollforming businesses and how shady manufacturers can get around these processes.
Product approvals: Since the inception of the Florida Building Code (FBC) in 2002, manufacturers of most building products in Florida have been required to test their products in accordance with the FBC requirements. Testing requirements vary based on product and application type. As a manufacturer of any building product requiring a Florida Product Approval (FPA) or Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance (NOA), legitimate manufacturers can spend thousands of dollars per test and approval for each product, in order to manufacture, sell and install their products in Florida legally. While these costs increase the barrier to entry, there are a fair amount of rollforming businesses who do not incur these costs. They work around this process by using other manufacturers’ product approvals. How can they do that? They do it during the permit and inspection process
because there is no verification of the material that is being used occurring at the jobsite. Meaning both
contractors and inspectors are not verifying the actual material matches what was permitted. Unlike shingles,
metal roofing arrives on a jobsite typically unmarked, minus a packing slip, which allows any product – even
those without a product approval – to be manufactured, delivered and used on the job.
Because of the lack of product labeling, a contractor might not know if the product used matches the product tested and approved on the product approval used for the permit. These rollforming entities use other companies’ product approvals for their own products, without verification by the building department. There are some legal exceptions, such as being a member of a rollforming association where you purchase materials from a vendor who then extends its permission to use its testing. This assumes the machine meets their compliance standards and is inspected. However, many of the rollformers producing material illegally are not a part of an association and don’t have their own tested product approvals.
Material Specifications: For metal roofing products, a material minimum thickness is listed in the Florida
Product Approval. These thicknesses vary based on the manufacturer's testing so, short of validating the
product being used onsite against the product approval specifications, there is no way to know if the product
meets the requirements of the permit. Unfortunately, it appears that most municipalities are not performing
this verification. This issue occurs at the inspection level both with materials not matching the product approval and with the material thickness not matching FBC R903.2.1 minimum requirements (where it states steel flashing must be a minimum of 0.0176” or 26 gauge and aluminum flashing must be .024” thick).
Machine Requirements: All rollformers producing products in Florida under a FPA or NOA are required to have a record of quality assurance compliance and reviews, usually on an annual basis. Just as a scale at the supermarket is tested and calibrated frequently for accurate billing, these machines must be tested and calibrated to verify they are producing accurate panels that match the approvals. These quality assurance
processes and programs also carry a sizable cost to the manufacturer or owner of the rollforming association, creating another layer of expense for the legitimate players in the market. If a company is manufacturing panels under someone else’s product approval, then the QA compliance is not being adhered to because the owner of the product approval is not initiating verifications on that machine. This results in less overhead for the unscrupulous manufacturer and creates an unequal product entering the market.
Now that we’ve touched on some of the drivers allowing metal roofing to be sold so much less than others,
how can we begin to reverse this issue to level the playing field? It begins with building departments. A simple improvement would be to require some form of documentation, ideally a packing slip, to be provided in the permit pack or on the jobsite. During an inspection, a building official can validate if the packing slip on the job matches the product indicated on the product approval. Inspectors have this ability now with shingles where they can see the wrapper onsite and can compare it to the approval. Having a packing slip or invoice copy onsite for metal jobs will assist in this process. Though this process can also be side-stepped, it would force action and assist in cleaning up some of this unfair behavior. A second step at the building department level would be to provide micrometers to each inspector to validate material thickness during inspections. For already swamped building officials, these steps may appear ambitious, however, they are important to help insure the quality of metal roofing materials being installed on Florida residents' homes.
Contractors also need to held accountable. Many contractors are simply unaware of the need to check whether the products they are using on a job don't match the ones specified in the product approval used for the permit; others know full well what they are doing. The penalty for the second group, at a minimum, should be tearing off the sub-par metal roof and replacing it with what was permitted for the house. Perhaps, replacing a few roofs at no cost will begin to shift the behavior of bad actors, not only helping create a more level playing field in the metal roofing market but also better protection for Florida residents by more consistently providing code-compliant products in the field.
In closing, the residential metal roofing market in many of the larger metropolitan areas has grown significantly and will likely continue to do so into the future. The purpose of this article is to educate roofing contractors about the daily unscrupulous behavior in our metal roofing market that is driving the cost of metal roofing down to where it’s hard to conduct legitimate business. My hope is that you will take this information to your local building officials to educate them on what you are experiencing in your own area. Hopefully, they will step up and do their part to slow down the gray market in metal roofing.
Bo Copeland has been in the metal roofing industry for over 10 years and has spent most of his career on the metal roofing manufacturing side, starting with Gulf Coast Supply as an Outside Sales Representative and later Inside Sales Manager. For the last few years, Bo has been the Business Development Manager for Integrity Metals where his role is much broader, growing the company with sales, training, technical product
development and new product development. Bo serves on FRSA’s Board of Directors, is a member of the Codes and Governmental Affairs Committees, the Affiliate and Young Professionals Councils and Chair of the FRSA Educational Foundation. He’s also an Earl Blank Memorial Heart Award recipient.
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