A Comprehensive Buyer's Guide to Metal Roofing Mastery - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

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

Megan Ellsworth: Hello everyone. My name is Megan.

Lauren White: And I'm Lauren White.

Megan Ellsworth: And this is the AskARoofer Podcast, to hear @askaroofer.com. And we are super excited to be chatting with the Metal Roofing Alliance today and have their executive director Renee Ramey. Hi Renee, how are you?

Renee Ramey: Hello. I am great. Nice to see you guys.

Megan Ellsworth: Good to see you too. You were on just a couple months ago and I'm glad to have you back.

Renee Ramey: Yeah, always glad to be back.

Megan Ellsworth: So let's dive right in and have you just introduce yourself and introduce the MRA and what you all do.

Renee Ramey: All right. As Megan said, I'm the executive director of the Metal Roofing Alliance, otherwise known as MRA. We have been in existence since 1998. And in summary, our mission, which has stayed the same over all those years, is to educate and promote quality metal roofing to homeowners with the goal of driving market share. So increasing the role that metal plays in the residential roofing arena within the US and Canada.

Lauren White: So-

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome.

Lauren White: ...you have a fun document. The Buyer's Guide, the Metal Roofing Alliance's Ultimate Buyer's Guide, and that's what we're talking about today. So can you tell us what is the Buyer's Guide and why is it an important resource for homeowners?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, so it was born out of a lot of discussions with homeowners that I had early on in my tenure with the MRA and the number of questions and just the amount of misinformation and just unknown information out there about the roofing process in general, but specifically about metal roofing's role in that area. And so after a few years of handling these questions and answering them and just seeing where the trends were and what was causing the most concern, we decided that maybe a buyer's guide would make sense. So it's an overarching document to guide homeowners through the re-roofing process of their home.

It is slanted towards metal obviously, but really a lot of the chapters and a lot of the focus is just on the re-roofing process. How do you know you need a new roof? What are the things you look for? What are the regional considerations you should take into account when you're trying to decide the right metal roof? And then of course there's information about metal roofing in there as well, and most of it is aimed at just, again, there's a lot of myths or misinformation about metal roofing. So it's really just accurate, concise information about what metal roofing is, what the benefits are, things to consider, so we just decided all of that could be put into a Buyer's Guide and given to homeowners to guide them through that re-roofing process.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. That is so... I think every roofing association should have something like that for homeowners and building owners looking to buy a new roof or when they're buying a house. I think that's such good information. So cool that you guys do that. Yeah. Opening the pages of the buyer's guide, what are some signs that it's time for a new roof? If I'm a homeowner and I'm looking at my roof and thinking, "Mmmm I don't know." So what are some signs to call a contractor?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, there's quite a few. Obviously leaks, a major sign, but even things as more subtle such as your heating bills or cooling bills continue to rise. You're finding a lot of, in the case of asphalt, a lot of asphalt granules in your gutters when you're going to clean out your gutters or you've got missing or curling shingles. Just things like that just... A lot of it is visual just looking at the roof, but there's also some aspects that are not necessarily directly related to the roof, but the roof impacts, again, such as heating, cooling.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that's a good... The heating, cooling. That's a smart one I would not have thought of. So that's good advice.

Lauren White: So how does local climate affect which materials people choose for their roofs? Because each climate has its own different weather and natural disasters and whatnot.

Renee Ramey: Yeah, I mean, let's be honest, with your home, that's typically one of your bigger, if not biggest purchases that you're going to make. So you've got a lot of money wrapped up in that, and it's not just the home itself or the roof itself, but it's inside the home as well that comes into play. So if you get a leak, if your roof blows off, whatever the case may be, then you're exposing not just the exterior of your home, but everything that's inside, and that includes people as well. So weather and region play a huge part in the roof selection.

For example, in the areas such as the Pacific Northwest where we have wildfires are fairly consistent and or heavy snow loads and ice loads, those are things that a metal roof can handle better than most other roofing materials just based by the sheer design of the system, the roofing system itself and the materials versus in, we'll say the southeast Florida, what have you with the high winds and the hurricanes and the fact that metal roofing systems, the way they're designed to handle wind uplift, they are more apt or more likely to stay on the home during the course of a hurricane than our other roofing materials, hail in the Midwest.

So those are some of the regional considerations to take into account when you're trying to decide what roofing material makes the best solution, is the best solution for your home.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah. There's so much to consider when you're buying a new roof. So if someone's asking, "Should I get a metal roof?" What advantages would you tell them that metal roofs have over non-metal?

Renee Ramey: Okay. Yeah. Well, there's many, but just going down the list and usually based on what the homeowners I've spoken with are most interested in is going to be first and foremost that longevity of a metal roof. So if you install a quality metal roof, you're going to do it once in a 50 plus year period or 40, depending on the system, 40, 50 plus years versus an asphalt roof, you're probably going to be replacing that two to three times in that same period of time.

And so there's the longevity, the durability, which we just talked about in regards to weather events, but also just general wear and tear, the ease of maintenance. Ease of maintenance actually is one that's popped up a lot here lately, as well as homeowners want something that they can throw up on a roof. I say throw up obviously professionally, install the right system on the roof by someone else, but that they can pay to put up and then they don't have to really touch it again.

It is very low maintenance. It's easy to clean if you do have to clean it. It's durable, it's long-lasting. So that is probably one of the bigger appealing aspects of a metal roof. Then you venture into the heating and cooling costs that we touched on a little bit earlier. There are some cost savings, your home value goes up with a metal roof, so there's a lot of benefits out there, but those are the big ones that usually people are most interested in.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Lauren White: So on that, you touched on it a little bit, but the maintenance aspect of a metal roof, what's the best way to take care of and maintain a metal roof to increase its already longevity, but to help it last even longer?

Renee Ramey: A lot of going back to that regional component, a lot is based on where you live. So we literally just did a testimonial video of a homeowner that lives in Park City, Utah area that they get enough rain. He's never had to clean his roof ever because rain is enough, but he also doesn't have a lot of big trees around. In the northwest if you've got your home established under some tall fur pine trees or whatever, you're going to get some needles or drop off. Again, just a lot of times just a garden hose and rinsing it off is all you need to do.

In rare or minimum cases, you may need to clean it with something above and beyond just water, and there is a formula out on the MRA website, but in essence, you take some dawn dish soap, some very daily use type soap, mix it in some water, get a non-abrasive brush of some sort and just lightly wipe over it and it's clean. But that's again, that's very rare would you need to get up and do that. Usually just the rain or the weather itself will take care of it.

Lauren White: That's great.

Megan Ellsworth: That's interesting because I know, so sorry, go ahead.

Lauren White: No, I was just going to say if someone wasn't comfortable getting on their roof, is cleaning a metal roof something that metal roofing contractors can come do if they're maybe out for an inspection to make sure everything's looking good on your roof?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I mean, as a professional organization, we would probably recommend you bring in someone professionally before we encourage you to get up on the roof of your home. Certainly if you're uncomfortable doing so. Yeah, there are a lot of companies that will take care of that.

Megan Ellsworth: I was going to ask, with hitch or sap from trees, would that concoction of just dish soap and water, would that scrub it off?

Renee Ramey: From my understanding, yes. I have not personally dealt with that, but we've had many homeowners that have, and just the experience in the industry is that, again, you might need to use some type of a cleaner, a little bit more than just the garden hose to wash it off, but typically it comes off without issue.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. And also with that, would you recommend people cleaning off the roof if they have pitch or sap, or is it okay too? If it's on there?

Renee Ramey: It won't compromise the integrity of the roof itself, so it becomes more about the aesthetics. So if it's located on the side of the home where nobody's looking at it, maybe it's not worth the effort. If you're worried about the aesthetic aspect of it, then yeah, it would probably make sense to clean it.

Megan Ellsworth: Nice.

Renee Ramey: But no, the answer's no, you would not have to.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay, cool. So maybe we're ready to buy a metal roof and you're looking at financing options or warranties. What are the warranties out there on the market for metal roofing?

Renee Ramey: Yeah, metal roofing, they're all over the place. Obviously, the warranties are dictated or determined by both the suppliers into the manufacturing process as well as the manufacturer of the metal roof itself. And then there may or may not be warranties as far as the contractor and the install. So there's a few different things to know when you're going in, what warranties are available. A lot of times, as I just said, there'll be a couple different warranties. There might be a warranty that warranties the actual panels, metal panels themselves, but then there might also be a warranty that gives you some assurance that it's been an install warranty or workmanship warranty.

You've heard of a few different terms out there. So there are a lot of warranties out there as a rule within the metal roofing itself, so not speaking to the install aspect of it, but the actual metal roofing itself, most of those metal roofing, metal roofing products that their quality are going to come with some sort of a warranty. And in my experience, those are 40, 50-year warranties in most cases for the quality of product that you want to put up on your home.

Megan Ellsworth: That's great.

Lauren White: Well, yeah, that's a long time per warranty.

Renee Ramey: And one distinction I'd like to make as well is with a metal roof, the warranty that you're getting typically is very straightforward in what it will deliver versus a lot of other roofing materials out there have a lot of proration or exceptions or loopholes if you will, in their warranties. And so even if you're looking at a lifetime warranty for a competitive product versus a metal roof, the competitive product is not a lifetime warranty. If you actually took the time to read the warranty, you might find that it's 15 years or 20 years before you start to lose value on the warranty itself or on the roof anyway.

Lauren White: Yeah, that's important to know though, whether you choose a metal roof or some other roof, read the fine print and understand the warranty before paying for everything.

Renee Ramey: Yeah, I mean, again, I've spoken with a lot of homeowners that are so disappointed because they put on a lifetime asphalt roof and they're sitting at 16, 17 years and now it's got to be replaced and obviously it's not covered anymore even though it said lifetime. Yeah, those are heartbreaking stories to hear, and so it's just important for homeowners to understand they have to read.

Lauren White: Definitely. Yeah. So now that we have some factual information about metal roofs, what are some of the myths, the common myths that you hear from homeowners or contractors about metal roofs?

Renee Ramey: Yeah. Yep. Well, first and foremost, a lot of people assume it just looks like the old barn roof, so it's that screwed down corrugated or standing seam paneled roof, and they don't understand that metal roofing can actually look like every other roofing material out there and mimics it so well from an aesthetic perspective that there are times even I cannot tell the difference just at a glance as to what is a shingle roof versus a metal roof or what's a tile roof, an actual metal tile roof versus a concrete tile roof. That's a myth is that it just has very limited aesthetic look to it.

The other thing we get a lot of questions about is noise. It's going to be louder. I don't want to deal with the louder noise. If it's installed correctly, it's not going to be any louder than any other roofing material when it rains. Does lightning strike it more often? No, it does not. And in fact, if it does, it's actually a better roof to have because it will dissipate the lightning strike over the area of the roof and not in one location.

So those are some of them. I think there's some people that believe middle roofing will make their home hot, which again is another myth if you get the right metal roofing installed, we have cool colors and things that actually perform better than asphalt or other materials as far as retaining heat or emitting heat back out. So those are myths as well. So those are some of the bigger ones. I know we have put out seven myths to dispel and 10 myths to dispel, so there's a lot of myths out there, but those are the ones I hear most frequently.

Lauren White: Great.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Yeah, I've definitely heard the tin barn situation and it's so evolved from that. It's so evolved from that. So what else should people know specifically about the MRA's buyer guide? Any details that we've glanced over?

Renee Ramey: No. The one thing I'd say you've done a great job covering it. I would say that there are some worksheets or checklists throughout the Buyer's Guide that we would definitely recommend if you're going through a re-roof process as a homeowner. You would actually take the time to fill those out or tick the boxes just to make sure that you are fully understanding the process as you go. And some of those worksheets are reminders of things to ask. So for example, the warranty questions, there's a sheet in there that speaks to things you need to consider or know about the warranty side of things before it goes on. So it really is more than just a quick read, if you will. It's got some information and some worksheets and forms and things just to help guide you through that process that if you're serious about getting the best referral your home, they're worth the time and effort to fill out.

The other thing I would say is that the Buyer's Guide, we wanted to keep it as short as possible, but yet give as much information as possible. At the end of the day, finding that balance means that there's a lot of things that we'd love to put in there in addition to what's in there, but just didn't want to make it too large. So we do refer back to the MRA website, and I would encourage people that all the information, the Buyer's Guide obviously is on the website, but so is a lot more detailed information in any one topic you want to maybe dive a bit deeper than what the Buyer's Guide provides

Megan Ellsworth: That's great. So people can find the Buyer's Guide on the website as well as all sorts of more information articles, infographics, I'm sure, all sorts of info there for buying your first metal roof. All you homeowners out there listening to this. And then also Renee, next week is Metal Con and MRA will be there, I'm assuming?

Renee Ramey: We will. We will have a roof. We have a presentation I believe on Wednesday that speaks to rightly so based on this conversation, speaks to how to choose the right roof for your environment. So great information there for anyone that wants to attend.

Megan Ellsworth: That's great. Well, you can find all that information as well on the MRA website and on the MRA directory on askroofer.com and metalcoffeeshop.com. So thank you so much, Renee, for your time. This has been a great podcast.

Lauren White: Yes, thank you.

Renee Ramey: Always, always welcome. If you have any other questions you want to talk about, give me a call.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, everyone reach out to Renee. You can find her information on that directory, like I said, and this has been the AskARoofer podcast, Lauren, this was a great one.

Lauren White: This was great. Very informative.

Megan Ellsworth: Awesome. I hope everyone goes out and buys metal roofs now and we'll be seeing you next time on the AskARoofer Podcast.