impact resistant shingles

I try not to bitch too much about the insurance/roofing racket in North Texas so I have been promoting some solutions. One of which is selling impact resistant shingles. The insurance companies are suppose to give up to a 40% discount. Since the average homeowner pays about $1500/year on their policy, that means they save about $600.

Well, last year I replaced a Timberline (heavy-4 bdls/sq) roof with Malarkey Legacy. (btw, I had installed the Timberlines back in '92 and they were still good. A major hail storm hit the area and everyone got new roofs.) I told the homeowner to be sure and get their discount. They said their insurance agent said that if they took the discount and they got another hail storm, insurance would only pay if the hail caused the roof to leak. The homeowners buckled and kept full coverage. :S

natty Said:

twill59 Said: : Solutions are not wanted

The irony is only a roofer with hands on experience is expert enough to know. Few of those exist.

Bingo!!!

There is absolutely no substitute for having carried thousands of bundles of shingles up a ladder, or buckets of plastic cement. There is not substitute for getting on your hands and knees and scooping the pigeon crap out of a scupper a hundred times.

I knew a lot of guys who learned the martial arts by reading a Keith D. Yates book, or by purchasing some Gracie BJJ tapes. When they got in the ring with guys who had real experience, they got thumped every time. Quickly. Thoroughly.

twill59 Said: : Solutions are not wanted

The irony is only a roofer with hands on experience is expert enough to know. Few of those exist.

That is re-occurring all the time isn't it? Cheat, make more money and screw the consumer, then go belly up because the product didn't "work" At least, leave the ball with the end user and the "cheater" goes on to screw someone else. At the same time, the "consumer" will almost always go with cheap and they get what they pay for. Nothing.

I use Conklin lubrication in my truck and it works great. I probably save about 15% in fuel and oil changes each year. I used their paint on my garage, and it wears like iron, covers great and looks nice too. Their fertilizer for lawns will grow hair on a billiard ball. Their commercial fertilizers for farms hold many world yield records, and growers consistently get returns of 2 and 3 dollars for every dollar spent on them. Their roof coatings are top shelf too, and they work well for the right applications, but the problem lies in the fact that there are only so many days a year in Michigan that you can apply it. I would imagine that the chopped fibre glas is the same thing.

Applied in the right thickness with the proper preparation, all of them will work. How much can we cheat though? that is the eternal question.

OS, good point. I did battle with the Conklin Rapid Roof guys back in the 80's a lot!!! It was a decent product if applied to the specified thickness but at $20/gal they couldn't be competitive so they applied it very thin. Easily hail damaged.

We did a roof a few years back with some Conklin coating where we did the flat area and then continued up the roof onto the shingles too. That stuff is pretty impact resistant. I wonder if they would consider just spraying a coating over the shingles to seal them up instead of trying to redo it.

We experimented with Krayton-modified emulsion in order to achieve a grater degree of hail resistance, but found that reduced temps made even modified-asphalt a lot easier to hail damage. I suspect Malarkrey shingles are the same.

Wouldn't this product put the onus on the manufacturer? In other words, the Ins. Co. pays the claim and then sues the shingle manufacturer?

Oh wait........this would be like the government prosecuting a bank for fraud .... :laugh:

So why couldn't the building owner replace the Class IV hail damaged roof and sue shingle manufacturer over warranty/ product claims? (Another big hardy :laugh: )

Remember natty, with this kind of $'s involved, you are now in the Government Zone when it comes to solutions mentality: Solutions are not wanted

In other words: push the paperwork. Process the claim. Give the "APPEARANCE" of something meaningful and keep raising taxes, or in this case, RATES.