November, 2006

In Depth: Roofing

As homeowners look to boost curb appeal, roofing manufacturers are responding with new products in an abundance of colors, styles and materials.

By Craig A. Shutt

The roofing market is growing and diversifying, thanks in large measure to homeowners’ increasing emphasis on the home’s looks. Combine that interest with recent harsh weather around the country, and roofing products and their attributes have taken on new significance for both new and remodeling projects.

"In the past, roofing was viewed as a roof covering,” says Mike Loughery, a spokesman for CertainTeed in Valley Forge, Pa. "But in the past five years, homeowners have understood that roofing can be a dramatic design element. We’ve seen an influx of new asphalt shingle products at the higher end of the market. Part of that is code-driven, but a large part is aesthetics.”

Homeowners also are learning about those new options in more depth today, marketers note. "Customers are not satisfied with what we had available 10 years ago,” says Bill Kubinski, southwestern district sales manager for TAMKO Building Products in Dallas. "They’re putting more money into their homes and investigating more options on the Internet and in magazines. They’re more intelligent in terms of what they want, and they’re looking at more options.” TAMKO is well positioned for that diversification, he notes: the company sells steel, composite and asphalt products.

The wider variety of products requires better sales techniques and more information, says Doug Beck, product director for steep-slope roof marketing at GAF Inc. in Wayne, N.J. "Consumers today need comparative information to understand the entire picture when they’re selecting roofing products,” he says. Resistance to fire and wind, water absorption and even lead times can be critical factors that are overlooked if dealers don’t point them out to their own customers, he notes.

While the residential housing market is expected to continue to grow slowly in the next few years, the roofing being used is diversifying, according to a 2005 market study by The Freedonia Group in Cleveland. Reroofing will drive most of the rise, due to slowing of the new-home market, it reports. The market will grow 1.4% per year through 2008, due primarily to the rebounding commercial markets.

"Asphalt shingles remain the dominant roofing material, accounting for more than 60% of the total installed area in 2008,” according to the report. However, demand is projected to rise less than 1% annually to 157 million squares in 2008 due to the sluggish residential market. It also notes that metal roofing "will continue its incursion into residential applications, where metal panels and shingles are being used as alternatives to roofing tile and asphalt shingles.”

Says Dave Cunningham, national accounts manager for Metal Sales Manufacturing Corp. in Sellersburg, Ind., "Steel roofing has become more popular for the residential side of the market because homeowners are more educated to the benefits that it can provide, and insurance companies favor it.” It’s particularly strong in California, Texas and the rest of the Sunbelt, he says.

Brad Newell, marketing manager for Edco Products Inc. in Hopkins, Minn., agrees. "Homeowners are taking a closer look at metal roofing because it can offer premium quality at an attractive price, with virtually no maintenance for its lifetime. It’s a growing category because customers are seeing that they can get a return on their investment by adding value and curb appeal.” Metal also can aid in remodeling projects by allowing wood-shake or slate appearances to be created with less weight than the actual materials would add, alleviating the need to resupport the structure.

Concrete tile products also are taking a larger share of the market, says Sharon Vessels, director of marketing for MonierLifetile LLC in Irvine, Calif. "We’re seeing a number of new, emerging markets develop, as well as growth in existing markets,” she says. Concrete is replacing clay tile products in southern California, she explains, as well as wood shakes in many markets. "There have been a lot of innovations in replicating other materials, which have made them popular.”

Roof Adds Curb Appeal

A key reason homeowners are placing more emphasis on roofing selection is that their roof area is growing larger, marketers say. "The roof represents 40% or more of a home’s curb appeal— especially on high-slope roofs,” GAF’s Beck points out. Studies also show that an attractive roof can have an immediate impact on a home’s resale value, he notes, especially with the growing variety of attractive options available today. "Often in a neighborhood, one homeowner puts on a new type of roof and others see it and remember it,” he says. "Upscale home builders also are looking at options to differentiate themselves and seeing what other builders are using.”

That competitive nature has aided concrete tile sales, agrees MonierLifetile’s Vessels. "As soon as we move into a market, we try to convert the smaller, custom homebuilders, because the rest will follow.” The company recently has signed on some large production builders because others in their markets were using the products, she notes. "They were seeing that homes with concrete tile roofs had higher selling prices.”

As home sizes grow larger the roof becomes a more dominant element, which leads to larger products, notes Mike McLintock, director of marketing for Elk Group Inc. in Dallas. "With larger roof areas, size is becoming an issue, because larger shingles can help adjust the scale of the home,” he explains. Elk has introduced a product that provides an 8-in. exposed area for each overlapping shingle, compared with the typical 5 5/8-in. area on traditional shingles. "Manufacturers are figuring out that larger amounts of exposure are desired.”

Those sizes make the large display boards and mockups that dealers use in their stores more important, notes GAF’s Beck. "The large shingle setups allow homeowners to get a better idea of how a large-size roof will look,” he says. "The homeowner is making a large investment, and he wants to get an idea of how the color and size of the shingles will affect the look of his home. The large size helps to visualize that.”

Color Is Critical

Because of the added attention to the roof, shingles are expanding in color and shape options as well as sizes. "Homeowners want roofs that are very attractive and unlike their neighbors’ roofs,” says TAMKO’s Kubinski. "They’re using brighter colors and more variety to improve the overall look for the home.” Manufacturers are responding with a wider range of options and more subtlety. TAMKO, for instance, offers a line that uses four or five colors in granules, rather than the more typical three colors. "It brightens the roof and makes it bolder,” he explains. "It allows us to add in some colors that aren’t often blended, to give the product a whole new flavor.”

Edco’s Newell agrees that color is more important today. "Homeowners across the country are looking for a wide range of colors,” he says. The company’s options for metal roofing include a bright red introduced two years ago primarily for light-commercial applications, and a copper tone that won’t develop a patina, maintaining its metallic look.

In asphalt shingles, notes Elk’s McLintock, earth tones and dark colors used to be the predominant choices, and weathered-wood styles are still the most popular. "But there’s more available in designer colors, and people are very color conscious,” he says. Color choices tend to migrate from fashion into home-interior paints, home exteriors and then into roofing, so manufacturers can anticipate what is coming their way. Greens are popular again, although darker colors are the prime choices right now, he notes.

GAF offers seven styles of shingles and 40 colors. "Shape, texture and shading all are important today,” says Beck. "There has to be a wide selection of options.”

Dimensionality Dominates

New shapes and especially dimensions are more popular than ever, says CertainTeed’s Loughery. "Slate and wood-shake look-alikes are coming into their own now.” Part of that growth is driven by the need to replace wood roofing with products that meet more restrictive building-code requirements, he notes. "Homeowners with shakes want to retain that look but get a better fire rating. So dimensionality is more important for shingles today.”

Today’s technologies are more capable of providing the depth that creates shadow lines and produces the look homeowners want, he says. "Today’s double- or triple-layered products can really pop depth and look deep, particularly on low-slope roofs.” MonierLifetile has even introduced an Old English thatch-like product in its concrete line, complementing tiles that simulate the appearance of wood shakes and slate.

The new styles are attracting more attention and being used more widely, notes Erv Knoblach, sales representative for Edco. "In the past, shakes were used as accents on a gable, but now they’re being used as roofing and gable accents both,” he says. They’re also being incorporated into the façade in large amounts. "The products aren’t limited to roofing applications anymore.”

TAMKO’s Kubinski agrees. "We’ve introduced shakes, diamonds and scallops that are all becoming more popular. We thought they’d be used mostly as accents, but they’re being used for the entire house. Homeowners want different looks and different profiles to make their homes unique.”

Just as important as appearance is durability, marketers agree. "There are a lot of enhancements and improvements being made to shingles, but they’re not ones that you see when you look at the products,” says Loughery. Higher impact-resistance, provided by a fiberglass scrim that adds strength, is a key example in CertainTeed’s line, he says. Protection against hail damage has become a higher priority for homeowners, adds TAMKO’s Kubinski, and some states, such as Texas, provide discounts if products offer resistance.

Sealants also have been improved to help shingles withstand higher wind gusts. That’s become a key concern along the coasts as hurricane damage rises, and it also attracts interest in the Midwest tornado regions. "We’ve all found that building codes are changing due to hurricanes, and that means builders have to update their products, and we have to update our testing data to show that we meet the new codes,” says Metal Sales’ Cunningham.

Products now are available to protect homes from gusts to 160 mph or more. "At some point, the roof will still be intact but the building beneath it will be gone,” says Edco’s Knoblach. The company’s slate and shake products lock together on all four sides, he notes, to ensure one shingle doesn’t come loose.

Such upgrades are reflected in warranties, which have reached the 50-year mark for premium products. "Warranties have probably maxed out their lifetimes, but nuances still can be created through transferability or lifetime warranties,” says Elk’s McLintock. "At some point, it goes beyond reason— the homeowner won’t be around in 50 years in most cases, much less still living in that house.”

TAMKO’s Kubinski agrees. "It’s an important factor for homeowners, because they want to be able to say they’ve bought the last roof they’ll ever have to put on the house. But it’s not a differentiator once you get to 50 years. Warranties probably have reached their maximum, because that’s pretty extended already.”

Energy efficiency and the growing awareness of "cool roof” technology also is playing a role, especially in the Sunbelt. This technology is particularly helpful with metal roofs, which can provide high reflectivity with a variety of colors. Edco, for instance, will soon have 10 metal-roof products approved for cool-roof applications. A variety of state and federal tax credits are available for using these systems.

MonierLifetile also is focusing on energy efficiency with a style that can reduce energy costs by providing hip and ridge vents that reduce heat gain, Vessels says. "It’s a new product for us, and it’s doing well,” she says. "We can show that builders can generate a $2,000 profit by trading their customers up to an energy-efficient roof system.”

Metal roofs also benefit from the growing interest in environmental friendliness: they’re recyclable when the roof is replaced. "Landfills are becoming full and more expensive, and homeowners are more aware of the value of recycling products,” says Edco’s Knoblach.

The environment may soon begin to affect the roofing market in another way, as oil reserves become more vulnerable. As prices rise, oil companies look to convert all of the oil to high-profit products—and asphalt for roofing shingles comes from the bottom of the barrel, which wasn’t worth refining previously. "The more they work to convert all of the oil, the less asphalt there is available,” says Elk’s McLintock. The desire to reduce their dependency on oil is leading manufacturers to look for alternatives that can replace asphalt while providing the same capabilities.

Elk is achieving this reduction with a hybrid shingle in which the exposed portion remains asphalt but the section that is overlapped is made of a fire and water barrier that folds over the shingle when it ships. It unfolds during installation and the next shingle is put over it. "It is hidden, but it does the job of asphalt,” McLintock explains. It also offers other advantages, such as costing less to ship, taking less space on the truck and in inventory and being easier to install.

"It’s been very well received, and introducing brand new products can be a tough sell with builders,” he says. "They don’t want to risk callbacks, so we initially received some pushback on the product. But they’re seeing the benefits it provides at the level it’s priced at. We expect it will become more of a standard as more builders use it and other builders and homeowners see it.”

Such adaptability can be a hard sell in building materials, particularly ones such as roofing where performance is critical from the first day. But the changing environment and homeowners’ tastes are making it clear that roofing will continue to evolve and expand to meet a growing need no longer satisfied with one basic product for every roof.