Latest / RoofersCoffeeShop / Composite Solutions for Low-pitch Roofs
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- Adam Cabrera: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips, the podcast that takes you on a thrilling journey across the world of roofing. From fascinating interviews with roofing experts to on-the-road adventures, we'll uncover the stories, innovations, and challenges that shape the rooftops over our heads. So fasten your seat belts and join us as we embark on this exciting roofing road trip. Hello and welcome to another episode of Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. My name's Karen Edwards, and today's episode, we're gonna be hopping over to the UK to have a conversation about the value of using composite slate on low-pitch roofs. And joining me for the conversation today, we have Tapco Roofing and Insulite and I'm thrilled to welcome Paul Leach and Daniel Whelan to the podcast. Gentlemen, welcome. All right, let's start by with some introductions. Daniel, why don't you go first? Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. So I'm Daniel, I'm from Inshalite. We have two main parts of our business. So we're an online distributor, so we supply Tapco Routing products throughout the UK. And then we have another part of the company where we manufacture prefabricated lightweight roofs, which we've done since twenty eleven, which is when we first started working with Tapco. And we've worked with them ever s ever since. Okay. And Paul, just give us a quick introduction of who you are and what you do. So my name is Paul Leach and I am the national sales manager for Tapco, covering the UK and Ireland. I have been with the company for Nearly eighteen months now. Excellent. Okay. So we're we're having this conversation today because low pitch roofing in the UK has really strong business potential for roofers over the next ten years. There was a report from Reliable Business Insights that showed that UK lope Low pitch and flat roofing, the market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 4.2 to 5% over the next 10 years. That's through 2036. That's big business for both new builds and for renovation. And we're seeing modern materials like composite roofing leading the way in low-pitch roof and in the broader UK roofing and materials industry. So this is why we're talking about it, because there is a lot of opportunity. And Daniel, let's jump right in and talk about when working with lower roof angles and low pitch roofs, what's the difference you've found that composite roofing systems bring compared with more traditional roofing? From our perspective, a lot of the work that we do is retrofit. So you've already got quite a constrained pitch. So you have to work with what's there basically. And we find that a product like Tapco because it's so uniform, it's lightweight, you just know it's gonna work all the time. Like with traditional Solate your own grading it, checking for cracks, checking for deg degradation. And you just it just works. It works well for us and works for what we do. Yeah, yeah. And you know, it it really is engineered to handle severe weather. Can you can you talk a little bit about the performance? of the products that are important for you when you're choosing to use that product? Yeah, so again, it's we let the sort of customers choose what they want and we offer the products that fit within sort of the constraints of the site. So where we work is in the northwest of England, which you might have heard the saying in Manchester Ourge Rains. Well what it does. So How having a product like Tapco that's so versatile and can sort of work against those conditions is perfect. All right. So, Paul, let's talk about Tapco slate. can you give us an overview of the product and why it works so well for low pitch roofing? I can, yeah. first of all, it's made of recyclable virgin limestone and polypropylene. Now, I must stress when I say it's recyclable. So that means that it's recyclable at the end of its life. There are there are other manufacturers who used recyclable material already. so we know that our tiles will be uniform when it comes to the chemical components. We know exactly what's going in and we know exactly what the customers are going to get. So you know as I said, being recyclable at the beginning in our opinion, and I'm sure in Daniel's opinion, it's far better than having a a recyclable product when in theory nobody knows what they're going to get. also as well it has an authentic looking appearance, looking like a slate tile. our tiles don't crack or split. You get a forty a forty year warranty. And as Daniel's already said, it's lightweight. It can go down to twelve degrees, which most tiles, or at least concrete tiles, which is the biggest kind of tile over here in the UK. They generally go down to about seventeen and a half degrees. You may get a few manufacturers who will who will go down to twelve degrees, but not many. as well as being low pitched, it can be used on normal your standard pictures of say twenty five degrees, thirty degrees. It has fully it's been fully tested to BBA and it ha it has all of the the C markings, etcetera, including fire rating, wind driven snow and rain, and war and water absorption. So therefore it comp it's compliant with all the necessary the necessary information You need to become, you know, a a routile which you know is gonna last and which is gonna be safe in case of the fire or anything like that. Yeah. and and forty year warranty, wow. that's a really long time to you know, that the manufacturer stands behind and knows that it's gonna perform like it should for that long period of time. All right. So Daniel, let's talk about how these types of composite roofing products make life easier on the job site for the installers. So again, it's like what I've already touched on. With traditional slate, when you've got a pallet full, say, you can only actually use around seventy percent. because a lot of them are already cracked, they're damaged, you need to grade them so you've got the extra time there. Whereas with Tapco, every slate is the same. It's identical. You know it's not gonna crap during install. They're easy to put, they're easy to fit. You can fit them with a screw gun or a nail gun. It just it on the site, it's just so much faster. So, so much faster. Yeah. So you don't really need any special tools. regular if you need to trim, a regular utility blade or a saw. So it's it's pretty standard. Yeah, it's all it's all the stuff that most guys will have in the back of the Nice. Okay. so Daniel, tell us about some of your projects and how effective your company has found the composite. Cause you mentioned that you do a lot of replacements. So you're replacing natural slate, I'm assuming, when you're installing the Tapco. Yeah, we've replaced natural slate in the past, but a big part of what we do is so on a conservatory roof where you've got an existing polycarbonate and aluminium glazing bar system. So we take that off. replace it with a lightweight timber system and then we have to use the lightweight roofing materials like TAPCO on that. And what that does is it turns a conservatory that's not normally used. You know, it's too hot in summer, too cold in winter, into a nice, comfortable room that can be used all year. In a akin to a normal extension. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even think about those benefits. so let's let's talk about the ability to install it on the lower pitches. as low as twelve degrees, I think, is what I'm reading. And no performance concerns? No, not at all. It has been tested to from memory as a hundred and ten mile an hour wind. so you know, you might get the odd hundred mile an hour wind if you're talking the outskirts of Scotland or up in the mountains in Wales. so again, you know, it's peace of mind for the installers like Daniel, and it's peace of mind for the homeowners. That does it doesn't matter how windy or how wet it gets, the roof will never fail. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so let's talk about the customer feedback then. What are you hearing from customers after they have the product installed? My perspective. Sure. It's one of our most popular products. So with with the conservatory groups, when we do put the tile options in front of them, eighty percent of the time they choose Tapco and The first ever job that I joined the company on back in two thousand eleven, I was installing the TAPCO and that's still on there now and it looks great. And that lady, she still refers customers through to us. And then equally through the online sales side of the company, which is roofing online, we sell them up and down the country. And I can honestly say we've never had any negative feedback. People really like it and they like how natural it looks. Yeah. Yeah, I I mean, I think people are surprised when they discover that it's a composite product and it's not natural slate because it is so realistic, right? Yeah, some of them can look quite plasticky, if that's a word. Yeah, I know what you mean. Great feedback. Okay, so we've been talking a lot about the synthetic slate options, but I wanna make sure that we talk about low pit Low pitch roofing options with synthetic shake. So Paul, can you talk a little bit about Tapco roofing products that are that synthetic shake? Yes, so this is called the Da Vinci Select Shake. So I know that's over in America you have a lot of cedar shingles on your roofs. so this product is primarily sold Over in the States, but in the past few years we have now brought it over to the UK. So you wouldn't find this on your regular house in the UK. It is more of a sp of a bespoke material to go on. This you know, for example, if you're talking, let's say, a holiday theme park where you have chalets where people go on holiday and stay, then you will find that if it's in like a woodlands area or in a forest area, you will have cedar shingles on that roof. Whereas with our product it looks exactly the same. But you get the benefits of again of it being low pitch. it goes down to fifteen degrees. again you get a forty year warranty. It has been fully tested to all the standards for fire rating, for wind a driven rain for snow. but the unique thing about it is that because the because the product lasts so long, when you're looking at a a natural wooden cedar shingle roof, you have to go back and you'll have to repair that. You know, especially in some parts of the US where you get a lot of snow or you get hurricanes so that negates all that aggro of having to go back. You don't need to paint it, you know, and you know, and recoat it again after every five years or so. So it's very similar to the Tapco slate where you're getting your forty year warranty. it's made from recyc recyclable virgin polyeth polyethylene and yeah so at the end of his life it then comes recyclable. Again, this is massive because a lot of companies will use recycle product already. Okay. so Daniel, are you involved at all on the cedar shake side or are you mostly all slate? Mostly all slate, but the cedar shingle, the shake select, is something that we do sell online and it is proving to be popular. On like Paul says, the the outdoor buildings. Yeah, a nice turbula or a garden room, a glamping pot, something like that. It's a it's a very nice product. It's just again, it's like Paul says, our style of roofing over is very different. so cedar jingles isn't something you see on a domestic roof. Yeah, definitely the the synthetic slate is going to be the most popular. can you d I I'm curious a little bit about Daniel, you said you started and you were installing. the the the synthetic slate. Do you still do any installs today or are you mostly leaving that up to the the rest of the team in the field? Yeah, so I I don't go out on site anymore. I'm just like a manager. So I I work for the office and I'll I'll specify the jobs. I'll choose the right products. I'm involved in the design process, but we've got a group of very good fitters. So excellently I I don't need to go out in the rain anymore. Yeah. Yeah, right. You've graduated to the office. I love it. Everybody starts somewhere and then we work our way through. so yeah, that definitely. I mean, we talked about the the opportunity and the projected growth of the market. If there is a contractor that maybe, you know, is just learning about Tapco synthetic slate and wants to start offering that to their customers or their homeowners. how should they find out more? What what should they do? Well, there's a few avenues. they can look at our website, at Tap at Tapco Roofingproducts dot com. Or because Daniel and Inshalite, they s they obviously, you know, buying books from ourselves so they can approach Daniel and Inshalite and we can accommodate them in that way. we can help with all of the all the accessories which goes with the tiles, with the underlay and you know, everything to do with ventilation. we can offer training. I'm sure that Daniel and Inch Light, you know, they will offer training or advice. So there's a whole raft of information which we have on the technical side of it. again that's you know, they can ask questions from our from our website. I believe that mine and all the rest of the manager's emails are on there. Or just give us a ring, we're more than happy to help. If you do want to buy the tiles, we would highly recommend to go through Daniel at Inchlight. Excellent. Okay. So Daniel, how does someone find you? Our website is rooffin.co.uk. So that's no G, because for northern. We can't pronounce words properly. And we've we've spent a lot of effort making our website as easy to use as possible. So we've recently launched a Tapco roof slate calculator. So all you need to do is put in two measurements and your roof pitch and choose a roof style. And the software behind the scenes does all the trigonometry, all the calculations, and gives customers a list of exactly what they need to fit their Tapco roof with all the accessories so that they've fully guaranteed from TapCO. Wow, you made that's the easy button. You made it really easy to just put in the the measurements and it figures it out. That comes from my experience over the years of being asked the same the same questions. You get to gauge sort of where the sticking points are with people 'cause our website's quite accessible. So we have a lot of trade customers that buy week in, week out, but we also have self builders who might not be as familiar with the product. So I personally think it's important to explain it. as good as possible so that they can fully understand what it is they're doing and but ultimately not waste money while they're doing the project. Because it can be expensive enough without having to make mistakes on choosing the wrong product. Right. Yeah. It's important that you have that support. Yeah, I was gonna say, sorry, just to add to that just to add to that, the beauty of it is that Daniel has been on the tools. So he's laid it. So he knows what it is to you know to actually get on the roof and install it. So I think Daniel has you know, is is very experienced and he ha he has a a lot more knowledge than a lot of other people. Yeah. Yeah, and it's really important for the installers to get that support and that knowledge and that information from their suppliers and their manufacturers because they want you want them to be successful because we want them to be continuing to install that product. on future projects. Yeah. Well, okay. And I want to thank you both for being here today, being for part of this conversation. I know Tapco has a full directory on rooferscoffeeshop.uk. So you can always head over there and find out more about how to get in touch with them. And thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform because we want to see you on a future episode. Take care. We'll see you next time. Bye. If you've enjoyed the ride, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and join us on every roofing adventure. Make sure to visit rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you on the next roofing road trip.