Contractor Corner: South Texas Metal Roofing

Edward Montemayor of South Texas Metal Roofing in Corpus Christi shares insights on metal roofing in coastal regions, common misconceptions, and industry trends.

Company Background

Give us a quick background about yourself and your company, so our audience knows what we're talking about today.

Yes, sir, we're South Texas Metal Roofing. We're out in Corpus Christi, Texas. We've been around for a long time. Before we started South Texas Metal Roofing, Inc., we were South Texas Metal Roofing and Construction in the early nineties. Then, around 2002, my father, the CEO and founder, changed it up and stuck with South Texas Metal Roofing.

Primary Products and Services

So obviously, you're focused on metal roofing. What are your top-selling or most frequently requested projects that you work on?

We mostly do about 85% standing seam metal and aluminum out here in the coastal bend. We do a lot of aluminum in the coastal areas—Galveston, Port Aransas, Rockport, and Padre Island. For homes and ranches that are a good enough distance away from the saltwater, we're using 24-gauge metal.

Right now, we're about 85-90% standing seam, and the rest is probably steel shake, rustic shingle, our commercial line, TPO, modified bitumen, and silicone systems. But our leading seller is going to be standing seam mechanical lock.

Do weather and storms drive that trend, or do people want a more robust roof? 

A little bit of both. We get many hurricanes out here. The last one we had was Hurricane Harvey in 2017. A company flew a drone around in Rockport, and some of our homes came out on the news, so people could see a lot of standing seam homes that weren't blown away. Since then, the standing seam has been growing big down here.

Common Misconceptions

When you talk to homeowners or building owners, what myths or misconceptions about metal roofing do you hear?

The main one is going to be the rain. Many folks think that they'll hear the rain on standing seam or metal roofs, which is what we hear a lot.

The second one is going to be cell phone reception. I hear that a lot—folks will say, 'Is it going to mess up my reception in my house?' especially on their cellular phones.

How do you answer those questions?

Well, we've never had that problem. I had one customer, maybe back in 2014, tell me their reception was a little rough after a metal roof, but that was the only time. We've never really had that problem again. I think folks hear it and maybe do some research on Google and get that misconception.

The same thing applies to rain - I tell them that you won't hear any rain because the standing seam system is installed directly on a flat surface decking. But if you had maybe an R panel or a ribbed panel with spacing in between, those might be when you might hear a little bit of rain.

Sales Process and Market Challenges

Let's discuss your selling process. Is selling metal roofs becoming easier or more difficult these days?

 When the election happened, things slowed down a little bit.  Folks were a little afraid to make a big purchase. Everything was going steady for us right before the election.  But right now, we feel it's picking up a little bit.

Insurance companies are reaching out to many homeowners down here. They're basically giving them that ultimatum: 'If it's been 20 years, we need you to put a new roof on. ' So we're getting a lot of calls right now from homeowners hearing from their insurance that they're going to get dropped if they don't get a new roof on soon.

That's very interesting. Do the insurance companies recommend a metal roof?

That's a good question. No, and I didn't ask the homeowners that. But now, homeowners are saying, 'Look, the insurance is making us get a new roof, so let's go ahead and put a metal roof on. We want this to be the last roof we put on our house.'

Marketing and Lead Generation

How do you find leads and prospects? 

Our main ones are word of mouth and our reputation. We also use a lot of social media marketing, and the last one will be referrals.

We know many folks in the coastal bend, so our name gets thrown around everywhere because of our quality, customer service, and workmanship. If I give you a percentage, calls coming in directly from Google or directly to our office, people finding us on Google, we're probably looking at about 50%. The other 50% will be references, word of mouth, a friend of a friend, a cousin of a cousin - basically, folks hearing about us.

You mentioned social media. What channels in particular do you see being effective for driving leads?

The main ones are going to be Instagram and Facebook. We also upload to Google every day. On our YouTube channel, we upload maybe once a week. However, the main ones that are going well are our Facebook and Instagram social media pages.

What makes you stand out when promoting your company? 

It's going to be reputation. That's worked so well for us. We've been around the longest in Corpus, and everybody knows my dad. He taught a lot of guys out here who are doing sheet metal.

He's been doing it for a long time. He was with Alco in Houston in the late eighties, and then in the early nineties, they came and did a house in Corpus. He said, "There's a lot of potential out here," then he left that company and started his own company down here.

Industry Trends

Let's talk about the industry.  What are some of the trends or changes that you see coming?

Well, standing seam is growing and growing. It's also growing on the commercial side down here. We're also trying to get custom home builders edging toward standing seam. They do a lot of shingles and a lot of hardy plank on the siding, and we want to push metal siding as well - actual panels. 

Current Challenges

What are some of the biggest challenges you have had this year?

We're trying to get homeowners to put a metal roof on rather than a shingle, making that transition for them and helping them understand all the benefits and the pros and cons versus the shingle and the metal.

When we run leads like I ran one earlier, homeowners sometimes say, 'I wasn't expecting to spend that.' I think that would be our main challenge—trying to get folks to decide, or not be so scared to make a lifetime investment in a metal roof.

Staffing

Let's talk a bit about staffing. Are you having any problem finding people to work in your company, or are there plenty of skilled people out there that you can tap into?

We've never had a problem with staffing.  We've got about six crews that have been with us for 35 years.  We've got a great office staff - all the girls that work in the office are my sisters. It's a family business.

Right now, we get a lot of guys from out of town - San Antonio, Dallas, Houston - reaching out to us looking for work. So,  finding crews is definitely not a problem.

Project Profitability

Let's talk about finances. What are some of the most significant things that make or break your profitability for a project?

We deal a lot with engineers. Everything is a windstorm, so they require at least three inspections. The only issue is that sometimes, engineers may hold you up. They take a little while to get to the home to do the second inspection, and then once we finish, they have to go back out there to do the third inspection.

The engineers down here are so busy going from job to job. I think that would be our main challenge—the time it takes to get the guys to come out and do their inspections. Sometimes, the engineers will hold you up because they're extremely busy. They have to get to the job site to do the windstorm inspection and then say, 'Okay, you guys are ready. Keep going.'

Future Plans

What do you think you'll be doing differently next year than you're doing right now?

The only thing we're slacking on would probably be our storm response. We had a storm guy, our project manager, like a storm chaser. We'd work on that more next year, servicing the surrounding areas when a storm hits, like Kerrville, when the hail hits. We need to work on our storm chasing.