Jeff Littleton - All Points Tile Has What You Need!

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Jeff Littleton of All Points Tile. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a long term professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofer's Coffee Shop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and I am road tripping across the country over to Florida virtually today to meet up with Jeff Littleton with All Points Tile. Jeff hello.

Jeff Littleton:
How are you guys doing?

Heidi Ellsworth:
You have the history, the unique ID, the matching. I love your yard. All the tile that you have there, where you get it from everywhere. So I'm really excited to share what you guys do with all of our listeners. So let's get started. Can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about All Points Tile?

Jeff Littleton:
My, my name's Jeff Littleton as you already know. All points tile was started in 2001 by Deb and Penn Marshall. And originally he wanted to be a new tile company but we always had a little bit of what we call boneyard which is old tile. In 2007 whenever the economy had its setback, nobody was doing new roofs and that's when we started selling used tile and we decided that it's probably better to be a big fish in a big pond than a little fish trying to sell new tile. So that's where it started. We always had a love for tile anyway.

Heidi Ellsworth:
When you think about all those tile roofs out there, they only need a little bit for each thing. And a boneyard is one of the coolest places to walk around. I've known Penn for a long time. What a great thing. So when you are looking at this, how do you get, I think everybody's going to be interested. How do you get a lot of your use tile?

Jeff Littleton:
Well, we get it two or three different ways. One way when a new roof is done and there's leftover tiles, we have roofers that will call us and say, "I have this tile left over. Do we want it?" And then if we do, then we will go get it and we'll put it in our yard. The other way we get it is whenever somebody does a re-roof, roofer or the homeowner will contact us saying, "We're getting ready to take this roof off. Are you interested in it?" And then if we are, we have our own crew and vehicles that we send to the job site in conjunction with the roofer because we are not roofers nor are we licensed to be on a roof.

Jeff Littleton:
And so the roofer will take the tiles off. We have a truck with a conveyor belt on it. They put them on the conveyor belt and then we take care of them from there. And the third way we acquire tiles is a lot of roofers, have little bone yards of their own and when they get over full or they're going to retire, they'll contact us and then we'll just buy the whole bone yard up. And we go in there and we palletize it all and move it to our facility.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And you ship across the country, right?

Jeff Littleton:
We ship across, I actually ship stuff to Hawaii.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Jeff Littleton:
And I think we've done some of the islands, but yes anywhere in the United States. Obviously our main thing is here in Florida, but we've done more in Texas recently because of the weather and stuff there.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. So now and you also still sell new tiles.

Jeff Littleton:
Yeah. We're a dealer for Crown which is a concrete tile, and we're also a dealer for Verre and a couple of other companies that are clay tiles.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Nice, nice. So what a great selection. Okay. I'm a homeowner and I'm out there, or I'm a contractor working on a job and there's damage and I need to replace it. How do they go about identifying the tiles and working with you?

Jeff Littleton:
Well, on our website, we have a thing that says tile identification. And if you go there, you can download some pictures of your roof and send them to us. If you're a homeowner, now if you're a roofer, normally they have our cell phone numbers and what they'll do is they'll just text us a picture of the tile while they're up on the roof doing their inspection.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Okay.

Jeff Littleton:
And then we get them and 10, 15, 20 minutes, depending on how busy we are, we'll look at them, we'll text them back saying, "Yes, we have it. This is what we have. This is what color we have. This is what the price is."

Heidi Ellsworth:
Very cool. And I know right now you have an ad or you have it all over Roofers Coffee Shop where people can just do a QR code and head right towards that site. So check out or click on the ad and you can get to the tile identification. What are you hearing from the contractors as they are making these replacements? Because you're doing some rehabilitation of the tiles too, right?

Jeff Littleton:
What we have is what we call custom glazing we are in partnership with Albertson's Roof Glaze. And what we'll do is if you are in a homeowner's association or you're in some kind of situation where you want the tile to be exactly what's on the roof, then what we'll do is we can do what we call custom glazing. We clean it and we prime it. For lack of a better word, paint it, seal it and then we ship it.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great. So they can find the colors they need, they can match it to wherever it's at. We all know how the roofing will change the colors over time so you're able to through pictures be it or do they send you a sample?

Jeff Littleton:
Well, if they want it to be spot on, then I have to have a sample because I send that sample to the manufacturer and they take that sample and they custom colorize the paint and then send it to us. If they want generally what the tile was originally then I can just call the manufacturer and say, "Give me Pento blend." And they'll send me Pento blend.

Heidi Ellsworth:
So how about with new construction or re-roofs. Do you get too many people that want more of a historic or maybe tiles that aren't made anymore? Do you see too much of that?

Jeff Littleton:
We do. St. Augustine is very big on their historical district and we do a good bit of work with St. Augustine and just different places in the United States. Sanford, there's some historical districts up there where they were made in the 1920s. And it has to be some of the historical districts get a little crazy. I can understand you got to be crazy or else the standards slip.

Heidi Ellsworth:
And that's huge to be able to have all those different tiles and historic tiles. So there's only so much. And then-

Jeff Littleton:
Right.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Jeff Littleton:
Now I will tell you, we actually have a tile here not that anybody wants it right this split second, but I have a tile here that actually was patented in 1896 and was manufactured in 1906. So it's actually over a hundred years old.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's amazing. That's amazing.

Jeff Littleton:
I think so.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That is so cool. And where was it from? Where was it manufactured? Do you know?

Jeff Littleton:
I believe it was manufactured in Georgia. I think it's a Ludowici tile. Ludowici is one of the two oldest companies in the United States. They both started right after the civil war.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. That is so cool. So what happens when a customer, contractor or the homeowner, whoever calls you and you don't have what they need? Do you go look for it or do you have other places that you send them? How does that work?

Jeff Littleton:
Well, we do go look for it if we can. There's probably a dozen people in the whole United States that really concentrates on what we do. And so we talk amongst ourselves and if I can find it, then I'll move it here. But if let's say someone calls me from California nine times out of 10, I'll just give him the name of the guy that's in California because it's just not worth the effort. It's not worth, I don't know. I just call it good karma.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I get that. Totally.

Jeff Littleton:
You know what I mean?

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. I agree. 100% because now you have this whole network. And they're doing the same thing for you. Yeah. It makes sense. And with shipping the way it is and material shortages and everything working together, it gets you a lot further.

Jeff Littleton:
Yeah. I agree.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. So what are you seeing on tile? What's kind of the demand out there. I know there's been some material shortages and a lot of things going on. Can you give us just a little bit of what you're seeing with the tile market?

Jeff Littleton:
In Europe, because of the conflicts that they're having over in Europe, some of those companies have shut down or put their production on pause. And so it's making the supply chain more strained but because of the housing. Boom right now, the concrete that are made here in the United States are really maxed out. They're getting to be 16, 17 up to 26 weeks on the lead time. It really makes it difficult especially for some people who aren't thinking ahead because you really have to be thinking about ordering your tile when when you break ground.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. Wow.

Jeff Littleton:
And some of them will wait until, "Oh, I'm dried in. I need a roof right now." Now you're saying, "Well, you might be waiting six months."

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah.

Jeff Littleton:
Which is one of the things that helps us out because what we'll do is... And before, when I was telling you, we get these leftovers from new jobs, well, we put those together and we'll have customers call us and they'll be like I need a roof and I need a roof right now. And we'll say, "Well, we can put you together a custom blend of these colors," and we'll show them a sample of it. And a lot of times we can put a roof or provide them with the material for a roof within a couple of days.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. That's cool. And you're filling a niche that is really needed out there right now. And what are you seeing with... Are you seeing a lot more people... I know you said in 2007, people were not replacing the roof but are you seeing people like taking a lot of tile off and replacing it or are they still kind of trying to just repair and fix? So I guess how much are you have coming in?

Jeff Littleton:
I turned tile down because we only have a certain amount of space. So there's a lot more roofs coming off than what I can personally put in my yard. I believe the money's really made in the repair because the roofer makes his money for labor not material. So when he pushes a re-roof and he's saying, "Oh, this is a $75,000 job." Yeah. But he's only making 10 or 15% of that 75,000. But if he does a $5,000 repair it might be a 50% profit.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. I'm hearing the exact same thing, a lot more contractors doing service and maintenance. And on the residential side too, definitely on the steep slope, because you can be working with all these different homeowners and consistently doing inspections and repairs and following up, it does seem like such... And we know in commercial, it's already turning out to be very profitable. Are you seeing that on residential also? Are you seeing more contractors doing service and maintenance on residential?

Jeff Littleton:
Well, I am. But then again I do nothing but preach replacement and repair. I think that if you look at... If you want to be green throwing tile into the landfill is all the energy that was used to produce that tile, whenever a concrete tile can last a hundred years. So to have it on your roof for 15 or 20 and then to throw it away, it is just not being environmentally friendly whenever you can put it back onto somebody else's roof.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I would think that would be a great sales approach to homeowners because they do care first of all, how much money are they going to save? Second of all, they're being green and sustainable. It makes sense across the board. So hopefully we're going to see more... I think we're already seeing thanks to you and to what you're putting out there and everyone out there we're seeing that more with all roofing products. They need to be have performance based last longer, and we need to maintain them.

Jeff Littleton:
I agree. Yeah. I think that the homeowners really need to get some or be educated on knowing what they're being told. Because a lot of times when they're getting these quotes from different roofers, they're not getting apples for apples.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right.

Jeff Littleton:
All they do is look at a dollar amount and they see that oh, this is 45,000, oh this is 37,000. I'm going to go with the $37,000 guy. But the $37,000 guy is using material that's two or three steps lower in grade quality than the other guy. When people say I want it to be cheap. Well, cheap is not having to do it again.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Right. Yes. Long term. I love that. I don't want to have to ever re-roof even though we want everybody to get some roofing out there, don't take me wrong on that. But we want roofs that are going to last and perform and be beautiful. Tile roofs are just so... It's amazing. So talk to me just a little bit more about the process for all points. So your contractors building a relationship with you. I know you said they can take a picture while they're up there, but what are some of the... Let's just talk through that again so that we leave that in everybody's head, how they get ahold of you and how they kind of go through this process of tile identification.

Jeff Littleton:
Well, first of all if they could go to our website, which is allpointstile.com. And on our website we have our inventory and we have pictures of all of the tile that we have in our yard. So if they are an experienced roofer and they know what they're looking for, they can go there and we have a search engine and they can do a little bit of searching and they can find it. And it has the prices and everything, and even tells them probably within five or 6% of what we have in stock at this time.

Jeff Littleton:
The other thing they can do is they can email us with pictures of their tile and then we can identify it and we'll email them back what's going on. They can also call us. A lot of times we get people call us and what we'll do is we'll say, "Hey, are you near a computer? Please go to this website," and we'll talk, them through so that they can see the tile right there.

Jeff Littleton:
And the last way is, again, if you call us and you can get our cell phone number and you can text us pictures of the tile. Now, if you text us pictures of the tile, it helps if you text us a picture of the front and the back of the tile. If you have any loose tiles, truthfully, I don't even need to see a whole tile. If you have some broken tile just take a picture of a broken tile and turn it over. If you don't have any loose tiles on your roof, then try to take some different angle pictures because flat tile all look alike and you can't really tell one flat tile dimension from another. But if you take a picture of a rake or picture of a ridge, there are certain companies their rakes and ridges look unique to themselves. And that will tell us, "Oh, this is a A or this is a B.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yes. Okay. That makes sense. Those are great tips. Because I know the contract, they just, a lot of times don't even know where to start especially if they haven't done a lot of tile roofs. And they're trying to put that all together. Now, along that lines, one of the things that I'm actually pulling up right now, because you can find all this information on the directory for All Points which is on Roofers Coffee Shop underneath directories. But I didn't want to get too far Jeff without talking about the high tile too because you do more than just tiles and tile identification and old and historic tiles. You also give them the tools to help perform a better job on the roof.

Jeff Littleton:
Yeah. We have a tool that's called a high tile cutter and what it is, it's a non-electrical, it's a hand operated tile cutter that doesn't produce dust. It doesn't produce a lot of dust. Obviously it's going to produce some dust, but silica is a big issue right now and has been a big issue for about eight or nine years as far as the OSHA is concerned. And it really is a big issue because the silica dust gets into your lungs and it never comes out.

Jeff Littleton:
And so the OSHA is wanting to make it so that you have to wear a respirator or you have to use a wet system or you have to use a vacuum system on the roof to cut tile. And the high tile cutter performs this task without producing any dust. It also doesn't need any electricity. You don't need a gas, you don't need a generator. You don't need a backpack blower to blow the dust off after you cut your tile. And it lasts forever. We have roofers that have them that are probably 35, 40 years old. They're still using the same high tile cutter.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. Wow. I know you ship that all over. You sell that all over the United States.

Jeff Littleton:
I've actually sold some to Hawaii.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. There you go. That's perfect. Well, and that's why I really wanted to bring it up because, and again, everybody you can see this on the directory. You can get to All Points Tile website and see how cool the high tile is because it's all about safety and it works great. So I love it. I love it. Well, Jeff, anything else that you want to share with our listeners?

Jeff Littleton:
Yes. Penn Marshall and Deb decided to retire. And as September, first of last year, they sold the company and now they're retired and enjoying the grandchildren. And we were bought by a company called Replacement Tile Solutions that is an investment company and everything is still operating the same as it used to. But Debb and Penn Marshall have retired.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow. Wow. Well congratulations to both Penn and Deb because great people, well deserved and you and Kelly are pretty awesome yourselves. There's just the best people work there and we love working with you guys. I know your contractors, you just have some of the best customer service there is.

Jeff Littleton:
Well, thank you very much. We try. I'm not going to say that we are not out to make money because obviously everybody has to make money. I really think you can be just good service and make money. You don't have to be a back stabber to do good business.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I agree a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And that's why we're all together in this and working together. So well, Jeff, thank you. Thank you so much. This has been so interesting. I keep asking questions because I love the idea from a green side but I also just love the idea of being able to match historic tiles and keeping the craftsmanship of tile roofing at the forefront. So thank you for all you do.

Jeff Littleton:
Thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, and if you want to know more about All Points Tile and historic tiles and tile identification, all this great stuff, please be sure to go onto Roofers Coffee Shop and go to the All Points directory. And also while you're there, check out all the podcasts under re-listen, watch along with being sure to subscribe and set notifications on your favorite podcast channel. Thank you so much for being here today and we'll see you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.