Jeff Littleton, Kelly Connors & Harrison Jarman - What are your Old Roof Tiles Worth? - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Jeff Littleton, Harrison Jarman and Kelly Conners from All Points Tile & Slate. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro/Outro: 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 J. Ellsworth: Hello and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. My name is Heidi Ellsworth and I'm heading south towards Florida to talk to some of my favorite people about tile. Yes, tile. I have to tell you, All Points Tile & Slate is so cool. They have all of these old tiles that you can find replacements, you can check it out. They are constantly bringing the cool new stuff and old stuff to the industry. So, we've got ahold of Jeff, and Harrison, and Kelly, and asked them to get on this Roofing Road Trips with us so we could talk about the recycling and buyback of old tile. Welcome to the show you three.

Jeff Littleton: Thank you very much.

Kelly Connors: Hi, Heidi.

Harrison Jarman: Hello.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Hello. Well, before we get started, because I love this stuff. First of all, I love old building products, I think they're cool, I like to see them refurbished, but also you are doing some great stuff with new to old. But first, let's get some introductions. So, Jeff, if I can start with you, if you could introduce yourself, tell us what you do and maybe a little bit about All Points Tile?

Jeff Littleton: My name's Jeff Littleton. I'm the general manager of All Points Tile & Slate. I've been here for 23 years. I worked myself up from labor to management.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow. So cool. And you know, I think, just about everything, Jeff, about tile.

Jeff Littleton: I think I know enough to be dangerous.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. I love it. Kelly, can you introduce yourself?

Kelly Connors: Yes. My name is Kelly Connors. I am the administrative director here at All Points Tile & Slate, and I've been with the company about six and a half years now.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Excellent. And Harrison?

Harrison Jarman: Yes, I'm Harrison Jarman. I've been with the company for about five years, and I've been helping coordinate for the past couple years the tile acquisitions and acquiring older tiles to resell.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So cool. I'm very excited about that. Well, Jeff, let's start out just real quick with you. Can you just tell everybody about All Points Tile & Slate, a little bit of the history and what you specialize in today?

Jeff Littleton: The company originally was started by Penn Marshall, who unfortunately has passed away last year. And this was his passion. Clay was his passion, and he started this after closing down his roofing company. In a way we kind of stumbled into this because actually the intent was to sell new tile, but Penn always had a passion for old stuff and keeping it out of the scrap yard or the landfill. And in 2007, when the whole economy collapsed, quite frankly we needed to find some way to stay in business, and the repair business became our main staple because people couldn't afford or was not able to get loans for new construction.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, I mean I was there with you. I mean I was working the West Coast at that time, and you're right, you had to come up with some different ways of doing it. And since then that has really opened up a huge market for you.

Jeff Littleton: I have to say, yes. I mean, we always did a little bit of repair tile and old tile, but once we embraced it, I mean, we were in the right place at the right time. When the economy went the way it did, we were already dabbling in it and we decided that we could be a much bigger player reclaimed tile than we could with new tile. We just can't compete with some of the big boys.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, and you've got such a great niche. Well, and Kelly, you've been involved for a long time. You and I have worked together a lot over the years. What have you seen change as you're looking at going from new tiles to buying back and repurposing the tiles? What are some of the trends that you're seeing?

Kelly Connors: Even now since the hurricanes that we've had last year, we're contacted more by people who are looking to repair more so than replace the roof.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: It seems like it's a combination of cost, but also people realizing, why should I do a full re-roof if I don't have to?

Kelly Connors: Exactly.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, I mean, it's good for the environment, everything.

Jeff Littleton: Some of this is the contractors and inflation. Some of the contractors, because of the hurricane, they have you over a barrel and they're just asking for ridiculous prices for re-roof. And the lead time for new material is starting to come down but it was astronomical. I mean, I think it was 32 weeks at one point. And you have to have your roof buttoned up for insurance purposes by the time the next hurricanes come around. And the only way to do that is to repair and you have to find the tile.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, you're right. And it has been a weird market. I mean, with the hurricanes, but also just the economy, and the material shortages. It has really changed the face of it so much. So, okay. Let's talk about, you've really focused in, and Harrison, maybe you can tell us just a little bit about the All Points Tile Buyback Program, because you've really been focusing in on this. We have it on Roofers Coffee Shop. We're really promoting it out there. Tell us a little bit about this program.

Harrison Jarman: So, yeah. We like to buy back discontinued tiles that aren't being produced anymore. And we take in these serviceable tiles and we'll store them until people are ready to buy them to repair other roofs. So that just the demolition of one roof system is taking place doesn't mean that we can save more roofs in the future.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And where are you finding the tiles? Give us some examples.

Harrison Jarman: So, we find them from all over, primarily our resources outreach in the central Florida area. And then occasionally we have gone greater than that. We've found tiles out of state before and all across the nation, but a lot of times the freight outweighs the benefit of the cost of the tile and it just doesn't make it feasible sometimes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Kelly, I know you're working with this a lot, and so I'm going to ask this to both Kelly and Harrison, but what kind of tiles are eligible? If I were to call and I had some concrete tiles, are you taking those or is it all clay? What's the parameters?

Kelly Connors: Like Harrison mentioned earlier, primarily we deal with discontinued tiles and that could be clay or concrete, but I'd say probably primarily concrete. But there are some clay profiles that we would be highly interested in as well. We do pick up tiles that are still in production, that are still being made today. Majority of those are going to be courtesy pickups though. Our niche really is in the discontinued tile market.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And how about slate, because I know we have slate in the name of the company? Are you also getting some slate roofs?
Harrison Jarman: Occasionally we do reclaim slate tile. However, it's very few and far between because slate is one of the longest lasting products to put on a roof. But yeah, we do acquire slate.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Just so people understand, are you mostly buying back from contractors, from homeowners, or from manufacturers?

Harrison Jarman: Most of the time we acquire from contractors because we have to work with them in order to acquire the tile. Occasionally it could be from a homeowner who has leftover tiles in the yard or who is claiming possession of his tiles being taken off the roof as well.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, to get it out there to more homeowners because I think it's such a great, when you really look at that, both to be able to, if you are totally changing your roof, which you probably don't need to, but if you are, you can at least have a place to sell it back to help with the cost of your roof, or the contractor can do that for you. But also being able to figure out what's happening because as a homeowner and a contractor you need options. But you know what, I want to talk about that a little bit. Maybe, Jeff, go back to you because how many homes do you see that are doing full tear offs of tile? Or are they starting to really understand that repair is a little bit better?

Jeff Littleton: Well, in the state of Florida, there's probably at least 10 or 15,000 tile roofs a year that are having something done. I pulled the data for last year and there was about 15,000, I think maybe it was 18,000, permits were pulled for roof tile. And that would be repair and re-roof, I don't really have the breakdown on that. It's quite a few roofs and believe it or not, if you look at shingles, asphalt shingles, it is probably 10 fold that, that's being re-roofed.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wow.

Jeff Littleton: It's just a lot of oil products going into landfill.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right. Right. When tile, concrete, slate lasts so much longer and can be repaired with pieces. So, okay. On the new construction or a new re-roof, so somebody comes in and totally tears off and is putting on a whole new roof, if there are extra new tiles on the job site, do you take those?

Jeff Littleton: Yes. A lot of times the roofer will contact us. The breakdown is that the roofer can't get paid for the job until he cleans the job site. And so whatever tile's left over on the job site has to be taken off and hey, lucky for us, it's heavy and he doesn't want to do it himself.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right.

Jeff Littleton: So they'll usually call us and say, do we want it? We do what we call a courtesy pickup. If you give us the tile, I'll send my truck with my Moffett there to pick it up and take it off the job site. We'll clean up whatever little debris might be associated with it. If it's something that we need or think that we can sell, then we'll bring it back here. If it's not, sometimes we'll take it to the rock crusher to be crushed up and made fill.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Oh, so one way or the other it's being used?

Jeff Littleton: Yeah, well we try, at least it's getting some use out of it. I mean there's some products that you just have too much of.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: So talk to me a little bit more about the courtesy pickups. How does that work? How do contractors get ahold of you and what qualifies?

Kelly Connors: I mean, they can call us, they can contact us by our email address. We have a lot of information on our website at allpointstile.com about the program as well. So you'll find a lot of information there. With the courtesy pickups, just because of logistics and being feasible with distances with gas prices and everything, we really stick to a parameter of about two to three hours maximum on those pickups. And it's based on availability as well. If we have availability to put a truck out there to go get it, we will.

Jeff Littleton: I think Harrison probably would have a little bit more input on that.

Kelly Connors: Yeah, go ahead.

Harrison Jarman: I think Kelly nailed it, pretty much all. But we really do try our best to try and pick up all the different people that contact us trying to clean up their job site. And we sometimes have parameters to meet and can't meet them all, but we're only a phone call away to finding out.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: The courtesy pickups, I totally get. Two to three hours, that makes sense. I mean, there's so much tile in Florida, so that's going to keep you guys very busy. But Harrison, at the beginning you were also talking about that you will do buybacks depending on the tile nationally. So can you talk to me a little bit, what are you looking for? What would qualify?

Harrison Jarman: Well, in order to buyback nationally, we would have to deal with a freight carrier. And so basically what would we be looking at is making sure that the tile is ready for freight carrier and it has an availability for loading onto it.

Kelly Connors: If it's something that we don't have currently in our inventory and we consider to be a popular item, we might go a little further to get it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right.

Harrison Jarman: Right. So yeah, it does still have to meet specific needs to fill some holes in our inventory.

Kelly Connors: It would definitely be a discontinued product.

Harrison Jarman: Yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That makes it worthwhile because obviously if it's discontinued, there's only so much. So you want to get it and be able to have that for the customers who need it. Jeff, you and I had a great conversation, a podcast with one of your contractors, I think it was last year. Everybody should go out and listen to it, it was really good. But we really talked about how much this saves the contractors' money and also helps them with their marketing and differentiating their business by doing the repairs. So that's been a year ago now. What are some of the things that you're hearing from contractors about this tile buyback program that is saving money and also helping them just distinguish their company?

Jeff Littleton: Statistically, I know for a fact that we're probably doing 10 times more requests for us to buy back or do we need... And I think some of it has to do with there's just a massive amount of tear offs happening because of the hurricanes and now the insurance claims for the tiles are starting to work through the system and people are doing the tear offs. But I know that we get a lot more requests. And I think some of it has to do with, we talk to a lot of different roofers and we try to mention our programs to them all the time. And also our website. My philosophy is that I have to talk to someone probably 20, 30 times for them to finally remember that I actually do something and then they'll contact us. And we really try to make the experience as pleasant as possible for them because I need them to want to do it.

And so we try to be fair with what we offer as far as compensation. We try to be fair in what we do with our own crew, being on time, being ready to work, not being a problem, being cleanly on the job site, making sure that we clean everything up when we leave. I always tell all my guys, we want them waiting on us. If we have to wait on them, that's okay, we don't want it but I'd much rather be waiting on them than have them waiting on us, because that's just an excuse on why not to do it.

Because as it is, a lot of times when we try to talk to a new roofer about doing a tear off or salvaging tile, there's a whole litany of excuses, "Oh, that's going to take so much more time." And, "Oh, that's going to be hard to get it off the roof." And, "Oh, it's going to be hard not to break the tiles, and is it worth my guys, and my guys are not going to want to do it. You're going to hold us up. What kind of special stuff do we have to do on the job site to make it?" So, we look at how we can battle those so that when we're done, their attitude is, "Oh, that wasn't bad." And they get a little piece of money to go along with it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, and it is a little bit different. I mean, you want to save the tiles, you can't just throw them off. But are people really throwing them off that much anymore? And maybe they are, but that makes a big mess too, unless obviously they're going in the dumpster. But I think to be able to start making these changes, and for you guys to make it so easy, and your teams to help, that makes all the difference.

Jeff Littleton: It really does. And then we're also, believe it or not, we're talking to the insurance companies. Anytime we have an insurance company that we talk to, we say, "Oh, and by the way, if you're tearing off a roof, you should offer it to us because if we have that tile, when you have a repair claim we will have the tile for you." We're the same with the insurance company, as we are with the homeowner, as we are with the roofing contractor, but it behooves them to be able to find the tile. And so it helps us if they mention to the roofer, "Hey, we'd like you to get in contact with All Points Tile & Slate and see if this can work for you."

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And it would make sense for the insurance companies too, because it's going to do a repair instead of a full replace. That makes a big difference.

Jeff Littleton: Exactly. Exactly. And that's one of the things we talk to with the insurance companies is if you can save that roof, that is money in their pocket. If the insurance company doesn't have to re-roof every single roof in the state of Florida, they might not go out of business. They might actually be able to stay here and not have to double the premiums every hurricane season.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Kelly Connors: Exactly.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Wouldn't that be nice? Wow. Well, Harrison, I know you're working with a lot of contractors and doing the buybacks and stuff. What are you hearing from the contractors? What's some of their feedback?

Harrison Jarman: They enjoy it. A lot of times they get to save on dumpster space and they have us come out. We really try and make it easy for them, as Jeff was saying. And the people that have worked with us, we have strong relationships with, and we really have a system down. And once we get that system down, it's like butter and it just spreads over very easily.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And just what's some of the, I know this is a little bit off, so you're buying back all these tiles, you have this beautiful boneyard, and two locations, beautiful piles of tile. And what are some of the things you're hearing from the contractors who are coming and looking for those discontinued tiles? I mean, this just has to make their lives so much nicer.

Harrison Jarman: Having a one stop shop for all the roof tile needs that you could think of is really, they find it a blessing. Being able to just send us pictures and we have, for free, tile identification, and so we'll tell you what your tile is whether you buy it from us or not. And just being able to help you find the tile is what we want to do.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's excellent. So one more little Florida question here, and Jeff, I'm going to ask you. I mean, everyone knows Florida has very active legislature and a lot of regulations that are going on. How are you seeing regulations around the storms, insurance claims, just overall, how is that influencing the buyback, selling back to you, and also repairs for the market, for your contractors and homeowners?

Jeff Littleton: The Florida builder code that came out in 2022, 2023 actually specifically addressed repair tile and the use of repair tile, and that you could use old tile as long as it met the standards of the region that it was being put on. So that was very vague up until then, there was a few Florida statutes that implied that repair tile, you could use tile, but it wasn't plainly stated. And so now that it's been plainly stated, obviously lawyers can fight whatever they want to fight, but it's really curtailed some lawsuits. It comes down to whether the insurance company and the lawyers are involved in it or not, if it's a homeowner he's having his roof fixed, and fixed for a reasonable amount of money. When it comes to insurance companies and lawyers, they have a different agendas, we'll put it that way.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Jeff Littleton: And so it gets a little bit more complicated. And so having some legal statute helps out in my argument.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Kelly, I'm going to ask this again because you've been watching all this, all the buybacks and repairs, all the legislation. What's some of the advice that you would give to contractors in their businesses in Florida that would help them get started down this road?

Kelly Connors: For the buybacks?

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, buybacks. And getting tiles for repairs.

Kelly Connors: Check us out, again, on our website. I mean, we have our inventory even on the website. So, I mean, if you're a roofer and you know your tile, you can find it on there. You can see what colors we have. We have pictures of all the tile in all of the different colors, everything that we have in our inventory. And again, like Harrison said earlier, if you have any questions, we do offer free tile identification. It's just a matter of snapping a couple of photos and emailing them over to us. Whether you buy from us or not, we're going to ID that tile for you for free.

Jeff Littleton: Kelly, talk about what kind of paperwork a roofer or even a homeowner would have to have for us to buy their tile.

Kelly Connors: Yeah. Really, I mean, we've talked about logistics, and arranging, and working in conjunction with the roofing contractor to get tile when they're doing a tear off. But one thing that, as far as paperwork goes, for us to do the buyback, it's really very minimal. We just require a 1099 in order to issue payment. And a lot of times, I know a lot of people are like, "Oh, that's going to be income. You're going to send me a 1099 at the end of the year." But there is an exception to the 1099 rule, and you can find that at irs.gov. One of the exceptions is payments for merchandise, telegrams, telephone, freights, storage, and similar items are excluded. But we need to have that documentation, that's really all that 1099 does for us.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That makes sense.

Kelly Connors: I mean the W-9, we get a W-9. But you're not really subject to a 1099 at the end of the year, because of the exception rule.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: One of the questions I have too, and Jeff, we've talked about this before, but there are other people across the country who are doing what you're doing in Florida. And you tend to be in touch with them, if people are looking for things or you'll refer them in their area. Can you tell us a little bit about that? I know you guys aren't all connected, but y'all know each other.

Jeff Littleton: Yeah. And I'm sure there's more than I know about, but there's probably at least a half a dozen to a dozen different people that do something like we do. A lot of times they're more into clay, they're up there in Illinois or they're in the New York area where it's predominant slate and clay, and we buy and sell tile back and forth. Truthfully, if the order's small enough and someone wants it, it's just easier for me to say, "Hey, please call this guy here. He's in your neighborhood." Because the freight by itself is, I guess it's a karma thing, I don't need to make every dollar. And I know that I get a call once in a while where they say, "Hey, this guy is right in your neighborhood. Just go ahead and get with him. I don't know that I have what you have." And so it works out. Obviously, if someone wanted to buy a couple million dollars worth of products, I'll make it somehow.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: We'll make it happen. No problem.

Jeff Littleton: But for these little small orders, just the logistics of it is more of a hassle than what it's worth for the profit that you're going to make.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: And I think what's important for everyone listening, all the contractors out there who are listening, is there is probably someone in your area, maybe more extended area, but there's probably someone there. So Google it and look for other folks. I know there's a company out of Denver, there's some different folks out there, with freight and with everything. But if you need to really understand what's going on, I know that Jeff, and Kelly, and Harrison will always take a phone call and they can refer you depending on what you need. Now, if it's a million dollars, they'll take care of you. It'll be all good.

Jeff Littleton: We'll figure it out.

Kelly Connors: Yeah, we'll figure it out.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, thank you all. Thank you, all three of you, so much for being on this Roofing Road Trip. I love this stuff. And every time we get together, I love hearing what's going on, and you really are saving the world one tile at a time by saving the [inaudible 00:25:24].

Kelly Connors: Yeah.

Jeff Littleton: Thank you very much for having us on.

Kelly Connors: Yes, thank you, Heidi.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Thank you. And thank you, Harrison. Thank you for everything you're doing with the Buyback program, and Kelly and Jeff. Thank you all for listening. I always say this, but this is the kind of stuff that's just so cool in the roofing industry, things you didn't even know about. Buyback tiles, repair with tiles, saving the earth one tile at a time. This is the kind of stuff we want to keep bringing to you. So please be sure to check out the All Points Tile & Slate directory on Roofers Coffee Shop. You can find all the information there. You can get in touch directly with this team. Also, be sure to check out all of our podcasts under the Read Listen Watch initiative under podcasts, and then Roofing Road Trips, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and set those notifications so you don't miss a single episode. And we'll be seeing you next time on Roofing Road Trips.

Intro/Outro: 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.