Repair Over Replacement is Key to Dealing with Material Shortages

By Cass Jacoby. 

All Points tells us how using leftover tiles and custom glazing is helping ease the strain of material supply shortages. 

In an episode of Roofing Road Trips, RCS President Heidi J. Ellsworth speaks with Jeff Littleton, the operations manager at All Points about what he is seeing with the tile market and how material shortages are affecting tile. 

“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” says Jeff. "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 you break ground.” 

Jeff says that a huge part of how All Points deals with material issues is by offering a custom glazing service. Being able to accurately match tiles to what the client may need rather than having a client wait for new tiles to come through has helped ease the strain of supply chain issues.  

“We get these leftovers from new jobs and 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,” explains Jeff. “And a lot of times we can  provide them with the material for a roof within a couple of days.” 

Jeff also suggests a good way to keep your business resilient throughout labor and material shortages is to bring in more service and maintenance into your offerings. “I do nothing but preach replacement and repair,” says Jeff. “I believe the money is really made in the repair because the roofer makes his money for labor not material.” 

The company supports that belief by ensuring that tile replacements can be identified properly so that homeowners only need to replace their tiles rather than their entire roof. On their website, you can go to their tile identification option under services and send them pictures of your roof. “You can email us with pictures of the tile and then we can identify it and we'll email them back what's going on,” says Jeff. “I really think you can be just good at service and make money.” 

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about All Points and the ways that they are making tile repairs easier for roofers. 

Learn more about All Points in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit AllPointsTile.com.