By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.
Kevin Morris is a co-founder of TUBOS, Inc. When I called him to learn more about how the company was started, I caught him at an appropriate place - on a roof. He assured me he could still chat with me about the company, and I learned that my call was almost exactly 10 years to the day that they started the company back in January of 2009. I asked him how he came up with the idea for the product.
Kevin told me that he was running a sheet metal shop and his co-founder Rick Maddox was a roofing contractor and one of his customers. “They had one job that had 127 of these pipes that were too short,” explained Kevin. “We would roll some steel for them and they would combine them with PVC and some random hardware. It took them 30-40 minutes per pipe.”
Rick and Kevin decided at that point that there had to be a more practical way. The two spent about a year going over it and testing the product before ending up with what they have today – TUBOS!! TUBOS are pre-fabricated plumbing vent pipe extensions manufactured for use with standard diameter vent pipes. They can be installed at any location where the plumbing vent pipe height above the level of the finished roof system surface, does not or will not comply with applicable building code minimum requirements. The product reduces that 30 – 40 minutes per pipe to about 3 minutes.
“I made a prototype out of wood and took it around the state of Florida to get feedback from roofers,” Kevin said. “The feedback was almost 100% positive. There is no rebuttal as to why you would do it any other way.”
Celebrating 10 years is a big deal for the company that was founded in the middle of a recession was perhaps the biggest challenge for them to overcome. “Our goal was to save the contractor time and money and back them, roofers were having a tough time just keeping their crews busy,” he explained.
The company grew slowly and was being sold in 37 distributor locations when they formed an exclusive four-year relationship with OMG. That helped the company grow tremendously. “We are now in over 550 distributor locations,” said Kevin. “We would not be where we are today without the tremendous partnership that we had with OMG. They believed in our product and were a key factor in us getting where we are today.”
Congratulations TUBOS on your 10-year anniversary! Learn more about TUBOS.
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