What’s Hot in Florida Roofing?

By Evelyn Witterholt. 

In a recent live episode of Coffee Conversations, RooferCoffeeShop® learned about the latest trends in the Florida roofing market. 

RoofersCoffeeShop hosted a live episode of Coffee Conversations at the Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Contractors Association (FRSA) 100th Annual Convention! There, Heidi J. Ellsworth spoke with industry leaders from Florida, and across the country, about their insights into the roofing market today. The group consisted of Trent Cotney from Adams and Reese, Kyron Schuch from Polyglass, John Kenney from Cotney Consulting Group and John Lombardo from Estimating Edge. 

The group began their discussion by talking about the current state of the roofing market in Florida and what trends we should be keeping an eye on. Kyron Schuch, the Southeast regional manager for Polyglass, describes the Florida roofing market as being very dynamic these days. Despite the U.S. experiencing a recession, Florida is still seeing an influx in construction jobs due to the growing number of people moving there. 

“As the country is borderline on a recession here, I think Florida's going to be the last one to really feel the impacts on the construction side,” Kyron said. “As you start to go into the inland areas, Myakka and places that historically haven't been built out, you're starting to see a lot of new development out there, and there's going to be very few pieces of land in Florida that are not developed kind of soon.”  

Despite the positive growth in the market, there are still some things that these leaders think roofers should be concerned about. Trent Cotney, partner at Adams and Reese, says that he’s keeping an eye on certain warning signs that come with this boom in business.  

“I'm starting to see...the uptick in lien claims and payment bond claims, which suggest that roofing contractors out there are starting to get slow pay or no pay type situations happening,” Trent said. “So I do think that there may be some rough waters ahead, but I think Florida is going to be insulated to a certain extent, just because it's one of the few places you can work 24/7, 365.” 

Much like the rest of the country, roofers in Florida are still facing material shortages. The group speaks highly of making the shortage situation work by finding adequate substitutions that still allow them to get the job done. But when making substitutions, they encourage you to be careful when doing so. Trent recommends getting approval upstream and downstream to ensure that you are in the clear to make the substitution. 

“Make sure that whatever substitutions you’ve made, that you're still in compliance with whatever the local code requirements are,” Trent said. “Florida has a very robust building code and NOA process, HVAC, hurricane requirements, all kinds of stuff. So as soon as you start tweaking and mixing stuff up, you potentially run into a problem.” 

Read, Listen or Watch the entire Coffee Conversation to learn more about the fast-growing roofing market in Florida. 

About Evelyn  

Evelyn works as a writer for RoofersCoffeeShop, AskARoofer and MetalCoffeeShop. When she isn’t writing about roofing, she’s either at the gym lifting weights or curled up on the couch watching a movie.