That Roof that Lasts 100 Years
It’s called the EcoRoof, and it’s Penfolds Roofing's hottest seller. It accounts for a full 35 percent of the Vancouver-based custom roofer’s business, and it shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The magic of the EcoRoof is that it’s made of worn-out tires, ground up into granules to create a rubber roofing product that is impervious to splits, dents, or cracks, and is easy to clean if ever needed. Most important is that it is probably the only roof an owner will ever need to put on a building. Canadian Builders Quarterly sat down with the president of Penfolds, Ken Mayhew, to learn more about his innovative company.
CBQ: Before we get into the EcoRoof, let’s talk about how you got started with Penfolds Roofing.
Ken Mayhew: When I emigrated from South Africa about 23 years ago, I was looking for a business opportunity and settled on Penfolds. When I bought the company in 1990, it was a very small operation. But I knew roofing was a sought-after product, and the company over the years had built a very good name for itself.
CBQ: What kinds of changes did you make after you took over?
KM: One of the first things we did to grow the business was to take a bold step in computerizing the estimating process. That enabled me to bring in estimators who could relate to people well and understand their needs, as opposed to roofers who understood the technical aspects but didn’t necessarily understand the needs of customers.
We shopped around the world to see if there was an estimating program available but found nothing suitable. So, way back in about 1992, we wrote a custom program. It was a tracking system that incorporated estimating and proposals. Today, it’s the backbone of our company, and we employ two full-time IT personnel.
[The system] allows us to give accurate and consistent estimates, and control what’s going on in the field. This, combined with the fact that most of our installers are hourly paid employees, enables us to deliver a consistent, quality installation. Today, we have about 20 estimators working throughout our trading area.
CBQ: I hear you’re launching a new department.
KM: In the past, we’ve focused on replacement roofing, so this year we’ve created a division to handle new-roofing construction as well. It’s a different clientele. We now work with contractors and architects in addition to our continued renovation projects with individual homeowners, Strata complexes, and commercial roofing.
CBQ: What gives your products an edge in the market?
KM: Well, the biggest advantage for Penfolds is that most of the products we sell are either manufactured by us or for us. We’ve got our own fabricator that roll-forms metal for roofing right there on the jobsite so that we can install it immediately. That was a capital investment of about $100,000.
Also, we use laminated fibreglass shingles and laminated rubberized shingles, and we have two leading manufacturers who manufacture them for us under our Penfolds brand. On all these products, we offer our customers both the material and the workmanship warranty in one. The customer doesn’t have to worry whether there’s an application or a manufacturing problem; our company will take care of it all, “bumper to bumper.”
CBQ: Then there’s the crown jewel: the EcoRoof.
KM: Yes, the EcoRoof is manufactured in Calgary, and we have the exclusive rights to install it in British Columbia. This rubber product is actually manufactured from recycled tires, and it’s environmentally friendly. The tires are ground up into little pellets; then they extract the metal out of the “regrind,” as it’s called. It’s then shipped off and mixed with a colouring agent, to produce colours other than black, and injection-moulded to form the profile. The average home will take approximately 400 car tires out of the landfill.
CBQ: How is it applied?
KM: We have three different profiles for this roof. In British Columbia, cedar shakes are very sought after, so our most popular profile looks exactly like that. In fact, you can’t tell them apart. Another is moulded to look like a slate roof, and the third looks like concrete tile, which seems to be preferred in new construction. But they’re all made out of rubber. The panels are about three feet wide and 20 inches tall, and they lock into one another. Installation is very quick.
The benefit with the rubber is that it’s less expensive. You can walk on the roof without denting the panels, and they don’t crack. If you’re in an area with a high frequency of hail, it’s a real plus. With the EcoRoof, the average price to reroof a home is about $18,000. The average price for a new construction would be in the region of $15,000.
CBQ: Have you installed it for any notable projects?
KM: We’ve used this technology on a fairly well-known heritage building in the city: Ridgeview Elementary School in North Vancouver. They did a major renovation, and this was the roofing product chosen because it is LEED certified. The school roof was 10,000 square feet, and it took us about a month to complete in the rain.
CBQ: What’s the general life expectancy on your products?
KM: EcoRoof is a lifetime product. Once it’s up there, it’ll probably be the last roof that will ever go onto the home. It has a warranty of 50 years, but it would most likely be there for 100 years if the dwelling stands for that long.
