April 11, 2025 • 10 mins
Maine’s spring season can bring coastal storms and brutal winds which doesn’t just test homes—it tests resolve of property owners. In this episode, we sit down with David Wallace, co-founder of Wallace Roofing, a family-owned leader protecting Southern and Coastal Maine homes for over 20 years. For David, a roof isn’t just a structure—it’s a lifeline.
In this episode you’ll learn survival strategies as a new homeowners as Dave lays out his “Peace of Mind” Blueprint on why you should stay proactive on maintenance. Get actionable, local wisdom.The episode is perfect for New Maine homeowners, coastal dwellers, or anyone who’s ever Googled “how to survive a Spring Nor’easter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, let's move to Maine today. We're talking about springtime
in Maine and home readiness, and with us is Dave
Wallace from Wallace Roofing in Maine, Wallace Roofingaine.com, in fact,
is the website. Hello Dave, thanks for spending time with us.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, hi, Mark, thank you very much. Yeah, we're excited
to talk about uh moving to Maine, you know, let's
uh have a good conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Indeed. So, for the winter of 2024 2025, how would
you compare that to, say, the last couple of winters
in the state of
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Maine? Uh, this, this past winter we had abundance of snow,
we had abundance of rain, we've had
Quite a few cold days, so it has done a
toll on some homes in Maine due to the ever
changing weather that we have here in New
England.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Lisa, the young lady who facilitates the interviews, wrote it
out as, and I'm quoting here, Maine's spring is a
battleground between lingering winter and early summer, which is the
nicest way I've ever heard mud season described.
But that's basically what we're talking about, isn't it, Dave?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes, I mean, we're still in mud season right now.
We actually are doing a roof in the local area
and today it's been snowing pretty much all morning. So, uh,
I don't think winter's quite ready to go away.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
No, no, it is not. And you mentioned that that
this past winter in particular had been a little bit
colder and and a little bit stronger than the previous
couple of winters. What are some of the things that
a rough winter can damage on the exterior of a home?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, basically, the, the biggest damage is the wind damage.
So when you have uh high winds like we've had,
you know, this past winter, you get loose shingles, missing shingles,
siding blowing off, trim blowing off. I mean, we're getting
a lot of calls for a lot of repair work
due to the uh severe winter wind that we had
this winter, not necessarily snow or rain, but the wind
(01:52):
does a serious damage.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Talk a little bit about uh ice buildup, in particular
ice buildup as it relates to the gutters on your home.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, we talked about the ice dams last time, uh, Mark,
and a lot of times it is caused from lack
of insulation in the attic or poor ventilation in the attic.
I dams form, what happens is you get an area
at the back of the house to say it doesn't
get any sun all winter long.
And it melts a little bit, then it freezes back up,
(02:21):
then it melts again, freezes back up. That's what's causing
the ice dams. To prevent a lot of ice dams,
what you can do is add additional insulation in the
attic or, uh, you know, double check your ventilation on
the home itself. Obviously, snow and snow and rain does
affect your shingles long term. It's not, you know, one
or two winter storms that are gonna affect it, but
(02:42):
it's a, a long-term effect from
I back up. When you get water in the house,
obviously it could be a shingle issue, but 90% of
the time it's a ventilation issue or an insulation issue,
I should say.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
If you drive around in a neighborhood shortly after a snowstorm, you,
you can usually tell by the amount of snow that
is or is not on the rooftops as to which
houses are better insulated because if the snow has already melted,
that means you're losing a lot of heat through that roof, right?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, absolutely. Or if they have a metal roof, it's
gonna melt a lot faster than it would be on
a shingle roof, but uh definitely if you've got snow
up there and it's not melting and very fast, your
insulation is pretty well up there.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And as we transition to springtime in Maine, when that
snow does eventually melt off the roof, uh, what about
things that you find underneath the snow after the uh
the fact and after the cold weather has gone?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
doing an inspection on the roof, Mark,
Speaker 1 (03:38):
a roof inspection as far as damage or moss or
algae or anything that is left over that survived under
the snow blanket. So
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I, I tell people a couple of things. The easiest
way to inspect your roof is to walk around the
home and see if there's anything on the ground. Then
obviously you can look up and see if the shingles
that are missing or loose or if any of the
ridge cap is blown off. You're going to have some
debris on the ground.
most likely somewhere. That's an indication you've got some shingle
issues up there. And
Speaker 1 (04:07):
should those homeowners hang on to that debris for you
to take a look at? Yeah, I
Speaker 2 (04:11):
mean that that's definitely helpful, but they should definitely get
a roof inspection. Most roofing companies now are doing free
roof inspections or free estimates, if you will, so it
doesn't hurt to get somebody out there that has a
safe ladder and that can actually get on the roof. Uh,
we're actually using.
A lot of drones now to do inspections as well,
don't even have to get on the roof anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You know, I would think it would go without saying,
but I'm going to say it anyway, as Dave said,
you want a professional roof inspection and beyond a safe ladder,
you don't ever want to hire anybody that is not
properly insured to be walking around on your rooftop. Correct.
Let's talk a little bit about the wind and the
cold that you mentioned during the the winter months. Uh,
(04:53):
there's a fair amount of
in the state of Maine and and that wind sometimes
coming across the ocean, what kind of damage can that
do right along the immediate coast? Well,
Speaker 2 (05:02):
again, it's it's not even just on the coast mark,
it's inland as well. If you get 40, 50 mile
an hour winds, which we have had this past winter,
you're going to see some shingle damage and some losses.
We do do a few more things now to prevent
that from happening as much. We do what we call
hurricane nailing.
Or we do uh uh high wind nailing. So we'll
(05:24):
talk about 20 years ago we used to put 4
nails per shingle. Now most installers are putting 6 nails
per shingle, which is certainly helping the wind loss. And
then another thing we do, it's called ice and water
shield that.
Underneath the shingles, we are using a lot more of that.
So if a shingle does blow off, you have that
secondary thing that will stop you from leaking to get
(05:46):
in the house so you get the shingles repaired. So
Speaker 1 (05:48):
there's a layer between the shingle and the actual rooftop
uh material, whether it's wood or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yes, correct. We call it a safety net. It's called
ice and water shield. It's a sticky back goes underneath
the
shingles.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
All right, let's talk a little bit about uh some
of the services that that Wallace Roofing offers to, uh,
homeowners in the state of Maine. What what's the difference
between the regular gutter and a
Seamless gutter.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
So a seamless gutter, we actually have a machine that
makes the gutter to specifically fit your house. So let's
just say you have a cape that's 36 ft long
in the front. We can actually make the gutter that
is completely one piece to go all the way across
the front of the house.
Now, when you go to the big box stores or
the big lumber yards, they sell gutter by the foot,
(06:36):
which comes in 10 ft pieces because they can't truck
that down the road, they have to sell it that way.
So now you've got every 10 ft, you have a seam.
Uh, that has the potential for a leak, uh, instead
of having a one piece gutter across the front of
the house.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
All right, and, and what about siding on, on a
home in the state of Maine? Is there a difference
in siding that you would recommend for somebody along the
coastline versus somebody further inland?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, it, it also depends on what you want for
a look of the house. Uh, almost every siding has
some kind of maintenance to it. Whether it needs to
be painted, if it's wood siding, or if it's a
composite siding. Uh, now vinyl siding, it's come a long
ways in the last 25 years. The warranties are better.
They still need to be washed every couple of years
(07:22):
or at least inspected because this stuff does blow off.
I mean, it is, we, we do live in Maine.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
What would you consider to be the most durable siding
product for a home?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, cost effective is gonna be vinyl siding, and that's
when you see about 90% of their homes in Maine now.
Most people want maintenance free, they don't want to paint.
They don't want to have to do anything for 25 years.
So vinyl siding is the most cost effective. They're coming
out with a lot more PVC siding now that is
still pricey, but again, it's durable, no maintenance, no painting,
(07:58):
no staining, and they have a lot of nice looking
products out there now that are.
That are more durable than they used to be.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And Dave, how about the service area for Wallace roofing?
How far do you go around uh your central location
in gray?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Uh, we're based out of gray. I actually live down
the Lyman, so we pretty much go an hour from
gray or Lyman, which covers from uh whisk acid to Kittery.
And pretty much everywhere in between and then of course
we go inland as far as Freiburg, North Conway, stuff
like
that.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And one town over from Gray, there used to be
the frozen custard stand that closed down a couple of
years ago at New Gloucester and it broke my heart
when it closed down.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Frozen custard, unfortunately it's been closed for a couple of years. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (08:44):
that killed me when that happened, Dave.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, I know the owner very well. We actually did
the roof on the custard building a couple of years ago.
It's funny you said that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That's funny.
All right, Wallace Roofing Maine.com is the website, Wallace Roofingaine.com, and,
and Dave, uh, in these somewhat turbulent times, any supply
chain issues that you're having at this stage of the
game or any advice to people that might be considering
a roofing project?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So here's what we're telling our customers right now. The
minute we get the job or the order, we order
the material. Right now we're staying ahead of the tariffs,
we're staying ahead of the
Minor price increases. We've all got price increases, normal 6, 7%.
So we're staying ahead of that curve, but the best
thing I can tell people is don't wait. We're only
(09:35):
worried about the tariffs. The rest of the price increases
are what they are. Right now availability is OK.
There's two things that are going to determine what the
availability is. One is going to be the tariffs. The
second one is all these storms that they have down
south and in the Midwest takes a lot of material
away because it's more of an emergency than we need
it up here in Maine. Also, all the fires in
(09:57):
California are going to affect, you know, material availability. So
as far as I understand, the United States is ramping
up production on every single item that we make in the.
States, so hopefully it's not going to affect us long term,
if anything at all. We do know all metal prices
are going to be going up. Anything that's aluminum, metal roofing,
because of a lot of it's coming out of Canada,
(10:19):
we're all worried a little bit. People are still going
to have to get their job done. It's just a
matter of what it's going to cost everybody.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Dave Wallace, Wallace Roofing talking about springtime in Maine and
making sure your home is weather tight. As always, we
thank you for spending your time with us. All right, Mark,
we appreciate it.
Once again, the website Wallace Roofingaine.com for let's move to Maine,
I'm Mark Erickson.
Well, let's move to Maine today. We're talking about springtime
in Maine and home readiness, and with us is Dave
Wallace from Wallace Roofing in Maine, Wallace Roofingaine.com, in fact,
is the website. Hello Dave, thanks for spending time with us.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, hi, Mark, thank you very much. Yeah, we're excited
to talk about uh moving to Maine, you know, let's
uh have a good conversation.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Indeed. So, for the winter of 2024 2025, how would
you compare that to, say, the last couple of winters
in the state of
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Maine? Uh, this, this past winter we had abundance of snow,
we had abundance of rain, we've had
Quite a few cold days, so it has done a
toll on some homes in Maine due to the ever
changing weather that we have here in New
England.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Lisa, the young lady who facilitates the interviews, wrote it
out as, and I'm quoting here, Maine's spring is a
battleground between lingering winter and early summer, which is the
nicest way I've ever heard mud season described.
But that's basically what we're talking about, isn't it, Dave?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yes, I mean, we're still in mud season right now.
We actually are doing a roof in the local area
and today it's been snowing pretty much all morning. So, uh,
I don't think winter's quite ready to go away.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
No, no, it is not. And you mentioned that that
this past winter in particular had been a little bit
colder and and a little bit stronger than the previous
couple of winters. What are some of the things that
a rough winter can damage on the exterior of a home?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, basically, the, the biggest damage is the wind damage.
So when you have uh high winds like we've had,
you know, this past winter, you get loose shingles, missing shingles,
siding blowing off, trim blowing off. I mean, we're getting
a lot of calls for a lot of repair work
due to the uh severe winter wind that we had
this winter, not necessarily snow or rain, but the wind
(01:52):
does a serious damage.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Talk a little bit about uh ice buildup, in particular
ice buildup as it relates to the gutters on your home.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Yeah, we talked about the ice dams last time, uh, Mark,
and a lot of times it is caused from lack
of insulation in the attic or poor ventilation in the attic.
I dams form, what happens is you get an area
at the back of the house to say it doesn't
get any sun all winter long.
And it melts a little bit, then it freezes back up,
(02:21):
then it melts again, freezes back up. That's what's causing
the ice dams. To prevent a lot of ice dams,
what you can do is add additional insulation in the
attic or, uh, you know, double check your ventilation on
the home itself. Obviously, snow and snow and rain does
affect your shingles long term. It's not, you know, one
or two winter storms that are gonna affect it, but
(02:42):
it's a, a long-term effect from
I back up. When you get water in the house,
obviously it could be a shingle issue, but 90% of
the time it's a ventilation issue or an insulation issue,
I should say.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
If you drive around in a neighborhood shortly after a snowstorm, you,
you can usually tell by the amount of snow that
is or is not on the rooftops as to which
houses are better insulated because if the snow has already melted,
that means you're losing a lot of heat through that roof, right?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yes, absolutely. Or if they have a metal roof, it's
gonna melt a lot faster than it would be on
a shingle roof, but uh definitely if you've got snow
up there and it's not melting and very fast, your
insulation is pretty well up there.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
And as we transition to springtime in Maine, when that
snow does eventually melt off the roof, uh, what about
things that you find underneath the snow after the uh
the fact and after the cold weather has gone?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
doing an inspection on the roof, Mark,
Speaker 1 (03:38):
a roof inspection as far as damage or moss or
algae or anything that is left over that survived under
the snow blanket. So
Speaker 2 (03:46):
I, I tell people a couple of things. The easiest
way to inspect your roof is to walk around the
home and see if there's anything on the ground. Then
obviously you can look up and see if the shingles
that are missing or loose or if any of the
ridge cap is blown off. You're going to have some
debris on the ground.
most likely somewhere. That's an indication you've got some shingle
issues up there. And
Speaker 1 (04:07):
should those homeowners hang on to that debris for you
to take a look at? Yeah, I
Speaker 2 (04:11):
mean that that's definitely helpful, but they should definitely get
a roof inspection. Most roofing companies now are doing free
roof inspections or free estimates, if you will, so it
doesn't hurt to get somebody out there that has a
safe ladder and that can actually get on the roof. Uh,
we're actually using.
A lot of drones now to do inspections as well,
don't even have to get on the roof anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
You know, I would think it would go without saying,
but I'm going to say it anyway, as Dave said,
you want a professional roof inspection and beyond a safe ladder,
you don't ever want to hire anybody that is not
properly insured to be walking around on your rooftop. Correct.
Let's talk a little bit about the wind and the
cold that you mentioned during the the winter months. Uh,
(04:53):
there's a fair amount of
in the state of Maine and and that wind sometimes
coming across the ocean, what kind of damage can that
do right along the immediate coast? Well,
Speaker 2 (05:02):
again, it's it's not even just on the coast mark,
it's inland as well. If you get 40, 50 mile
an hour winds, which we have had this past winter,
you're going to see some shingle damage and some losses.
We do do a few more things now to prevent
that from happening as much. We do what we call
hurricane nailing.
Or we do uh uh high wind nailing. So we'll
(05:24):
talk about 20 years ago we used to put 4
nails per shingle. Now most installers are putting 6 nails
per shingle, which is certainly helping the wind loss. And
then another thing we do, it's called ice and water
shield that.
Underneath the shingles, we are using a lot more of that.
So if a shingle does blow off, you have that
secondary thing that will stop you from leaking to get
(05:46):
in the house so you get the shingles repaired. So
Speaker 1 (05:48):
there's a layer between the shingle and the actual rooftop
uh material, whether it's wood or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Yes, correct. We call it a safety net. It's called
ice and water shield. It's a sticky back goes underneath
the
shingles.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
All right, let's talk a little bit about uh some
of the services that that Wallace Roofing offers to, uh,
homeowners in the state of Maine. What what's the difference
between the regular gutter and a
Seamless gutter.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
So a seamless gutter, we actually have a machine that
makes the gutter to specifically fit your house. So let's
just say you have a cape that's 36 ft long
in the front. We can actually make the gutter that
is completely one piece to go all the way across
the front of the house.
Now, when you go to the big box stores or
the big lumber yards, they sell gutter by the foot,
(06:36):
which comes in 10 ft pieces because they can't truck
that down the road, they have to sell it that way.
So now you've got every 10 ft, you have a seam.
Uh, that has the potential for a leak, uh, instead
of having a one piece gutter across the front of
the house.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
All right, and, and what about siding on, on a
home in the state of Maine? Is there a difference
in siding that you would recommend for somebody along the
coastline versus somebody further inland?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, it, it also depends on what you want for
a look of the house. Uh, almost every siding has
some kind of maintenance to it. Whether it needs to
be painted, if it's wood siding, or if it's a
composite siding. Uh, now vinyl siding, it's come a long
ways in the last 25 years. The warranties are better.
They still need to be washed every couple of years
(07:22):
or at least inspected because this stuff does blow off.
I mean, it is, we, we do live in Maine.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
What would you consider to be the most durable siding
product for a home?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Well, cost effective is gonna be vinyl siding, and that's
when you see about 90% of their homes in Maine now.
Most people want maintenance free, they don't want to paint.
They don't want to have to do anything for 25 years.
So vinyl siding is the most cost effective. They're coming
out with a lot more PVC siding now that is
still pricey, but again, it's durable, no maintenance, no painting,
(07:58):
no staining, and they have a lot of nice looking
products out there now that are.
That are more durable than they used to be.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
And Dave, how about the service area for Wallace roofing?
How far do you go around uh your central location
in gray?
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Uh, we're based out of gray. I actually live down
the Lyman, so we pretty much go an hour from
gray or Lyman, which covers from uh whisk acid to Kittery.
And pretty much everywhere in between and then of course
we go inland as far as Freiburg, North Conway, stuff
like
that.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
And one town over from Gray, there used to be
the frozen custard stand that closed down a couple of
years ago at New Gloucester and it broke my heart
when it closed down.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Frozen custard, unfortunately it's been closed for a couple of years. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (08:44):
that killed me when that happened, Dave.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, I know the owner very well. We actually did
the roof on the custard building a couple of years ago.
It's funny you said that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
That's funny.
All right, Wallace Roofing Maine.com is the website, Wallace Roofingaine.com, and,
and Dave, uh, in these somewhat turbulent times, any supply
chain issues that you're having at this stage of the
game or any advice to people that might be considering
a roofing project?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
So here's what we're telling our customers right now. The
minute we get the job or the order, we order
the material. Right now we're staying ahead of the tariffs,
we're staying ahead of the
Minor price increases. We've all got price increases, normal 6, 7%.
So we're staying ahead of that curve, but the best
thing I can tell people is don't wait. We're only
(09:35):
worried about the tariffs. The rest of the price increases
are what they are. Right now availability is OK.
There's two things that are going to determine what the
availability is. One is going to be the tariffs. The
second one is all these storms that they have down
south and in the Midwest takes a lot of material
away because it's more of an emergency than we need
it up here in Maine. Also, all the fires in
(09:57):
California are going to affect, you know, material availability. So
as far as I understand, the United States is ramping
up production on every single item that we make in the.
States, so hopefully it's not going to affect us long term,
if anything at all. We do know all metal prices
are going to be going up. Anything that's aluminum, metal roofing,
because of a lot of it's coming out of Canada,
(10:19):
we're all worried a little bit. People are still going
to have to get their job done. It's just a
matter of what it's going to cost everybody.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Dave Wallace, Wallace Roofing talking about springtime in Maine and
making sure your home is weather tight. As always, we
thank you for spending your time with us. All right, Mark,
we appreciate it.
Once again, the website Wallace Roofingaine.com for let's move to Maine,
I'm Mark Erickson.
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