Raising the (Quality of Your) Roof with Larson Home Services

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Eight, seven thirteen ten Wi b A and ask the experts.
Hanging out this morning with Andrew Larson. Of course, Andrew
comes to us from Larsen Home Services their website larsenome
Services dot com. That's l A R. S O N
Home Services dot com. Delvi number six oh eight five
three five forty three forty three. That's six oh eight

(00:21):
five three five forty three forty three. Andrew, how you
doing on this little drizzly, dreary kind of morning. How
you feel in today?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You know I'm always fantastic, Yes, you know that I do.
It's hard to bring me down. I don't know. We
need to bottle it up. And you should try to
bottle it up and try to sell it emails.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And I think I think some full type of guy
Sean you are.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
And I think I think a lot of it has
to do with what you do professionally for folks that
don't know obviously Larsen Home Services your your company, your business.
And why I say that is you love what you do.
And I think what's what's probably helps you with your
positive attitude is you're actually helping people. Is there are
so many times where I know, like We've had storms

(01:06):
come through and other things where you and the team
at Largsentome Services have really come in and been able
to really help people when they need it most. And
that's one of the cool things about And I've had
obviously plenty of experience over the years of working with
you at Larsenome Services as well, and speaking of storms
and other events and things that can happen, is obviously
your roof does a lot of a lot of things,

(01:27):
and a lot of us just kind of, you know,
before I knew you, I just kind of looked at
it purely aesthetically of like, Okay, the roof looks nice.
Everything's good. I've learned over the years there's a lot
too roofing stuff I will never fully understand, but I'm
always impressed with what you and the crew at Larsenome
Services know. But roofing is and the roof itself, surprise, surprise,

(01:48):
is quite possibly the most vital part of your home,
isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
You know, it's funny you'd say, I love what I do.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
And we hear from people all the time where you know,
we put we put gutter shutter on their home and
they'll literally send us Christmas cards or thank you, let
thank you. I mean we should be the ones thanking them,
but they thank us. You know, I used to get
water in my basement when it rained if I didn't
keep them clean. And it's been two years and I
haven't even had to think about my gutters. I don't

(02:16):
get water in my basement anymore because we put gutter
shutter on and.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
It was designed properly.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
I was able to finish my basement off finally because
I don't have to worry about water getting in it.
And I've my or I've had my roof replaced twice
in the past twenty years, and something always went wrong
with it, and we've had a roof from you. I
don't have to worry about it like that's that's the goal.
That's what makes everyone here get up in the morning
and try hard. And I I truly believe that we

(02:45):
have this mentality of it doesn't matter who gets so
you're going to be successful when it doesn't matter who
gets credit for it. It's a team effort and that's
how we live every day.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
But enough about us. Yes, I wanted to.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Talk about roofing today because our guys run into there's
a lot of roofing competition, which is fine, which honestly
is great. I know a lot of roofers hate competition.
No competition is good. And the reason competition is good
is because it makes everybody involved have to be better.

(03:18):
And I get people ask me all the time, well,
you guys have your cleanup guarantee, your no nail guarantee,
your home protection guarantee, your job safety guarantee, And.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Why do you put that out there so much? Why
do you advertise it?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Because now I see a lot of our competitors advertising
the same thing. And back in the day when I
first started and we'd come up with these, I mean,
it's not like they were mind blowing. It's not like
I was starting SpaceX like Elon or something like that. Right,
It's not like I'm changing the world. But these little
things to make roofing better, make a better experience for homeowners.

(03:59):
I came to this realization that if we did it
better and people copied us, that meant that it was
going to be better experienced for more people, whether we
did their roof or not. And I think that roofing
has come a long long ways because of stuff like that.

(04:20):
I see our advertisements being copied. I see the way
that we do things being copied, and honestly, I'm kind
of proud of that, and we haven't suffered because of it.
So what I wanted to talk about was what people
should expect when trying to get a roof. Now, listen,
there are a bunch of people out there that still

(04:42):
are like, naw, a roof is a roof, I don't care.
Just give me the cheapest roof, slap some shingles on it. Great, Fine,
they're not our customer. That is not the person that
we are looking for. If we go to your house
and you're like my brother's cousin's uncle's sister's best friend,
can slap a roof on here for five grand, Hey,
I wish you the best of luck. That's not our customer.

(05:03):
We are looking for someone who truly cares about the process,
the experience, and the way things are done when we
do the critical details, because those are the most important things.
And I've been saying for as long as we've been
doing this show, you can put the most expensive shingles
in the world on your home, but if you don't
take care of the critical details, it will leak trust me.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
I've been through it all. We've been there, we've done that.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
We've had to change processes and procedures because certain people
don't want skylights replaced when they do their roof will.
Guess what with us, it's not an option because I've
been through it. If they don't get replaced after a
roof replacement, the chances of them leaking is highly likely.
It's just what they're meant to do. So when people
are getting an estimate for a roof, just make sure

(05:51):
that whoever you're getting an estimate from is going over everything,
because if they don't, you cannot hold them accountable if
something doesn't get done.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (06:04):
It does if they're not talking about the way they
lay the underlayment, or what they're using, or the ice
and water leak barrier and how much of it. If
they're not talking about step flashing, chimney flashing, chimney flashing, crickets,
starter strip. If they're not talking about that, there's a
good chance that they're not doing it, or they're not

(06:24):
doing as much of it as you want. How many
roofers don't talk about ventilation? I mean, ventilation is massive.
I can't tell you how many homes that we've went
to and people are like, oh, my roof is bad,
my roof is leaking, And it has nothing to do
with that, And it has everything to do with improper air, ceiling,
improper ventilation. And when in the middle of the winter

(06:45):
when we're heating our home, you're heating your home and
all of that hot air is going straight into the
attic and it's freezing cold. Your roof deck is you know,
ten degrees, it condensates and then it freezes and then
when it heats up from the sun, melts and it
drips everywhere. And so those are critical details and things

(07:05):
that need to be talked about. Yes, shingles need to
be talked about, shingle warranties, stuff like that. That's all important.
But unless everything that you everything that you can't see,
needs to be talked about, because that's the most important stuff.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
By the way, I haven't mentioned this to you. I
should have texted you this. We've had some work done
on our chimney and the mason was over the other
day and I was talking to him and he actually
commented on your flashing, like, isn't that thing is that's
on there? He's like he was. He was very impressed
by the work that your guys did putting that flashing

(07:42):
in and it's and that's a pretty amazing thing too.
And I've got a guest too, Andrew. With folks staying
in their homes longer, that's been really good for you
guys at Large Home Services. We talk about the type
of work and the type of projects that you guys
work on at Larst Home Services for folks that are
going to be staying in their houses longer and they
want a lasting roof and they want a lasting solution.

(08:03):
They're calling you. You're not the type of guy that, hey,
we're selling our house in two weeks, just do it
super cheap, Just throw some shingles on there, so in
the listing it can say new roof. Literally, with people
staying in their homes, they're calling you and saying, you
know what, we want to really make sure this is
gonna last.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
That's our customer.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, our customer is a person who cares about what
goes on their home. Because again, there's this old you know,
mantra of you know, the shingles are shingles.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
It is what it is.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Just slap some shingles on you know, put some shingles
over the old shingles. No, like, we can't do that,
And you just talked about that chimney. The chimney is
probably one of the biggest leak points that we see
now our roofers. They're amazing and we've had the same
roofing crew since twoenty ten. It has become a great relationship.

(08:50):
But there's only one or two guys on every crew
that can touch a chimney because it's that important. Yeah,
taking our chimney flashing off.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Is not easy.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
I mean, it is cut into the block, it is
bent properly, it is silicone properly. There's a process to that.
So those critical details are so important. And the other
thing that I always talk about is trying to put
products up there that aren't a throwaway product. And I
don't want to talk about specific shingle manufacturers anything like that,
but I mean, I truly believe that it's gotten to

(09:22):
a point where a lot of them shingles go bad
in fifteen years. Cool, Yeah, put some new ones on.
I don't like that. That's why we're always looking for
something better. That's why we're always trying to sell Class
four Impact rated shingles because one of the biggest things
that makes people get new shingles is hail. It doesn't
have to be that way. I can tell you this,
with all of these storms that we've had, We've went

(09:44):
back to dozens and dozens of our past customers in
those areas and they have had Class four armor shield
shingles put on zero damage. With everybody around them getting
new shingles, they have no damage. And that's what we're
trying to do. Another product that we really try to
push is f Wave. F Wave is basically it's almost
like a rubber shingle and it is thick and it

(10:06):
is strong and it seals down. Hail can't hurt it.
Sticks can't hurt it. I mean, I've had hail at
my house. I've had ninety mile an hour straight line winds.
I haven't had so much as a shingle lift. That
is a product where people are like, well, what can
go wrong with it? I have no idea, like it
can't have granular loss. I mean, what goes wrong with
the regular shingle is it starts to get baked, it

(10:29):
starts to have granular loss. Then the fiberglass matting starts
to show. Then it starts to curl and it's time
for a new shingle because it will leak with this.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
It can't do that now. Is it expensive?

Speaker 3 (10:40):
Oh yeah, yes it is. It is very expensive. Is
it for everyone? No, it's not. But for anybody who says,
I don't want to put a throw away roof on
my house. I want a roof that is going to
stand the test of time. It's going to get through
all of the storms. The armor shield shingles that we
offer an f Wave are that. That's the way I

(11:04):
would put nothing else on my house besides one of
those two products, because I know that they're gonna last
and they're going to last a really, really really long time.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
One of the things too, that I really appreciate, and
folks I hope that have had a chance to work
with you definitely echo this is options. You mentioned different
types of shingles, different applications, and it's really about talking
with homeowners about what best fits them, their budget, their
their plans. And that's a great thing too. It's no pressure.
It's a great day to call the folks are Storm Services.

(11:34):
Check out your Roughtel phone number six oh eight five
three five at forty three forty three. That's six oh
eight five three five four three four three. You can
learn more online the website Larsenhomeservices dot com. That's l
A R. S o N home Services dot com. Andrew,
it's always great catching up my friend. You enjoy this
beautiful day.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Will do it all again real soon, all right, talk
to you next week.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Kevin Hamhams Arbacare comes you way next right here thirteen
ten wib a