After Irma, Roofers’ Work Seems Endless

"The thing is we were all very busy before Irma.

A lot of this area was built up 30, 40 years ago and it's just time for all those roofs to get looked at. Then there's a lot of new construction happening, and that's not going to slow down because of this."

Steven Olesen

Sales manager for Saint Raphael Roofing

in Fort Myers

The day after Hurricane Irma passed, when water still shot up from broken mains and fallen trees covered most roads, Ken Kelly and a few of his roofers took a first peek around town.

They wanted to get some idea of how the shingles, tiles and tops of homes and buildings fared during one of the worst storms to hit Southwest Florida in decades.

"We thought that this was going to be a two-year storm," said Kelly, president of Kelly Roofing based in Bonita Springs.

And now, after more than four months, 26,000 calls for service, thousands of estimates and who knows how many hours of back-and-forth with insurance companies, Kelly still thinks his first estimate is about right: It will be two years before the roofs of Southwest Florida are back to their pre-Irma state.

"Luckily, the back half of that storm fell apart or it would have been worse," Kelly said. "But you can see all the work going on.

"Look for that time frame, for September or October 2019, for the majority of construction to wrap up."

The winds of Irma turned Florida in general and Southwest Florida in particular into a boom town for roofers.

The sheer amount of work to be done has led to higher prices and longer waits. Many local companies estimate it will take them about six weeks to schedule an estimate for a new client.

More and more companies from the east coast and northern Florida are sending roofers to capture some of the work.

Collier County typically issues 140 roofing permits a month, said Jamie French, deputy director of growth management.

In January, roofers pulled 1,548 permits.

"That's a 1,000 percent increase over what's typical," French said. "That shows that our reputable, local guys are taking in as much work as they can handle.

"When there's that much work, there is going to be a shortage of qualified skilled labor."

Whenever there is a shortage of labor, expect prices to increase, French said.

Lee County faces the same crunch.

In December 2016, roofers pulled 198 permits. In the December after Irma, 1,174 were issued.

With wait times, prices and uncertainty over how much insurers will cover, it can be a headache for homeowners trying to rebuild.

Linda Davis, who has lived in the Vineyards community in North Naples since 2001, had to shuffle through several companies before finding one she trusted.

One roofer asked for a deposit before anyone would come out to even give an estimate.

At one point, her homeowners association tried to negotiate a bulk contract to get all the damaged roofs in her neighborhood repaired, but that fell through. Another asked her to sign a form, giving the company the right to seek direct payment from her insurer. She didn't feel comfortable giving up control.

After about a month of searching, Davis found a roofer in October and sat on their waiting list for more than a month. But while the new roof was finished less than a week ago, Davis' insurance company has refused to cover it, a decision Davis is appealing.

Despite her headaches, Davis said she's fortunate to have a new roof, because many of her neighbors are still waiting for replacements.

"It's just much more work than there are people that are there to do it," Davis said. "If there was a flu pandemic and everyone had to go to the hospital at the same time, our hospitals would not handle that. It's kind of the same with the roofing."

While Irma caused more damage than past hurricanes, such as Wilma in 2005, the biggest reason for the delays is a big change in the way insurers are handling claims, Kelly said.

For past hurricanes, most insurance companies would give an estimate for the damage, cut a check for that amount and wish their client good luck, he said.

That would encourage homeowners to fix their roofs for the cheapest possible amount as quickly as possible, and then pocket the difference.

After this storm, however, more insurance companies are accounting for depreciation in the value of the roof and cutting checks for much less than what it would cost to replace them. Homeowners and roofers then have to come back with receipts or new cost estimates to show that more work needed to be done, Kelly said.

It's not necessarily a bad development for homeowners, Kelly said.

"This is the paradigm shift that needs to occur in our minds," he said.

"Back in the day, you'd look for the cheapest contractor hoping to pocket the difference. Today you can find the most expensive roofer, the top roofer who will do the best job, because the insurer will cover it once we prove the settlement was less than you deserve."

While the demand for work could create an opportunity for scams, the Collier County Sheriff's Office has only received a handful of complaints regarding contractors.

Few, if any, have been about roofers specifically, said Sgt. Brian Sawyer of the financial crimes bureau.

"It's a big concern, not just for our jurisdiction but for most places in Florida," Sawyer said. "But when you look at the level of the disaster we went through, overall we're faring pretty well."

The wait times can be frustrating for the roofers as well as clients, said Steven Olesen, sales manager for Saint Raphael Roofing in Fort Myers.

"The big thing is we want to communicate and be up front about it," Olesen said. "It will take six to eight weeks to set up an appointment."

Saint Raphael has been working on an average of 150 clients a week since the storm, he said.

Like Kelly, Olesen believes it will take two years to complete all of the work that needs to be done in the Fort Myers and Naples areas.

"The thing is we were all very busy before Irma," Olesen said. "A lot of this area was built up 30, 40 years ago and it's just time for all those roofs to get looked at. Then there's a lot of new construction happening and that's not going to slow down because of this."

There are homeowners out there who will need work done, but don't know it yet.

Once the rainy season starts, Olesen said, he expects a new influx of calls about roofs that looked OK but were actually compromised in the storm.

"Shingles especially can lift and break, but you can't always see it from the street," he said. "Just know that we're trying to respond as fast as we can."

"The thing is we were all very busy before Irma.

A lot of this area was built up 30, 40 years ago and it's just time for all those roofs to get looked at. Then there's a lot of new construction happening, and that's not going to slow down because of this."

Steven Olesen

Sales manager for Saint Raphael Roofing

in Fort Myers