Jamie Simone and his wife, Taryn, were considering buying a new car this fall, but instead they decided to redo the roof on the house they purchased here in July.
It’s a curious decision. With its dilapidated red paint and worn-out, sheepskin-covered bucket seats, the 1981 Honda Civic that Simone drives to work at Saban Entertainment Inc. in Westwood–where he voice-directs children’s cartoons–doesn’t quite make the grade in the image-conscious entertainment industry.
And the roof doesn’t leak; the roofer who bid on the job even said so. Until lately, no rain of any quantity had fallen since February on this rustic, foothill bedroom community near Los Angeles.
“El Nino,” Simone said by way of explanation. “We never would have thought of getting our roof done if it wasn’t for all this hype.”
It’s the kind of thinking many in sun-baked Southern California understand. Across the arid Southland, homeowners like the Simones are stepping up their preparations for the onslaught of rain that is widely predicted to hit this winter due to the climactic condition called El Nino, a reversal of trade winds that warms Pacific currents and is expected to cause heavier precipitation across the southern U.S.
The rush to get roofing jobs done has created a mini-boom for roofers.
“It seems like as soon as August hit, we went from maybe getting one lead a day to getting six, seven, 10 leads,” said Brad Davis, general manager at Peterson Dean Inc., a large roofing contractor in Laguna Niguel, Calif.
Interest is so strong he’s having a hard time keeping up with job estimates, and some potential customers have become frustrated.
“People almost have a frenzy about them to get the stuff measured and get it done,” he said. “There’s not as much negotiation as there was a couple of months ago.”
The surge in roof repairs, combined with new-home demand, driven by a rebounding southern California economy, is squeezing the local supply of roofing materials. Many big manufacturers are on “allocation”–rationing deliveries to distributors because production can’t keep up with orders–said Abe Lopez, manager of Roofing Wholesale Inc. in Santa Ana, a supplier to roofers, retailers and consumers.
“Before, you could get truckloads in a couple of days; now you’ve got to wait three weeks to a month,” he said, adding that business is running 20 percent ahead of normal.
Late summer to early fall is the busiest time of year in the roofing business, as people get ready for the approaching winter. Californians, however, tend to let repairs go for as long as they can because of the dry climate, said Phil Fittante, business manager for Owens Corning’s western U.S. roofing business.
But all the El Nino publicity has caused California homeowners to move in step with customers in wetter parts of the country, he said. The sheer size of this awakening California market “has created some extra demand and put a lot of pressure on the entire system,” he said.
The tendency among distributors to keep inventories low has exacerbated the supply problem, Fittante said.
Because the early part of summer was slow, he said, wholesalers knew manufacturers had plenty of inventory on hand and were in no rush to order. When the crunch hit, the pipelines from manufacturers to distributors were empty.
Now, Owens Corning’s Compton, Calif., plant is running at full capacity, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with 12-to-14-day backlogs, Fittante said, although distributors aren’t on allocation.
Likewise, Elk Co. has its Shafter, Calif., plant running five days a week around the clock, said Richard J. Rosebery, chief financial officer of Elk’s parent, Elcor Corp. The company is reluctant to keep the plant running seven days because business usually begins to slow as the holidays approach. But Elk is preparing to supplement its California production with shipments from its Ennis, Texas, plant.
Rosebery didn’t know whether Elk has California deliveries on allocation, but he said demand has picked up sharply in the past two or three weeks, when summer storms dropped showers on parts of southern California.
The biggest windfall may be realized by roofers like Peterson Dean, which have seen spotty business for a few years in the challenging southern California economy. Peterson Dean’s Davis noted that many of the customers who are in such a hurry today have been putting off roofing repairs for years, trying to see how long they could last without them.
“People are smart to get their roofs done,” he said. “They would have been smarter to get it done two months ago, because everyone’s trying to get them done now.”
