Everything you need to know about Damp and Water Proofing

 

Rob: Hey Lorenzo, how you doing?

Lorenzo: Okay. Okay, fine. This is good. Let me turn this off. Did you hear me?

Rob: I can hear you just fine, Lorenzo. Continue.

Lorenzo: We're all done.

Rob: You got your IT department working on it, huh?

Woman: Can you hear us?

Rob: Yeah, I can hear you guys pretty clear.

Lorenzo: Okay, Cool. Jesus! Send me to do a roof. I'll be a lot faster and more accurate.

Rob: Yeah, it's always... I feel like with all the different chat features out there and video conferencing these days it's hard to keep track of all of them. But yeah, thank you again Lorenzo for taking the time to jump on this webinar for us. You know, hopefully it can lead to a really fruitful educational experience for all our customers who are joining today who hopefully this makes their job when selecting roofing material a little bit easier and also give them a good opportunity to learn a bit more about waterproofing and everything that goes into it.

So, without further ado, we'll jump right into it. Just as a quick little intro, as far as an agenda goes, we'll do a quick intro ourselves, give you an opportunity, Lorenzo, to speak really quickly about your company and everything you guys do. Then jump into some of the materials, some of the warranty and maintenance items that are there on roof. We'll jump quickly into solar just talking to about five minutes or so about kind of high-level information there is and how it potentially affects roofing. We'll talk about gutters and downspouts quickly and then jump into maybe some additional waterproofing topics. Hopefully that sounds all good. Awesome.

First thing, a little bit about us. For those of you who don't know who we are, we're Livio. We're a general contractor out of the San Francisco Bay Area and we specialize in building beautiful, custom single family homes. And we can start all the way from the very beginning of the project all the way through the very end working on a fixed fee contract with a guaranteed completion date. Part of our success and a very large portion of our success is partnering with some of the best and most renowned subcontractors in the area, which leads us to great people like Lorenzo and Anbe Roofing, who we've been partnering with for quite some time. We're a distributed team. Part of our operations are in India and then obviously, Los Altos is our main office where all of our projects are at the moment.

We have a large distributed team that allows us to vertically integrate a lot of the design process, a lot of the engineering efforts, and a lot of the day-to-day tasks of procurement, site logistics, and everything that goes into running a successful project. Our leadership team, Navneet Aron, most of you probably know, myself, Jason Hogin, and Manju, who probably a lot of the customers have been speaking a lot to Manju recently. So, good to have you all here. A little bit about our team, I mentioned we have a large distributed team, just from a recent party. They attribute to all of our success. Without further ado, Lorenzo, if you don't mind, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and the company, how long you've been doing this?

Lorenzo: I've been a roofer for over 30 years and I have experience in all materials. I've got no limits when it comes to install a roof. I started up a company long time ago and I was a partner with someone for 12 years. Then I decided to go apart and started my own company. It's been over four years of [inaudible 00:06:53]. Worked together for over three years. This is where we're at now. We've have preselected all roofers. I have roofers bear with me for over 20 years and I don't change my...

Rob: If it ain't broken don't fix it.

Lorenzo: Exactly. That's how basically who Anbe Roofing is.

Rob: Awesome. What sort of projects do you guys do? Obviously, we use you on many of our residential projects. But do you guys do anything else?

Lorenzo: We have done some projects. Like I said earlier, we don't have limits. We go from slate all the way to our commercial roofs like shingles and standing seam, that is our specialty.

Rob: Nice.

Lorenzo: Yeah. We've been awarded with a number of manufacturers. They've picked us up to be a leader of their installers.

Rob: Awesome. What's your secret for all your five-star reviews on all these platforms?

Lorenzo: I know you will get that. Yes, our secret is simple. Stay on top and answering your phone every time. If somebody has a concern, sit down and go over it and for the most part you'll find a solution. And that's basically it. Have service. I'm very proud of what we do and that's how we stay above the rest of the companies out there.

Rob: Awesome. Awesome. Well, I guess we'll jump into kind of a really high-level overview if this works. Give me one second. Let me go ahead and I'm going to reload this. I'm going to reload this, hopefully the images will appear now. Fingers crossed. We're not having very good luck with technologies today. Are we, Lorenzo?

Lorenzo: I hope it gets better to the...

Rob: Yeah, we can only improve from here, right?

Lorenzo: Exactly. I don't think it will go worse.

Rob: Let's try it one more time. Present. Hopefully, this works now. Awesome. All right. Lorenzo, you can see my screen? Okay. It's great.

Lorenzo: Yes.

Rob: Okay, awesome. So, high level, what is roofing? You've got your substrate for your framing, whatever substrate it might be. And we'll get into flat roofs versus sloped roofs and all that stuff. But I guess in every roofing system, there's some sort of waterproofing layer between whatever substrate you have and the roofing material itself. Is that more or less fair to say?

Lorenzo: Yes. For the most part, we call it a moisture barrier. And that's basically the scientific name behind the whole purpose. It's just a weather barrier is.

Rob: Awesome. Awesome. Okay, so we'll, jump into maybe some more of the details here. We're going to start with just talking about the roofing materials that you'd find on a sloped roof. Can you talk me through what's this type of roofing material? Where have you seen it used? What are some of the advantages? It'd be great to hear your input.

Lorenzo: Yeah. So, a lot of people have been misinformed about the standing seam, if you ask me.

Rob: This is a standing seam metal, right?

Lorenzo: Correct. That's the one on my left-hand side. People have been misinformed thinking that metal roof standing seam it's noisy because they think metal when it says raining is going to be very loud, which is totally opposite. It's really, really soft. You can hardly hear anything that lands especially rain, even if the rains hard. Durability wise, it's probably the most durable material out there, the more reliable material out there. I mentioned that it's Title 24. Their SRI solar reflectivity index is probably the highest on the market when it comes to pitched roof. 

Rob: Yeah, solar reflectivity, can you talk me through? How is that important when selecting a roof?

Lorenzo: Well, looking at the black roof, people would think black roofs absorbs the heat and then all that heat is going to end up inside the house. It's exactly the opposite. Even though it's a black roof, most of the edge UV that comes, it bounces back.

Rob: Got it. And you mentioned Title 24, which is energy law in California. But how does SRI affect potentially compliance to building code?

Lorenzo: Well, tremendously because for the most part here in the Bay Area, people are looking to make it green, as green as possible on the building itself. So, you need to comply with Title 24. It's more efficient.

Rob: Got it. So, higher reflectivity like your HVAC system or any other system needs to work essentially.

Lorenzo: That is the best.

Rob: Okay. Got it Got it. Got it. Okay. All right. What sort of projects are you guys utilizing metal standing seam? Is it mostly modern houses? Can you kind of give me an idea for those consumers who are wondering…?

Lorenzo: Yes. This is new on the Bay Area. Pretty the past 10 years starting to increase tremendously more modern homes. People are getting educated about it and they know it's the best for the roof. Longevity and appearance I think it looks great, if you ask me and people are bending more towards standing seam on the pitched roof.

Rob: We talked about metal standing seam roofs. I guess my other question is, what about colors? All colors, all options?

Lorenzo: There's a selection of colors like up to 30 of them.

Rob: Awesome. Asphalt shingle, I think most people are probably familiar with asphalt shingle roofs. But can you tell me a little bit about asphalt shingle roof, where you see them being utilized the most often? Any inputs you might have when a homeowner is kind of weighing the options between all the different materials that might be out there.

Lorenzo: The shingles are more affordable than almost any other material out there on the market. However, when they have a house, it's not even visible to anyone on the street. So why spend thousands of dollars in any other material if it's not going to be looked up from anybody. What I have noticed people install shingles where there is either solar system on so they can work on it. They have to worry about how they're going to break it or slide. And also, it's a great combination. You can do a hybrid roof. So, where you can see you can do a standing seam metal, do a little position and then the rest of the shingles. It is a great product. I mean, it's been around for hundreds of years.

Rob: Awesome. A product that you don't see around here as often anyway, shake roofing. Can you tell me a little bit about shake roofing? Where might be used? Where you guys have installed it?

Lorenzo: Yes. Okay. Great question. Shakes or loose shingles, it's a very pristine roof. It's actually a cool roof because it will keep your house cool. However, is not very functional because most of the areas that you and I have worked on there are a lot of forests. People are afraid of fires, right? Most of the shakes and wood shingles will not meet a criteria where you have to be fire rated.

Rob: Got it.

Lorenzo: So, you have to comply with Class A, which means that you have to end it up doing a DensDeck after the substrate to keep the fire away in case of a fire.

Rob: So essentially, that membrane that you were mentioning before, this material here you'd essentially have to get your fire rating from this material since this material doesn't have any value?

Lorenzo: You're correct.

Rob: Got it. Okay. Jumping into some of the other materials that might be out there slate, clay concrete, maybe you can kind of talk about them? You know, however you want to split it up it'd be great to kind of hear your opinion on the different options that are out there and when you advise consumers to choose one versus the other.

Lorenzo: Yeah, well it's a big change from a slate to clay. Clay is more of a modern home on this part of the world, if you ask me. And there's a great variety of choices now. What you're looking at right there, you can't really tell if it's synthetic or a real slate. And now they have two brands out there DaVinci and Boral which are two brands well known for synthetic. They look just like a slate, and durability longevity is the same thing. They have a 50-year warranty and for a real slate it's a lifetime.

Rob: Yeah, slate is not going anywhere. For the Boral product or one of the composite materials that imitate slate, is it more comparable in cost to an asphalt shingle or is it more comparable in cost to like a standing seam metal roof?

Lorenzo: It could triple the price versus shingles.

Rob: Wow, okay. Got it. Okay. And what about clay versus concrete? I guess we see it most often in like an S tile sort of shape like you see here. What are the considerations to make if deciding between clay and concrete?

Lorenzo: A couple things. If you're going to install a solar system on your roof, and I will say stay away from both of them. Or do inlay where you do shingles around and then you finish up with your tile their surroundings just in case you need to work on your solar, you don't have to worry about breakage as they do break, especially if you're a little over circular like me, you'd end up breaking those tiles. Clay whenever it's close to the Bay Area, where there's no sun, there's a lot of shade, is a great product to have if you want the beauty because you can always pressure wash it 10 years down the road and you still have the same color. It's [inaudible 00:20:01] versus the concrete.

Rob: Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. Anything else you think that should be discussed, I guess in this slide? We're going to jump into kind of a comparison chart between them here, which will hopefully give people a little bit of a rundown. It's probably not completely biased. I think it was produced by a concrete roof tile company. At least from your feedback, of the materials that we've looked at here, as far as the lifespan goes.

Lorenzo: When you compare most of the materials, especially shingles and tiles are only good if your underlayment is done correctly. I've been on a roof where there are only 15 years old and they're already leaking because the underlayment that was installed it was not done up to the 75-year or 50-year. You can have a great product, but if you don't have the right components, it's just irrelevant.

Rob: Got it. Got it. One thing that we talked about a little bit when it came to metal was kind of the different color options that are out there. Would you more or less agree that the design versatility on let's say, a clay tile or a concrete tile is greater than that of let's say metal or shingle or there are plenty of options available for both?

Lorenzo: I think that they're misinformed. I think there are plenty choices out there.

Rob: Okay, awesome. You mentioned Class A fire resistance, but is it safe to say that with the exception of I guess wood shake, all of the other materials that we've discussed, you can have Class A material? Okay. Awesome. I guess the good news is in California, we don't have to talk about hail, we don't have to talk about winds over 150 miles an hour, we don't have to talk about freeze thaw. So, that eliminates a lot of the considerations, I guess.

Lorenzo: [inaudible 00:22:03] That's all.

Rob: Yeah, exactly. All right. Jumping into flat roofs. Okay. Well, obviously, we've done a lot more flat roofs recently than we had previously, with the trend of going from traditional, maybe craftsman homes in the Bay Area to more of the modern flat roof. I know that typically when people think of flat roofs, they think of like commercial buildings. But I think more probably we're seeing it in the residential space. There are a few different options that are out there. They all kind of look the same in my opinion, to the untrained eye, I guess. But EPDM, PVC, and TPO. Probably TPO being the one that we've installed the most recently with you guys on a number of modern homes. But can you kind of talk to me a little bit about maybe some of the considerations to make when considering different flat roof options and anything you'd tell a consumer?

Lorenzo: Yes. I've been on a lot of real estate where people have been misled and they ended up doing EPDM. EPDM is, we're not on the part of the world that I will suggest or even consider to install in one of the roofs here in the Bay Area.

Rob: Because it's more expensive, right?

Lorenzo: Not just that.

Rob: Okay.

Lorenzo: It's also inconvenient. I mean, you look at that it's black. If it's to have any SRI, it's not even close to be a Title 24.

Rob: Got it.

Lorenzo: Versus the other two down below PVC and TPO, the reflectivity on them is really, really good. It's 99% of the roof. It's Title 24 all the way around.

Rob: Got it. Okay. A difference between when someone's saying, "Hey, I'm debating between PVC and TPO here in the Bay Area," typically, what do you tell them?

Lorenzo: It's job preference. It's pretty much on the job.

Rob: How about any difference in color options that are available or anything else?

Lorenzo: You will have to buy more than 100,000 square feet at a time so you can pick a color. It's not like a typical home. You'll have to buy too much in order for you to get the color you want. There are three basic colors, tan, grey, and white. They are the ones that are the shop.

Rob: Okay. And then TPO, when selecting different colors, do you get a different you mentioned SRI values? In TPO, if you change the color, does it affect your SRI?

Lorenzo: Yeah. Well, there's a chart that it tells 10 years down the road how much decreases but it's not much though. It's still a great product and is going to be on top of the rest of the materials as far as the reflect.

Rob: Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. Well, I'm going to talk for like two seconds as we jump into roof kind of maintenance and warranty here. But without diving into too many details, obviously, a big part of roofing is all the flashing components that are there. And I think if anybody's bought a home and there's a roof inspection done oftentimes where they see the failures or maintenance items, is in the flashing itself. Can you at a very high level tell people what the purpose of flashing is and the importance of installing it properly?

Lorenzo: Rob, it's great and it's probably the best question you brought up on this conversation. And again, they have been not educated about their roofs. Somebody gets a roof and they said, "Well, I got a roof with a 50-year warranty. It means that I don't have to worry about it." It's not necessarily how it works. All your components, you see the skylight, the valleys, and the fireplace itself, the dormer, all those are places where most likely debris is going to accumulate through the years, especially if there's trees around its surroundings. And if you don't do maintenance at least once a year, most likely if there's a lot of debris out there, it's going to clog and the water is not going to go through to the channel and the valley on the skylight. Therefore, you're going to get a leak. And then you got to call your roofer and you're going to say, well, your roof is leaking and you'll say it was 50-year roof warranty. Only if it's done the proper maintenance.

Rob: Got it. Okay. All right. Awesome. I guess advice would be that if you're choosing a contractor to build your new house, I guess the importance there would be making sure that they're certified to install whatever product that they are installing to maintain that manufacturer warranty. Is that the best thing to do or what do you recommend?

Lorenzo: Well, it may sound like I'm just creating more work for myself. But why would you call someone else if you have a great relationship with your roofer? He's telling you that it's going to last 50 years, why don't you just get the same guy so that if you don't get the [conflict 00:28:06], you can go through a conflict of interest? Someone else comes in and all of a sudden, it's like, hey, they're working on your roof when they didn't need to work. Or they get the landscaper and the landscaper doesn't know what to look for.

Rob: Right. Right. So, you're saying whoever installs or if you'd recommend that whoever that installer might be, that they are the ones who ultimately do some of the yearly maintenance on the roof and check everything?

Lorenzo: That way you can hold them liable if something happens.

Rob: Yeah, makes total sense. So real quick, we're not going to jump into too much of this. But obviously, you talked about Title 24, you talked about the energy requirements that are out there. And with California's a big push to electrify single family homes, we're seeing more and more counties actually start to mandate and put in their code and adopt the state law of having solar on all new residences. I mean, of course, buzz word around the Bay Area, Tesla roof, we've seen it a couple times on projects. I think it's slowly starting to make some traction. You mentioned clay tile being challenging when installing solar, but what other considerations might there be if you are doing solar on your roof?

Lorenzo: Oh, very important. That's why I invited my [inaudible 00:29:47].

Rob: No, I apologize. I'm having a hard time hearing.

Joe: I said, Hi Joe. I deal with a lot of the reroofing and the solar department on that.

Rob: Awesome. Thanks for joining us, Joe.

Joe: No problem. One of the key things with solar is your mounting brackets, mounting it into the roof correctly. With it being mounted into the roof incorrect, what happens is in time, 10, 15 years down the line, you start getting a leak. So, there's only a few mounts that you can actually use getting solar installed. And then it also matters on the distance of the panels that are installed, with debris and stuff getting trapped underneath. We run into a lot of issues with a lot of companies using the more affordable route and as time goes on, we get a lot of roof leaks, a lot of roof leaks from certain solar companies and stuff like that. With the solar, it's kind of if you're doing a roof and doing the solar at the same time, it's probably the best route to do it, where you could flash all the mountain correctly, versus going to a roof after and trying to put it on.

Rob: Got it. Got it. And as far as other, I guess considerations that might be there, what about like just from a cleaning perspective of the solar panels itself? When deciding between materials, I heard Lorenzo mentioned that the metal roofing can be pretty slick. And not to mention, you're covering up an expensive product. But any considerations that should be made when choosing material besides clay on the solar side of things?

Joe: Yeah, so you figure with like the tile roofs and clay and even kind of like the synthetic tile that you have over there, that type, trying to walk on there and clean underneath where the mounts are coming in, it can be challenging especially with tile roofs with a lot of stuff getting trapped underneath the solar and now you can't really remove the panels to try to clean underneath it. As for the panels themselves, where we're at, the only time we really need to clean the panels is if we have a lot of really bad fires that are going around and at that point the systems will still produce [inaudible 00:32:33].

Rob: Got it. Okay, cool. Thank you. I'm jumping into gutters. We won't spend too much time on this topic. But I guess first question is, from a material standpoint, aluminum galvanized copper, I know you guys do gutters and downspouts as well. What are the uses of each I guess and each one of course coming with their own certain set of profiles? But when a consumer is deciding between gutters, what might you advise them on?

Lorenzo: I think it all depends on the shape of the house. Our consumers tend to go a certain way. You don't want to go to a square house and use a half round because it's going to look awkward. But as far as the materials, I think in the Bay Area you want to stay either copper or aluminum or something that's already prepaint. Because eventually it'll rust out if you use the galvanized not painted.

Rob: Got it. Okay. And as far as options go for gutters, you mentioned prefinished is usually the way to go. Can you find the most shapes, most colors available like a prefinished option? Is there a big enough library that you guys can choose from?

Lorenzo: Yes, it is. There's a variety of colors. It's almost, I will say 30 colors just to be safe to choose from in the prefinish and shapes, comes in all the shapes. There are no limits.

Rob: Awesome. Gutter maintenance. This is one that I guess we'll touch on briefly. I mean, of course, you recommend cleaning, certainly, depending upon where you are I guess and proximity of trees and whatnot. It might vary a little bit on how often you need to clean your gutters, but what do you typically tell folks?

Lorenzo: Again, every house is different because of the location, the surroundings. It depends. If there's a lot of trees around it, I will say twice a year.

Rob: Twice a year, okay. Gutter guards is one option that I see here. That's something that you guys would recommend installing if it is near a tree? Is that something that you would install or is it something that a consumer would have to install themselves?

Lorenzo: Yeah, so we do install the gutter guard. And again, it all depends what kind of trees you have around and how you install the right gutter guard. It's just one that doesn't work well so you got to pick the right one for your projects.

Rob: Got it. Okay. Downspouts, we'll quickly talk about downspouts. Chains are something that we've seen a bit more often of some kind on some of the modern homes we've done. There are a couple different profiles similar to I guess your gutter options. The round option, this is kind of the more traditional option here. And of course, we didn't really talk about this, but on flat roofs oftentimes we'll find ourselves using scupper drains on a flat roof like this. Can you talk about maybe some of the considerations to make or some of the pitfalls you might see when consumers are going through in choosing downspouts?

Lorenzo: The chains are really for a chain downspout. It's really for a place where the downspouts themselves is kind of place tied up to secure it. The only downside that I see on the chain route is it's not tied to anything down below. Therefore, if it is starting to be windy, it can easily break a window. So, you have to fasten it, secure it somehow to something underneath to keep it secure. But the rest of it is all just the looks. How you want it to look.

Rob: Got it. What about noise? Any difference in noise between different materials and installation methods as far as like number of vents go or anything like that for consumers to keep in mind?

Lorenzo: Prefab like the three-inch round that you see there or the one on the other side with back splash, that's 2x3 rectangular prefab. And the advantage of those there, you see at the bottom they have like the little wrinkles. And it actually prevents for the water to make a sound or make a noise versus the ones that are always smooth, lower drop, once the water drops to the bottom it makes a weird noise I think with the hitting. Yeah, so that's about it.

Rob: Got it. Got it. Okay. Those lines that we see in these gutters and downspouts, they're actually serving a purpose.

Lorenzo: Yes.

Rob: Got it. Got it. Okay. When it comes to tying in either an overland release like this with a splash block or tying in the gutters or downspouts to storm drain system, any recommendation there?

Lorenzo: Again, it depends where you're at. There are certain places Palo Alto, Los Altos and that can go on and on and all these are certain places where they don't allow you to drain your water in the drain system. You have to deal with it in your surroundings, deal with your own water. So, it depends.

Rob: Got it.

Lorenzo: It'd be great if you can get it away from your property and just take it to the street but it all depends where you are at.

Rob: Makes sense. Waterproofing. With the cost of land in the Bay Area, more and more folks are doing basements. Now, they seem to be in most projects we do these days. And from a liability perspective, of course, it also comes with a high risk of water intrusion and has a really big importance on making sure they do it right. Without diving into too many of the details, can you kind of talk me through important things to consider when choosing waterproofing methods on a basement?

Lorenzo: Yeah. And again, take it too lightly. I think if you ask me, for a lot of contractors and a lot of the homeowners they think by saving a few dollars on the waterproofing, they can do something else around the house. But I think waterproofing is the most important thing. Keeping water away from your home is very important.

Rob: That's why your insurance costs a lot more.

Lorenzo: You got to pick the right material. You got to pick the right contractor. Are they certified? Because you could go out of business. If someone else behind the manufacturer is actually providing you with the warranty on their behalf, it's a peace of mind for the home owner. I think this is not an easy thing to redo because once you put the rest of the house on top of the basement then you’re done. Your chance is over. You've only got one chance to make it right.

Rob: Got it. From a consumer standpoint, as far as recommendations go, I guess looking closely and making sure that the product that is being used on the basement walls comes with a warranty from a certified installer that's the most important thing.

Lorenzo: Yes.

Rob: Got it.

Lorenzo: People think that just because they're buying the product, that doesn't mean somebody is going to honor the warranty. If somebody without the credentials and not certified installs it the material becomes worthless.

Rob: Got it. Okay, fair enough. Here's another one where we see a lot of waterproofing. People want decks or tile on top of their wood decks. This is oftentimes a request that we get here. But from a consumer standpoint, can you tell me a little bit about some of the important things to consider when waterproofing a wood deck? I mean, my preference would be to not do it at all. But since people do want it, how do you best ensure...? It's probably a similar conversation to the basement waterproofing. But how do you ensure that that it's done properly?

Lorenzo: Pretty similar to the basement water proofing if you ask me.

Rob: I'm having a little bit of a hard time hearing you. Would you mind coming a little closer?

Lorenzo: Sure.

Rob: Awesome. That's great.

Lorenzo: It's a pretty similar scenario as the basement. The deck itself, if you don't do it right, it might be on top of your living room as a walking deck and you don't want [inaudible 00:43:02] 10 years down the road to start leaking. You want to do it correctly from the very beginning. There's a lot of variety of materials out there, but not all of them. And again, your installer might not be certified to install certain materials and we go back to square one. You're going to have to remove your tile, now your [inaudible 00:43:27] is damaged when it should have been done right from the very beginning.

Rob: Got it. Excellent. Well, we've left ourselves with about 15 minutes here for folks to ask any questions that they might have. Before I jump into that, as some of the folks who are joining right now may or may not know. This is a weekly occurrence on Thursdays for us just one hour from 12:00 to 1:00 during the lunch hour. Next week we're going to be talking about windows and doors. Definitely keep that in mind for next week and make sure to join us for that. But without waiting too much longer, let's jump into some questions. There's two ways to ask questions. I see a couple of questions already. But one way is to type it in the Q&A section at the top. Another way to ask question is to raise your hand virtually and I can call on you and essentially let you speak. Lorenzo, I'm going to start with the first question here. Okay, a cost difference between roofing plus solar versus a Tesla roof. Where have you guys seen that fall recently?

Joe: The cost difference with Tesla roofing is substantially higher.

Rob: Joe, I'm sorry. Would you mind moving a little bit? Oh, there we go. I appreciate. Then I'll be able to hear you better.

Joe: We've noticed that Tesla roofing is substantially high, you know, going with the roof and solar combo. There's a lot of new products that are coming out that are all fully integrated kind of like the Tesla tiles.

Rob: Got it. Okay. So, similar to essentially your shingles themselves or whatever roofing material itself acts as conducting solar just as Tesla would, I think most people the reason why they would choose it is from an aesthetic standpoint. Are all solar panels kind of created equal when it comes to aesthetics? Or even choosing between solar, are there more aesthetically pleasing options at the time like, for example, the front of your house?

Joe: Right. There it is. So again, if you look at the panels themselves, they have some that are black on black, that are high efficiency panels and then you can go to like a standard panel. And the standard panel, you see the white backing on it and it depends how that panel is made. There's a lot that goes into the panels as far as aesthetics and then the aesthetics of how its installed. With like certain types of roof composition, you can go with a more aesthetic install where it kind of looks like a skylight has been installed on the roof versus something that sticks up a foot in the air.

Rob: Got it. Okay. All right. Next question. Scuppers. Let me go to the scuppers section real quick. Oops, gone wrong way. Essentially a question asked more or less, can you make them prettier as opposed to having kind of a box on the side of your house? What do you guys recommend? Is that a piece that typically when it comes to scuppers, this catch basin here, if that's the right term, is that something you guys can custom fabricate to kind of meet a client's needs? What can you guys do?

Lorenzo: Good question. There are probably 35 different shapes. We call them leader heads.

Rob: Leader heads. Okay.

Lorenzo: Leader heads. These are probably the scuppers. Yes, so there are many choices to choose from. We can provide you with the website.

Rob: Got it. Okay. Another question that came in, what's better or what would you recommend for a customer, asphalt shingle versus metal roof? What are some of the considerations to make when choosing between the two?

Joe: I would say that between the two, obviously, the style of the metal roof is first, the aesthetics and the longevity. But as far as warranty, when you look at an asphalt shingle, you can actually have the manufacturer back the workmanship part of a composition shingle for a long period of time. So, it gives the owner a peace of mind. It may not be as beautiful as the standing seam, but if somebody installs it and let's say for instance, they installed it wrong or they go out of business, they're still backed by a manufacturer even for the workmanship part of that. So, asphalt is one of the only types of roofing material that will also cover workmanship for a period of time if it's a master installer at that moment.

Rob: Got it. Okay. I think Lorenzo you brought up a good point when we were initially discussing it too, that it can actually be used nicely kind of in combination as well on kind of some of the more visible areas. Any downside, I guess, of doing that? Does that complicate the warranty at all like if you're installing two different products on the same roof? Any issues like that?

Lorenzo: Not necessarily. If they're not connected together one another, it'll be perfectly fine. I think we did one of your projects where we did the first story, we did a standing seam and we did shingles on the second story. And yeah, we can actually get the warranty individual, not a problem.

Rob: Got it. One other question that came in, what's a typical waterproofing? We talked a little bit about roofing warranties and the different ones that are out there. On a typical waterproofing material, what's the best warranty a customer can expect to receive?

Lorenzo: It's a 20-year warranty. Almost all the materials that we use in our company are backed by a 20-year manufacturer warranty.

Rob: And that goes for basements and that goes for also decks kind of the same?

Lorenzo: Correct.

Rob: Okay. Okay. Another question that just came in. It's actually a question about the boral or the composite slates. And actually, maybe we can just talk like holistically about the different options that are out there. But maybe I'll go to that because one thing is this didn't really have it. If we're adding pricing to this, okay, and we're looking at, hey, what's most cost effective and from a money standpoint what makes the most sense? You mentioned asphalt shingle probably having the lowest entry level pricing. Out of the options that we discussed, what would kind of be the next step up?

Lorenzo: I think the rest of them whether it's slate, not necessarily slate but if you're comparing wood shakes versus tile, they're pretty much dollar for dollar. That will be the second. The third I will say a standing seam and the last one and the most pricing will be a slate.

Rob: Slate. And you mentioned that the composite slate material that would be more in line with the metal or more in line with the clay roof. Pricing where would you expect that to fall?

Lorenzo: The asphalt shingle, it depends because you can get very affordable shingles but then you can go [inaudible 00:52:16] or the DaVinci. I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear the question correctly.

Rob: Oh, yeah. For composite slate material, you mentioned it can be like three times as expensive as shingle. But would that fall closer to the cost of metal roof roughly or where would you expect that as far as a comparison standpoint?

Lorenzo: Yeah, comparison. I will say it'll be probably 15 to 20% increase on top over the standing seam.

Rob: Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. Another question that just came in. For flat roofs and for terraces, first question is, is the same material that you guys are using on a wood deck, is that the same as what you're using on a roof?

Lorenzo: No.

Rob: Got it. Okay. When it comes to a roof deck, okay, which I think maybe this question is hinting at. If somebody wants to implement a roof deck on their property, what are some of the considerations to make and what would you recommend? Is it a product that we've discussed already? Is it a different product altogether? But if somebody wants to get up there, walk around, maybe have a couple chairs up there or something, you probably as a roofer don't like it at all but if they're going to do it, what do you recommend?

Lorenzo: Yeah. I think we did a project with you guys where we had a large patio where it was walkable. I think you guys ended up doing pedestals. I think it was like a slate tile looking. It was a great look but the underlayment below needs to be well reinforced and well done. And again, you still have friction when people walk on it so you want to have the right material. Even though you're going to have pedestals, you're not walking on top of the roof itself. That will be a choice number one. Number two, downgrade a little bit, it will be a walking deck.

Rob: Okay, so it'd be more of like a sheet applied?

Lorenzo: A walking deck will be more like a whole process of waterproofing.

Rob: Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. Great. I think we're seeing just like how square footage is expensive to people who are doing basement, I think people are also starting to see how they can use their roof also for a living area. Awesome. Well, I think we covered most of the items. I don't see any more immediate questions coming up. I'll give everybody a couple more seconds. Going once, going twice. All right, well, we finished a few minutes early. But Lorenzo, Joe, again, thank you for taking the time. Is there anything that we may have missed as a part of this presentation that you think is valuable for folks to know?

Lorenzo: Not on my end. I think we covered all basis, the most part. I can't really share with you my over 30 years of experience in one hour.

Rob: Yeah.

Lorenzo: But definitely I think it's been very productive, the hour and we've used it very wisely.

Rob: Cool. Well, like you said, I'm sure there's a ton more that we could maybe talk about. But yeah, thanks again for taking the time and giving everybody a brief overview. Well, for those folks who are considering Livio, hopefully we can build your project and use a great company Anbe to make it happen. So, thank you guys for taking the time.

Lorenzo: Bye-bye everybody.

Rob: All right, take care.