Raising the Roof with Jeremy Fain

This is The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to bring you the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Craig Williams, and I'm doing the intro 'cause Kevin's slacking off somewhere else. How's everybody doing? Glad you guys could join us for this episode. We're gonna have a good time tonight. Got a special guest in the studio.

Hi.

All right, let's— I gotta do everything tonight. All right, you're gonna wanna pull that a lot closer. I can tell you that much right now. Uh, all right, everybody, we're gonna, we're gonna have a good time tonight. Uh, we have my buddy Jeremy Fain in the studio from Prestige. Oh, sorry, I messed it up. Priority Roofing.

That's why I wore the hat.

Thank you so much. That helps so much. Priority Roofing. Priority Roofing. Um, it is hurricane season, everybody. Uh, we're gonna be, we're gonna talk about some roofs, but, uh, before we get going, why don't you just let everybody know I mean, I've already said your name and your company, but let everybody know a little bit about you.

Well, I, I live in Montgomery. I'm a 20-year construction guy. I've been, that's what I've done for my, my career. And I've been in roofing now for going on 2 years. And it took till my mid-40s to find my calling. But this is, this is really what I was made to do.

Yeah. Some, some of us are just a little slow on the uptake.

I mean, I'm, I'm one of them. Yeah. I mean, I beat my head against the wall for 20 years doing the same things over and over again. So, here we are.

There you go. Well, so I mean, like, one of the things I— one of the reasons I wanted to have you in the studio, I mean, here in Texas, we're, we're like, are we officially in hurricane season?

I, I'll be honest with you, I don't really pay that close of attention to, to hurricanes. Now, um, most of the, the work that we do is obviously insurance work, but, um, but hail has been our, our main, uh, thing. And for whatever reason, I'm not a meteorologist, but I'll tell you We just don't get a ton of hail in a hurricane. So, and the fact that we're over 100 miles from the coast, um, yeah, Beryl came through here, blew some shingles off. Uh, if we were on the other side of Houston, yeah, it was a, it was a big, uh, maker for roofing. But, um, up here, uh, hurricanes just aren't as big a concern. And we can talk about some things you can do to make sure that they're not, uh, a concern if,

if we get hit with one.

I gotcha. I do know, I mean, I know September is like prime hurricane season. The only reason I know that is my birthday's at the end of September. And for like 8 years straight, there was like a hurricane shadowing over my birthday. So I know it's that, and we're not that far away. I mean, we're 3 months away.

Yeah, I do know that it takes 2 or 3 months of heat to heat up the Gulf, the Gulf of America, that is. And once that, Once those storms get into the Gulf, when the Gulf water is warm, that's when they get big and strong and hairy. So yeah, it's just not that warm yet. And especially now in June, we've had so much rain off the coast and all the way up here. I don't think the water is that warm down there yet.

No, I think, I think the average temperature in June so far has been like 84.

Yeah.

I mean, it's crazy.

Next week, I think we're gonna, we're gonna wish it was 84.

I'm with you. Like, what we've had a couple of days in the 90s and like in the mid to high 90s. And I'm like, I am not excited about this coming. Like, it's like a wall of water.

Yeah. Come get on a roof with me. At least there's some air up there where you're at. A lot of times there's not any air. So, but yeah, I'm on a roof all the time. If a day goes by and I'm not on one, I'm probably not doing my my job. But, um, yeah, so we, um, what we do is we identify storm damage and, um, a lot of it cannot be identified from the ground and it can't be identified by, um, you know, somebody who doesn't know what they're doing. Um, and you and I talked before the— we started talk— uh, taping that there's about 4,000 roofing contractors in the Houston area.

Yeah.

only about 10% of those roofing contractors, their companies do 100 roofs a year. So what that says to you is there's more than 3,500 roofing companies that are really chucks in a truck and you don't have to have a license to be a roofer in Texas.

Yeah.

That's why it's very important to know who's on your roof. It's very important to know, you know, if they have the credentials to be up there and the crews that they use are knowledgeable and they know what they're doing. Yeah.

Well, I mean, like, I'm— some of my friends from out of town that are, you know, non-native Texans are always shocked when they find that out, that like there's no licensing for, you know, any contractor really.

Plumbing and electrical, uh, definitely.

Yeah, I meant like GC and stuff like that.

But yeah, go ahead. But with roofing, it's like you have to have a license in Texas to cut hair, but you don't have to replace a roof. It, it, Blows my mind. And we're members of RCAT, the Roofing Contractors Association of Texas, and we have our own licensing that's private. We participate in that and we lobby Austin so that we can get licensing in Texas. Unfortunately, there's a lot of representatives in Texas, the ones that care about this issue, a lot of their constituents happen to be either illegal or they have a lot of family who are. And A lot of roofers in Houston, that's who's up on the roof.

Oh yeah.

So once licensing in Texas, and I do believe we'll have it at some point, our job is to make sure that the people who do care about this issue care about it more and actually bring it to the floor and get it voted on. Because once that happens, most of the bad contractors are going to be gone.

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, that, that is, I mean, that's, that's the ideal, right? The, the crazy part to me is that you don't have to be licensed to do it, but you are engaging with just about everybody who does. Like, you're engaging with plumbers, you're engaging with electricians. I mean, like, there's all these people that have to have these licenses because there's, there's plumbing that goes through your roof. There's electrical that it gets, you know, or, I mean, all that stuff happens, especially if you're putting like solar up on your roof. I mean, that's a big electrical grid that you're putting up on your roof. And, and, and, you know, you're taking advice from a guy potentially that

has no one looking over his shoulder saying like, no, that's wrong. Like, you, you shouldn't be doing it that way.

That's right. Ventilation is one of those things.

Oh man.

90, the stat that I heard is that 90% of roofs, this is nationwide, 90% of roofs are not ventilated correctly. Now, am I to think that there's 90% of roofs across the nation aren't ventilated? ventilated correctly. We don't have licensing in Texas, and that number's not higher in Texas.

Yeah.

So I can tell you, I live in a neighborhood that has a lot of tract homes in it. I can tell you one particular builder, every single roof in there is ventilated incorrectly. Every single one. I'm replacing a couple of them as soon as we get 'em approved. And once we know things like that, your roof might be baking from the inside if it's not ventilated correctly. That could be why that you have, you know, granules in your gutters. Could be why there's granules.

Cooking them off there.

Yeah. It's, I've done a couple of roofs just down the road from here that were absolute skating rinks up there at 13 years. It just shouldn't be the case. So why is it the case? There's only a couple of reasons. Either it's a manufacturer issue, One in particular I'm thinking about, they actually did a warranty claim, and it's not a manufacturer issue. It is a ventilation issue.

How do you prove that though?

Well, it's easy, really. Ventilation, there's gotta be enough, the same amount of air. It should be equal coming in from the soffits or, or a ventilation from the bottom that it's going out from the top. So that calculation is pretty easy. You add up all the vents that you have. If you have soffit vents, you know, How much air moves into those soffit vents, it just has to equal the amount of ventilation at the top. Now, I'll see a lot of people will have ridge vents at the top. And then they'll have— maybe they— somebody knocked on their door and said, it's really hot in your attic, you need more ventilation. It's hot in every attic.

Yeah.

It's Texas. That is— that's not a reason to put more ventilation. So I— there's one literally sitting on my back patio. I have to look at this house that's behind me. Ridge vent, and then they've got another vent that was aftermarket that somebody put on the roof. So now what's actually happening is the air is being pulled in through that vent and it's going out. Or if, if the one below it actually pulls more air, it's actually pulling air Through the ridge vent and out, and everything below that is stagnant.

Yeah. So, which, that's what makes it really bad.

You made it worse.

Worse. Yeah.

So somebody cut a hole in your roof and put a vent up there and you paid them to do that and they just made it worse. Yeah. So those are things that, uh, I'll get called out, um, or I'll get referred to. One of my, one of my homeowners will refer me and I'll, that's most of my business now is referrals. referrals. Um, I do some advertising, I do some social media stuff like that, but the vast majority of the business I get is from referrals. Now, I'll go out there on a roof. Um, yes, I'm looking for storm damage. Don't always find it. I'm not the guy that's gonna tell you you have storm damage when you don't.

Yeah.

There's a lot of those guys too. Um, so I go out there, I look for it. If I don't find it, there's a couple other things I look I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask to get in your attic. If I get in your attic and I see daylight, I, I know, hey, we might have an issue here. Not everybody's doing that. Right. So, but a couple other things. Every 4 or 5 years, somebody should be doing maintenance on your roof.

Yeah.

You have flashings, you've got nails that are up there that shouldn't be exposed. If you have exposed nail heads on your roof, Those will rust and eventually you're going to get water intrusion because of those. So what do we do? We— I mean, I do what's called a walking caulk. We'll go up there, um, doesn't cost a lot of money. You do that, you know, if I do annual inspections for a lot of people, I just— I go up there.

Yeah.

Um, they could be a former customer of mine or they could be somebody that just isn't ready yet. I go up there once a year. They're on our calendars. I just show up. And, but a lot of those people just need basic maintenance. Now, if they, let's say they have a 5-year-old roof and they have poor ventilation, maybe we talk about what it looks like to put some new ventilation or even close up, cancel some vents that you don't need. The idea is we want to make those shingles last as long as possible. So there's a lot of ways to do that. It's not spraying stuff on it. It's not, you know, putting paint on your

roof. There's— I see all kinds of stuff out there now.

Yeah.

But it's really pretty basic stuff. But most people never get on their roof and I don't advise them to do so. It's dangerous.

Oh yeah, it's not safe.

So don't do that. But if you want somebody to check your roof out, we're not all the same. Or just not.

Yeah.

Find somebody that a friend of yours used. Find somebody who understands storm damage. And usually around here, you're going to know people who had a roof replaced. Ask them.

Yeah. What worked for you? Yeah.

If they had a good experience, if a good roofer will explain the process and what's going on. And, and the homeowner You know, I have— I, my, my homeowners run the gamut. It's between people who just want you to take care of it and they really don't care at all. They just want it taken care of.

Mm-hmm.

I love those people.

Yeah.

Um, then you have people who will stand out front and watch your entire inspection, and they want to know, they want to look in detail at all the pictures you take. I love those people too. Um, you know, Because those people are not gonna get taken advantage of.

Yeah.

So if, if I win that guy over—

I, look, I know there's a lot of contractors that think that those guys are annoying.

I love 'em.

I, yeah, I'm the same way. I'm like, please ask me the questions. Please ask me to show my work. I mean, because I, I, I'm doing it because I recognize that there's so many guys out there that don't, you know? And I'm not, I'm not doing it because I wanna like prove to you that I'm doing a good job. I actually wanna do my due diligence. Like I wanna do the, I wanna do best by you. I mean, so that I, this is a check for me. I recognize why we put these systems in place. And for me, it's like some of it we have to do because like it's part of our licensing and all that kind of stuff. But like there's a reason it's there most of the time. And that's not always

true in like a bureaucratic state of like regulations and things like that.

Yeah.

But for the most part, the things that they're asking us to do, it's to keep dummies from making mistakes that then cost the end user or the buyer From suffering.

And the, the result of you doing your due diligence, where is most of your business coming from now that you're established?

Oh, referral, 100%. Yeah. Yeah. It's always a referral.

That doesn't need to be the only reason, but sure does feel nice when you put a roof on. I, I just got a text from a homeowner. Tell you this story. This is great. I, Put on a roof. It took took four or five months to get bought. We went through the process. That process is can be daunting, and but we understand the process, and I have some that take six seven months to get done. But and with no additional cost to the homeowner, we do that for them, and people are just appreciative. So this was the day after Christmas, and if you remember last year, the day after Christmas was the first. Friday. And

that's when we had this install scheduled. Well, our crews didn't really want to be working the Friday after Christmas when they got the whole weekend.

Those lazy bones.

So we put 2 crews on this. This was a 90-square roof. I mean, it was not small. It's huge. Huge house. Yeah. So 2 crews, one on each half of the house. They were racing. I found out later they were racing to see who could finish first. They finished this 90-square roof by 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Dang.

Now, that blew me away, uh, and it was flawless and it looked beautiful. The homeowners were thrilled. Well, unbeknownst to me, their next-door neighbors, who they're really good friends with, were watching the whole time. They were out there. You couldn't see them through the trees. This was in Grand Lake Estates, so, okay, um, you know, there's a little bit of property, so I had no idea anybody was watching. Well, they had dinner that weekend and they asked, you know, the other homeowners asked my customers about it. Next thing I know, they called me out to look at their roof. Well, it looked exactly like the other house. It was, it was beaten up with, with hail and even had some wind damage and went through

the exact same process with them. Eventually got it bought. And I love these homeowners. I'm still talking to them. This was, I think we put them on in Put that house on in our roof on in March, and she's calling and texting me all the time. Well, the reason she's texting me now is because I referred a painter to her. She said, "I want to paint the house now that we have a new roof." I hate my house. I want this happens a lot. People get a new roof and now they hate their house. So they they want to paint it. They want to update it. So I referred a painter. I said, look, I've— a lot of people I know have used this guy. I've never used him myself, but I trust him. I go to church with

him. Uh, he's a great guy. So next thing I know, I see him at church and he tells me, hey, I'm, I'm putting, uh, I'm painting their house. Really? That's great. You know, I didn't know anything about it. Well, that's actually happened 2 or 3 more times with, with him. And, um, this is a nice little community that We were scratching each other's backs, but the truth is I would never refer a good homeowner to someone I don't know or trust.

Yep.

Because that looks bad on me.

Mhmm.

So he's keeping me up to date. She's keeping me up to date. Everybody's happy. They're like, look at my new house, my house. It looks brand new.

Yeah.

And everyone's thrilled. What's gonna happen is she's gonna tell more people.

Mhmm.

And I'm gonna get more business. He's gonna get more business, and it just snowballs. And That's how, that's how a good contractor should work. Um, I mean, if you're out there, you know, pounding pavement and knocking doors, um, 5 days, 5, 6 days a week, um, when you're an established contractor, that's, uh, that's a, I know guys who do it. They don't ask for referrals for whatever reason. Maybe they just like it.

Yeah.

It's just, but they're good at it.

I know some guys who are great at it. If you're good at it, like, why change? Honestly.

I'm good at having conversations. I, don't want to stand out in the heat and knock doors to get them.

Yeah, I'm not a fan either.

But, um, but I will if I have to.

I will do, I will say this though, like when, because I, I hand out a lot of people's names as well because I'll be in somebody's house, I'll find an issue and they're like, well, do you know somebody? Yes, I do. I always tell, I always tell the homeowner, I was like, look, I'm going to give you this person's name. And sometimes I'll give them like 2 names because most of the time in this area, I'll know 3 or 4 guys that can get the job done, but I'm like, I always tell people, get, get 3 quotes if it's a big job, you know, but if it's something little like here, this guy or this guy, you pick, they can get it taken care of for you.

I also tell them when they're done, if you're not happy, you need to tell me because I'm either going to make them make it right or I'm never going to say their name again. And I tell them that.

That's right.

I'm like, because I want you to understand, like, I have used this person. I know this person. And if they don't treat you right, I wanna know about it. Yeah. Um, and, and, and that, and I, I try and tell all of my friends who are in similar trades the same thing. I'm like, I will happily speak your name, but also know that like when I hand off one of my customers to you, that is the kindness, the most kindness I can offer you is because that's—

And trust.

Yeah. Because like, like most, one of the things that our business is really good at is retention. Like most of my customers, I'm either on a second or third generation at this point.

Oh, that's great.

You know, and, and so like we have, we have developed a culture of trust amongst, you know, our customers that say like, okay, like it's not just me. I'm going to hand you off to my kids. I'm going to hand you off to my grandkids. And we value that. And that's one of them because it's one of the most valuable things a customer can give you is their trust. And so like when I speak another contractor's name, Like, you better do a good job if it's coming from me, because I will hunt you down if you don't take care of my family. And that's, that's how we treat our, that's how we treat our customers. They're like our family because a lot of them, they've been around longer than

some of my family members. I know more about them than I know about some of my actual blood relatives. Yeah.

You know, well, I mean, we talk about contractors. I, I, I feel the same way about some of my competitors now. I'll tell you another story. I get, um, I advertise in a magazine in our neighborhood and, you know, people are starting to know who I am. And I get a phone call one day.

That actually works for you? You like, you like doing that?

I, I, I do. And it's not, I'm not, I'm not, yeah, it's not something I know anything about it. That's why I'm asking. It's not something I'm probably gonna do long-term, but, um, being that my particular business is newer than some of my competitors, It's really a name recognition thing. It's not something I think I'm going to have to do long-term. But I got a phone call and they're like, hey, my insurance is going to drop me. And the letter said it's because I have raised flashing on my house. And I'm like, that's about the dumbest reason I can think of. But I'm like, yeah, I'll come out and check it out. Well, I show up and I'm expecting it to be an old roof. You know, this is what, how

this normally goes. I get called out for something like that, or maybe somebody told me there's a hole in my roof, or, you know, I had a guy cleaning out my gutters and there's a hole in my roof. These are all actual circumstances that I've had. And so this guy, I show up and it's a 2 or 3-year-old roof. mean, it's, it's brand new. And, uh, I call the guy and I said, hey, when did you have your roof replaced? And I'm thinking to myself, because this is a warranty issue, there's— he shouldn't have to pay me to do this, right? So I call him and he said, I just bought the house. I have no idea.

I have no clue who the contractor was. No idea. I said, I bet I can find out. So I start making phone calls to my competitors, all of whom I know. And it took me 10 minutes, and I found out who did that house. And I told that guy what happened and why I was calling him, and he thanked me. He's like, yeah, because that's a warranty issue. We want to be able to take care of that because we have a you know warranty. We sorry. We we carry a ten-year warranty, and I don't know what my competitors do, but we have a ten-year labor warranty, and it's transferable. So if I don't care who lives there. Yeah. If they call and it's an issue, we're gonna fix it.

Which that's, that's a sneaky way that a lot of companies get outta warranty work though, is like they, they replace the roof. Yeah. Non-transferable.

Yeah. And ours is transferable and it's right there in black and white. Now, when you buy a house, there's so many things to think about. That's usually not top of mind. Now, if the roof had just been replaced, maybe the paperwork is readily available and you might get it in a packet or something. But if the roof's 3 or 4 years old, Chances are you're not getting that.

Right.

Now, I would tell you, if you're a new buyer or a buyer of a new home, ask for it. If they don't have it, you know, because you should have a warranty on a new roof. So if you don't have it, you know, maybe, maybe that's a negotiating point.

Yeah.

You never know. But, but calling that guy and having him take care of it, I didn't get a sale. I didn't get anything out of that. But you know what this guy got? He knows that at least two contractors that he lives, that are neighbors of his, he can trust now.

Yeah.

And we're not fighting with each other; we're just making it right. Yeah. Well, that's the sort of thing that those are the types of contractors, even competitors, that I want to work with or work around because they're going to do the same thing if if the situation was reversed. Yeah. So, having said that, it's it's. difficult job. I mean, dealing with homeowners, you've got, you know, we talked about 2 people on the spectrum, the people that don't really care, they just want it done. They want you to take care of it. The ones that have, you know, they're, they're definitely another cook in the kitchen for sure. But oh yeah. But there's a lot of people in between. And the ones that I have the most success with

are boomers for a couple of reasons. One, they keep everything. So literally, oh, let me find that. I've got, um, I, I— there's one guy over in Cyprus.

I've got it in triplicate.

This poor guy, uh, was legally blind. I mean, he could still see, but barely. Although for some reason he still drives. Um, I didn't ask him about that.

Nope, that's not a thing.

Uh, he drives a yellow Corvette, so if you see it out there, try to get on the other side of the road. Uh, but anyway, um, He, uh, he brought out everything. He, he had all of his, um, renewal paperwork going back years. And, and I'll, I'll preface this by saying, um, I am a contractor. I'm not a public adjuster. I, I'm not a licensed insurance broker. Those are conflicts of interest, and I cannot be both.

Right.

It is illegal for me to act as a public adjuster. But what I can do is help a homeowner if they had not— I can't ask— answer questions about their policy necessarily, but things that are written out in plain language that are obvious. This is what your deductible is. That's not explaining a policy. That's just pointing something out.

It's mathing.

But exactly. But this guy, he— there's only really 2 things that I check a policy for. What is their deductible? And do they have replacement cost coverage? Those are really the only 2 things that are pertinent to what I do. If they don't have replacement cost coverage, they have an ACV policy, actual cost value. I've heard you guys talk about that on this podcast. Now, we're going to see that more and more. We're going to see deductibles. The average now in our area is 2%. Now, 5 years from now, it might be 3 or 4.

Mm-hmm.

Insurance companies don't like paying claims. And in the state of Texas in 2024, that's the latest data we have. They closed right around 50% of homeowners' claims were closed without payment.

Mm-hmm.

2 ways you close a claim without payment. Either they deny it outright or they, they approve some, they open coverage, as we say. But it's under their deductible. Right. If a homeowner doesn't know what to do from that point, they're stuck and they give up. And more than half of Texans did give up in 2024 anyway. So this guy, I checked, he's got replacement cost coverage. He has a USAA policy.

Oh, he's USAA?

He is.

Yeah.

Now, but here's, here's the rub. He's got an old roof. But it's not that old. It's only like 12 years old. And I'm reading through the policy. Now he's paying like $8,500 a year for his premium, something like that. $9,000. It was a lot. And his house is, I don't know, probably a 2,000 square foot house in Cypress.

Yeah.

Like something's not right. What's going on here? And I look in the policy and sure enough, They have the roof age, 1999.

Okay.

So he's paying for a replacement cost rider because everyone will have replacement cost coverage unless you buy really cheap insurance.

Did someone just write it down wrong?

No, this insurance company, USAA in this case, replaced his roof last time. This is where people make mistakes. Most people don't stay with the same insurance company for, for that long.

Right.

Most people switch and, and, and, you know, find new rates and, and they change every 2 or 3 years. This guy was loyal to USAA. He had been a military member back when USAA was for military members. It's not anymore. That's all marketing. And 1999, he, he kept telling me, man, my premiums are high and, but I'm, I'm loyal to them. I don't understand why. And I said, well, I just found out why. And so what had happened is when he replaced his roof the last time, he used a chuck in a truck. And I could tell by the roof they put on. The quality of it. But that guy, the one thing that he could have done,

if he even knew better, he probably didn't know better, is, hey, inform your insurance company that you have, Of course they know that you have a new roof. They just paid for it. But unless you make them re-rate you by having a new roof, they're not going to.

Yeah.

Most of them are not going to. Maybe they should. Maybe it's even policy that they do.

But they're not incentivized to.

But they're not incentivized to. And a human has to do that.

Yeah.

It's not an automatic thing. So State Farm, for instance, has a form that you can request, and I fill it out for my State Farm customers that tells them when, what was put up there, what shingle was put up there, what class, if it's Class 3 or 4, the installation date. And the form basically says, please give me a better rate.

Yeah.

And, and it, for me, I have traveler's insurance and I got nearly $900 a year when I replaced my roof back, back a rate reduction. And I don't— I didn't ask for this. Uh, they, they gave me a refund for the previous year for that rate difference. I, I don't expect anyone else to get that. I don't know how that happened, but I, I spent the money just the same. So, but, um, but something as simple as asking your insurance company after you've gotten a roof, ask them for a new rate. Who's doing that? I don't know who, honestly, I don't know. I don't know the answer. I know that I do that for my homeowners and

they're grateful. That's all I know.

I, I mean, like, I will tell people, like, always, always ask for an update on your policy because, and this, this goes, this is like a two-way street. Like, we, we got kicked in the keister this year on our business side, um, because we, we had a proactive agent that came to us and said, hey, you guys are paying premiums based off of y'all making this much money. And I know you make way more than that.

Right.

And we were like, what does it say? And it was like a third of what we make in a year. I was like, holy crap. Like, that's, that's not good at all. And he goes, no. And when we tell them, they're going to make you pay the difference. I'm like, oh, for how long? And he goes, I don't know. Like, okay.

Well, okay.

That's, this could be a fun little trip.

Yeah.

You know, because it's a two-way street because like, if they're going to like, for you, like they owed you money because you'd been paying too much. Right. And, and so like when we, on the business end, we came back the other way and they're like, oh, well now you owe us money because we've been covering you for an amount that we were unaware of. I was like, oh, I understand it. It sucks.

Um, but I didn't have a claim.

But I, I, that's, that's true. That's true.

No, we just, we grew exponentially in the last, uh, 48 hours. 48 hours.

This is incredible. Yeah.

That's what happened.

So, well, but on the, on the insurance side though, one of the things that I know that we, and you, you've said you've listened to us talk about it, you know, what'd you say? ACV? Is that the—

Yep.

It's basically a pro— prorated cost.

Yeah. It, it just means that as they depreciate the value of the roof based on its age, Um, uh, at the end, basically you're paying 2 deductibles. You pay your deductible and then you pay for the depreciation at the end.

Yep.

Now, uh, adding those 2 numbers together, uh, and then the 3rd number, which is actually the, um, the actual cost value that they pay less the deductible, that's your first insurance check. Someone with replacement cost coverage, we actually, um, once we're finished, there's another check that comes that covers that depreciation. Now, you know, it's illegal in Texas to pay somebody's deductible. We have to prove that we paid your deductible or that you paid your deductible.

Yeah.

I said it wrong there. That's not what I meant. No, we have to prove to the insurance company that you paid your deductible if they ask. Sometimes they don't, but if they ask.

If they ask, you have to prove it.

That's right. Um, and the only, if I pay your deductible for you or a portion of that deductible, the only way I can prove that is with a fraudulent invoice. That's it. That's the only way I can prove that you paid your deductible if you didn't is by creating a fake invoice.

I gotcha.

So any contractor out there who tells you that they will cover your deductible, uh, is inviting you to break the law. is not only inviting you to break the law, they are also committing, I don't know, I don't even know. I think it's a felony. I really don't know. It is a, they are breaking the law anyway. I haven't looked at the penalties 'cause I don't care 'cause I don't do it. So.

Yeah, just.

But every day, maybe not every day, it's less and less. Every week anyway, I have a homeowner I've never met before, first introduction, Start to hint at it. And I, I can, I can feel it coming.

Well, because it used to be common practice.

Yes. And, and that's why this is one thing I often—

I'm not saying it was good, but like, it was, it was, you know, it was the thing that you did, man. Who was it? I think there was like a, an Everybody Loves Raymond episode about this where it was when they, when he drives the car through their house.

Oh, right.

And he is like, so here's what you do. You get your contractor to pad the invoice, right, by $1,000.

Yeah.

And at the end of the project, he gives you the $1,000. That's your deductible. Yeah. And he's like, you can't do this.

Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not thrilled with a lot of stuff they do in Austin, but this one they got right. The truth is, let's say, well, we'll just use raw numbers. $5,000 deductible, $30,000 roof. If I come to you and I tell you I'm going to take care of that deductible for you. Do you think I'm taking it out of my profit or am I taking out— Oh, you're just passing it on. Well, yeah, no, I'm, I'm putting a, a crap roof on your, on your house and I'm—

Oh yeah, that's another option.

Yeah. Like I'm, I'm using the cheapest materials I can find. I'm probably not even going to replace the underlayment. I'll just leave the other one up there that's got holes all in it. Uh, they used to just throw old shingles on top of, or new shingles on top of old shingles.

Oh, that's, yeah, that's true.

So a square of shingles, uh, weighs— that's 100 square feet of shingles— weighs— that's 3 bundles. 3 bundles of shingles weighs roughly between 250 and 300 pounds depending on, uh, what it is. So, um, and I'm terrible at doing quick math, but, uh, if, if you just put new shingles on top of old shingles, you're adding, depending on the size of your house, 3, 4, 5 tons of weight to that home that it's not designed to have.

Right.

So that's why we don't do that anymore. But the reason we don't leave the old underlayment up there, apart from the fact that it's got holes all in it from the last install, is we need to inspect the decking when we rip everything off. Once we rip everything off, then we're gonna know, did we have leaks that we didn't know about? Do we have rotten decking that needs to be replaced? All of this stuff can be supplemented back to the insurance company. In most cases, or not most, in some cases. Um, and, and in that case, if we do supplement, we get that money back. But, uh, the truth is we're going to make you whole

whether they pay us for it or not.

Yeah.

It's all baked into the cake when you deal with us. We know if we have to replace decking— in Woodforest last year, I did a roof that the house is only 14 years old. And it had 25 decking repairs that had to be done. Yep. House across the street, different builder, 3.

Yep.

So, you know, it makes a difference, one, but you're not going to know. Track builders, I can tell you which ones not to buy from, but we won't talk about that. No, not today.

None of us want to go to court.

No, we don't need all that. But, but it's, it's true that gonna make them whole no matter what. And, um, but we're, we're only gonna know that if we actually do the right things.

Yeah. So, well, and like, I, I've, I, I will say this. I think it's important to pay attention to the builder. And part of it is I, I, I know that they are actively working to try and make homes cheaper right now. And, and about the only way that you can do that, and I, I'm not saying that they're being dishonest. I'm not, I'm not trying to make accusations. But like, you put enough pressure on the people who are building those things, the only way that they can make them cheaper is to cut corners.

Yeah. Well, luckily, uh, for, for new home buyers right now, uh, there are no corners left to cut in the roofing. Uh, they've already cut them all.

Yeah.

So there's nothing left unless they go back to 3-tab, um, you know, having a roof that looks like sandpaper. Now, if you're over on Hardin Store Road, right before you get to 249 on the right, there's a new neighborhood over there. All 3 tab roofs. Now you won't be able to unsee it. You're gonna drive by and go, I can't believe they did that. It's crap. I mean, they literally threw up these new homes with garbage on the roof. Yeah. I mean, it's terrible. So, but I mean, they're gonna have to be replaced in like no time at all.

Well, like, so like from, from, from my business perspective, I like, we work, we work for a builder and one of the things, man, I got in trouble for this online one time where I was talking about how pretreats aren't required. in the state of Texas. Um, and people up in Dallas particularly just started yelling at me online. He's like, you're a moron, you don't know what you're talking about. I was like, yeah, I don't— I understand that that's not true in your county, right? But in Texas, it's county by county as to whether or not you have to have a pretreat. So what are builders doing? They're identifying the counties where they're not required and then building there. Why? Because it takes a lot

of time off of putting the slab in. It takes a lot of— I mean, it just takes money off the table for the buyer at the end of the day. Um, and so like they're looking for ways, things like that, where it's like, okay, here's something that it's an ought, but not a have to by law.

And so that's why they put water heaters in the attic.

I hate that.

It is the absolute worst place you can put a water heater for a couple of reasons. I used to be in the plumbing industry for 20 years, so I know this.

Mm-hmm.

There's a— if it's a natural gas water heater, there's a pilot light. Um, we already talked about ventilation. Most roofs aren't ventilated properly. So, uh, you've got a pilot light, and in some cases you've got 2, uh, or 3 if you've got a, you know, if you've got a heat pump up there, you've got a natural gas air conditioner or heating air furnace in there. So you've got open flames up there. In a lot of cases, you don't have enough oxygen because you don't have So, but the reason they did that is because there's 4 square feet of that they want to sell. Yep. And they can give it back to you in your garage.

They can give it back to you wherever. Yeah.

So, and they've been doing that in Texas for years. People from out of state come here and my water heaters wear.

Yeah, exactly.

So what happens when they fail? Well, you're going to have some sheetrock damage. That's what's going to happen.

Look, I've had 4 customers that have had their entire home flood because they went out of town and they had a water heater in the attic that failed. And they were— most of these people were on, like, 1-week, 2-week vacations, and their house just had water flowing through it for the entire time they were gone.

Yeah.

And I, I, I, I'm with you, man. I, I, I can't understand for the life of me why you would put a water heater in the attic. I mean, And, and I, I still see it now where the tankless ones. Now the, the tankless ones have some, some safety features on them that'll shut some water off and things like that. But, I mean, most of them are natural gas.

Mhmm.

So, I mean, to, to your point about ventilation, if that's not going right, they, they do make electric tankless water heaters, but they pull so many amps.

You have to do electrical work that make it cost prohibitive in most cases.

You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and some of them are even, I've seen them where they're the source point. You know, it's like an under-the-sink electric tankless water heater. Um, and, and like, I, I get how those make sense in certain applications. Like if it's an addition, you don't want to run, you know, 2 sets of pipes or whatever. Like it, it, it can make sense in some circumstances. I'm, I'm glad that we have them. I mean, they're the same technology, I think, for like RVs, you know, the same, like they have tankless water heaters in those. Yeah.

There's a lot of brands that do that. It's funny because there are a lot of times they're used for hand washing. Yeah. By the time the water, the hot water gets to— even though it's only a little bit of ways, they're still not efficient for having hot water for you to wash your hands most of the time. But it doesn't work for showers, obviously.

No.

But yeah, but the water heater in the attic, there's couple of other really dumb things that, that builders do. And it's for the profit motive. And I understand that. But now we're, we're in a place where these builders, they're not coming necessarily from the profit motive, because they already had all the profit they wanted, right? Well, now they have a price point problem. So we can only make the houses smaller, enough. Um, any house that's over 3,500 square feet now in Montgomery County is outrageously expensive. Outrageous. I have one, and I could not— I paid just $330,000 for it in 2014.

Yeah.

Um, there's— I don't think I could afford to, to buy a house like that ever again. Luckily, it's almost paid off, so Yeah. Um, maybe we'll live in a— sell it and live in an apartment high on the hog. I don't know. But, um, but that's when we have high interest rates and high home prices that, um, especially I think of my daughters. I don't know how they're going to afford a house.

Well, I mean, so, okay. So circling back to what we were talking about earlier with the, the, uh, prorated roofs with the insurance companies. One of the things, I mean, because we've, we've talked to gobs of insurance people and, and brokerages and, and all these people. And, and we watch the signals from what's happening in Florida. We watch the signals from what's happening in California. And all the insurance people are telling us, like, look, just get ready because the, your customer that, I, I forget the other kind of insurance that they had on the roof, roof replacement. Yeah.

RCV and ACV.

Yeah. So that, that one's just gone pretty much. Hardly anybody has that anymore.

No, that's, that's not in the first 10 years. It's still pretty prevalent. After that, matter of fact, State Farm, um, right now anyway, all of their, um, their homeowners policies that aren't like single-wide trailers or whatever, all of them to my knowledge are replacement costs, at least in Texas. Um, uh, but Allstate, for instance, people always ask me, and maybe I'll get in trouble for this, but people ask me, well, you know, who should I use for insurance? And I, I cannot give you an actual answer to that. Right. That's not in my purview. I'm a contractor. But what I can tell you is if they advertise on NFL games, you might want to think about where they got all that money. So

that's my rule of thumb, which the ones we've talked about tonight, State Farm, Allstate, USAA, they spend a ton of money on NFL games, don't they?

Yes, they do.

college football. And, and you got to think, well, why do they have— and I'm— we all have a profit motive. I am not opposed to, um, making profit. I do that myself. Um, the issue I have with insurance companies is they sell nothing. That's what they— that's what they sell, a promise.

Yeah.

And it's not even a— it's a promise with a wink. They don't even shake your hands. They give you a little fist bump. They— nothing.

Yeah.

Because the vast majority— well, not the vast majority, at least half of— and maybe the claims that are getting bought, because I'm probably 80% of the claims that, that I— homeowners that I work with, probably 80% of them get denied. at first.

Yeah.

But we get 95% of them bought. So at some point, uh, it's because there's actual damage on the roof. That's why we get them bought. We can't get roofs bought that don't have damage.

Right.

So why are we getting 95% of them bought? The other 5% also has damage.

You're saying you get, you're saying you get 95% of them bought after they've already been denied.

That's right.

Okay. And I know, I know I can't ask you how you do that.

That's right.

But like, You told me before the show, like, y'all's rate on that is so much higher than most other roofing companies, correct?

That's right. I mean, it's, it could be, and there's no secrets either. I'm, this is, it's, it's not something that I, I talk about necessarily, but it's because it's so simple. I don't want everybody else doing it too. But, but the truth is it's a, it's an easy process and it doesn't cost homeowners any more money. That's, uh, call me to find out how. But, um, fair enough. Yeah, but it's, um, homeowners are at a loss. A lot of times people will come to me after they've already been denied. My, um, I put a roof on in August of last year. They're friends of mine and, um, tough customers. Sometimes that, that happens.

That, yeah, that's true.

Um, but, uh, they had been denied Not only from insurance, they had also filed a claim with Owens Corning for faulty shingles.

It's the manufacturer of the shingle.

That's right. Okay. And they didn't have faulty shingles. They had poor ventilation. And they also had hail damage and wind damage. Just because they had poor ventilation doesn't mean that a storm didn't hit their house.

Sure. 2 things can be true.

Yeah, that's right. Um, it does make it more difficult sometimes to get an adjuster to see it that way. That, yeah, look, we, we have, uh, damaged shingles to the matting, um, from hail. We have missing shingles also from wind. Um, yeah, there, there's granule loss also, but As a matter of fact, when when a house has a lot of granular loss, it's nearly impossible to see hail damage, even if the house next door has it. And a lot of times we will get those bought anyway because we have collateral damage on you know spring downspouts and gutters and fence. Their barbecue pit out back's got dents in it. Maybe the car the car has.

Cars less so because who knows where that was when it got hit with hail.

But does, does that actually make a difference? Like say, because a lot of people have like their auto tied up with the same company that's doing their home. Yeah. So say they have a hail claim on the vehicle, but like you can't necessarily see it on the roof, but you can like, look, it got the hail damage when it was parked here at the house. So the likelihood that there's hail damage on both is pretty high. Is that—

Certainly would be. And, and I would be able to, document whether there was hail damage on the roof. But an insurance company can ask you, like, we don't think that it was in your driveway when, when it got hit with hail.

Sure.

And there's no way to really prove that. But if your downspouts have dings all over them, and we can even see, you know, I love a dirty driveway. Because if there's a hailstorm, a fresh hailstorm, and I show up to a house, And I'm taking pictures of their driveway and you can see it on the driveway.

What does it do?

I mean, it just— if you've got, um, just a dirty driveway, uh, a hail hit will actually clean it up a little bit.

It'll knock the dirt.

So literally you've got spots, um, and it'll go away after, you know, 2 or 3 weeks, maybe longer. Um, so if we're there pretty— it's easier to find it when it's fresh.

Time is of the essence.

That's right. You have a year in most cases to file a claim.

Oh, okay.

Our area had a hailstorm last June. And so that storm just expired. So we're waiting on a new one.

We haven't had one since.

We had one up near Lake Conroe. But it didn't go south toward The Woodlands. I gotcha. But that one in June of last year was pretty substantial. Wreaked some havoc, huh? We had bigger than 1-inch hail, and the further south you went. So back of The Woodlands, 2978, that area, pretty decent-sized hail. We had it Wood Forest, Grand Lake Estates, that area, half-inch to 3/4. A lot of insurance companies just flat out have a policy they don't, they don't buy roofs on half-inch hail. Well, I've talked to adjusters about that. They won't admit that that's the case, but I've, I've heard it from more than one source. Um, they'll say, yeah, there's just half-inch hail doesn't make enough damage. I'd say, well, how big is a bullet?

Does that make any damage? It's, it's about the force that it's coming down. It's not about the size of the hail. It's really not.

Yeah.

Um, so the size of the hail does not matter. Um, it's measurable at half-inch. Um, and also let's say I've got—

Well, that, that just doesn't make any sense to me though, right? Because like, to me, if they're all traveling at essentially the same speed, you know, I, I think about it like this. Would I rather get stepped on with the heel of a cowboy boot or a 3-inch high heel? Yeah, I'm gonna go with the cowboy boot every single time. Yeah, the, the heel is gonna hurt on that 3-inch stiletto.

And it's, and it's easy to tell when you're up there. Um, most insurance companies will come back if they do a denial. They'll say, uh, we, you know, right now they— ironically, insurance companies don't insure their own people to get on roofs. Um, so they hire third parties. Um, and I always say, what are his credentials? I, I don't know who this guy is.

Mm-hmm.

He works for a company, a third party. Um, his job is to get up there and take pictures. Um, of what? Yeah, what are you taking pictures of? How do I know he's qualified to do that? I don't. Yeah, he works for XYZ. Uh, there's a couple of them that are pretty prominent on a lot of them. When I see them coming, I'm like, all right, well, this one's getting denied. I know it.

Yeah.

Because somebody sitting at a desk looks at pictures with a preconceived notion in their mind based on a weather report.

Yeah.

And they just say no. Oh, that's all— none of that's hail, that's blistering.

Blistering?

Well, what— where did that come from? Like, how—

what caused the blister?

Yeah. So they're saying, you know, you know, I had one, uh, send a letter to the homeowner, a full page explaining blistering and how it happens. There's a bubble underneath them.

Uh, that sounds like a manufacturing defect.

So But, uh, I am not denying that with our heat that there is some blistering. Sure, I know the difference. So, um, and a lot of insurance adjusters at least pretend that they don't.

Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a funny one. Uh, so we had the roof on all 3 buildings done at the same time. I think it was like 11 years ago now. Um, and the reason we got it done, a tree fell through the main house. Um, so that's, that's a pretty obvious one when you can be like, yeah, and take that picture.

That was easy.

Yeah, that's easy. Um, but at the, at the time I had a buddy who was, uh, he's a roof salesman. He doesn't even live in the area. I don't think he's doing roofs anymore. Um, but he came out and, uh, you know, checked it out and then, uh, scheduled to meet the adjuster out here. Um, and so they did. They got up on the roof over at the main house. And they got over on the roof at the party barn. But on this building, my, my buddy put the ladder on the roof and every single time he'd gone up first. And, but this time he just put the ladder up on the roof and the adjuster goes, are you not going up there? And he goes, hell

no.

No, not this one.

Not this one. He goes, well, I'm not going up there either. And he goes, that's fine. I'm just letting you know I'm not going up there.

Yeah.

And he like, without even looking at it, just goes, okay, we'll do all 3. Yeah. And I'm like, that's crazy.

That's that.

I mean, like, you know, and it wasn't that long ago. I mean, like, he could have had a drone or, you know, something like that to at least—

I have a drone.

Put eyeballs on it.

I use it for marketing. I don't use it for inspections.

Yeah.

Um, it's very difficult unless— I mean, granted, if you have 2, 2.5, 3-inch hail, you can see that from the ground. You don't even need a drone for that most of the time.

Yeah.

Um, but you're not seeing half, 3/4, 1-inch hail most of the time with a drone, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Um, a lot of insurance companies only use drones and my, my roof got bought with a drone.

So, you know, but I'll, I'll tell you how I'm using it. I mean, and I mean, you could, you could use it the same way, honestly. I'm not using it, sometimes I'll use it for inspections for, to like kind of get up in like a little corner where I can't see all that well. Mm-hmm. But, um, You know, like I use some applications that I can use like a satellite view and measure a house. And it's, it's really accurate. Yeah. But if you have a lot of tree coverage, not so much. Yeah. But I just did this Friday. I took the drone out. There was a lot of tree cover. Well, no, this one, uh, they had actually done some additions on the house.

And so you couldn't see it from the satellite. And then there was a lot of tree coverage. And so I couldn't even get like a general idea of like the basic footprint. So I took the drone out, flew it around, took pictures from a bunch of angles, shot it into AI. And I said, give me a rough estimate on the square footage and linear footage of this home. And then we measured it by hand.

Hmm, it was right.

Oh, yeah.

It was pretty good.

It was really good. I was like, okay, this is, this is kind of cool. Yeah, this is like another tool in the tool belt where I can actually like, you know, with— and I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep testing it. Like, I want to make, I want to make sure that it's accurate. across the board. But I was like, if that's doable, that makes things way easier.

I use AI for, for design purposes all the time. Once I get, um, get a roof approved and, um, we, uh, we do, we call it a green sheet because our, our paperwork was green. I don't even use the green sheet anymore, but we still call it that. Um, but I'll go with a homeowner. We're basically picking I'm going to tell them everything we're going to do in detail. I'm going to answer all their questions. A lot of that we've already talked about anyway. We're going to pick shingles based on— I'll bring swatches out and we've got sample boards and we can put it up against the house. And usually these appointments take hour, hour and a half. They're pretty in-depth, but people are making long-term decisions, right?

Yeah.

And you'd be surprised how many people go, yeah, that one's good. I mean, it's Blows me away. But, um, and one guy, uh, one guy picked the shingle color without even talking to his wife. And I didn't want to get involved in that.

But, uh, I feel like you're calling me out right now. I literally did that. No, I got in trouble too.

Well, I don't know if he was gonna get in trouble, but, um, I would have. I certainly would have. Uh, my wife wants a say in what the house looks like that she lives in. So now I strongly suggested the roof color that we picked and she didn't have much to say in it. I guess, I mean, this is my job. So, but if we have an HR issue, I'll ask her about it.

That's what she says. Okay.

But yeah, it's an easy thing to do the green sheet appointment. Um, and talk about all that stuff. But sometimes I use ChatGPT if they just don't know. Take a picture of the house and I could tell it, hey, put GAF charcoal on this house and it does it.

Yeah.

And then they're like, well, what would it look like if I painted the brick? Tell it to do that. And we just remodeled our kitchen same way.

Yeah.

We basically just took a picture of it. Started playing around with different ideas and all that. Came up with an idea, um, gave it to our designer. She's like, you sure you wanna do that? And yeah, we did. And it looks great. So there you go.

Have you, have you played around with Claude at all?

Not really. Uh, okay.

So let me, let me, let me sell Claude to you a little bit. Okay. So, 'cause I, I love ChatGPT and I use 3 or 4 different AIs at this point. Like, there's an AI just specific for the podcast that I use. that does a lot of our video editing and things like that. And that's just a whole different thing rather than, like, what most people are using for, like, the large language models.

Sure.

Like ChatGPT and things like that. Claude solved a big issue for me in that a lot of times I would ask ChatGPT or Gemini to do something, and it was outside the realm of what they could control. Meaning they, in order to do what I was asking them to do, they needed to appeal to like another application, like Photoshop or like something. They needed to get on a web browser and actually like fill out something or, you know, do something like that. Claude can do that.

Interesting.

And so like a lot of times it'll tell me, like I'll ask it to do something and it'll explain to me how I can do it. And I will say, can you do that for me? Well, it has this beautiful feature that it allows you and it, you know, if you're a, you know, conspiracy kind of person, you probably don't want to do this, but you can give it as much control of your computer as you want. It can take control of just about everything. Um, it will even go into like the BIOS. I mean, like, hmm, because that's how it, that's how it checks applications that it builds. So I've built like a lot of applications, uh, like just small

things, um, but it needs, it needs to get in there to actually run the application. on that computer. Well, and, and so it has to go sort of outside of itself to do that. Well, I've gotten, I've gotten to the point now where I will tell it, I know that there's certain things that ChatGPT and Gemini can do a little bit better than it. And so I will actually tell it, hey, go tell ChatGPT to do this thing, take it from it and bring it back over here, and then tell Gemini to do this. And I'll actually have 'em working together.

Interesting.

Um, and, and yeah, it's, it's kind of cool. It does a lot of my social media for, for my regular business like, like that. Like I'll have ChatGPT creating images, I'll have, uh, Gemini writing copy, and then it'll like, it, it's almost agentic in the way, 'cause you can build agentic systems within each one of 'em. Like you can, you can have like an AI agent in ChatGPT that just does this. Well, I just have it do it for me in all the other platforms, and then they just talk to each other. And it's, it's like when the first time I did it where it like just took over my, my laptop that I have sitting right here, I could, I could tell it right now like, hey, go do like, go subscribe to all these podcasts.

It'll go do that.

It's, it's funny. So I only use Gemini through, uh, Gmail because I'll ask it to, something will come in and it's an appointment. There's actually a button I have, uh, we use Gmail for our, um, our mail server. So it, uh, it's a pro version and it's built in and there's a button that says add to my calendar. So I, and I use the Google Calendar. Well, I want it to also add this to my, um, my phone contacts.

Right.

No, I can't do that. Yep. Like, why not?

Exactly.

Tell me why you can't do this.

That's why, that's what I was bumping up against all the rest of them. And then I just had Claude do it for me.

Yeah.

And so like, if you're using, if you're using a MacBook and it's tied to your iPhone, it could totally do that for you.

Yeah. And it seems like really simple. I mean, if I can do it with my thumbs, I thought, I thought ChatGPT should be able to do it.

You would think, right? Well, I mean, like there's, there's security reasons on some things why it can't. Yeah. Right. But so Claude also has this really cool feature called Dispatch where if your laptop is on that, because you have to, You know how, like, you get ChatGPT, you do it through, like, a web browser, right?

Mm-hmm.

Or you get Gemini through a web browser. You can do the same thing with Claude, but you can also download Claude as an application onto your desktop. And so if your, if your desktop is open, your desktop, your laptop, whatever it's on, if it's on and you're out in the field and you want it to do something, there's an application on your phone you can download called Dispatch, and you can actually send it things to do. on your laptop while you're away. And it'll, it'll do those things and then actually communicate back to you through— it's like, it's, it's literally like a dispatch. Yeah.

We have a, we have an AI expert in our, in our networking group now that—

Is Edwin or Brenda? Or different?

Rob.

Oh, it's a new guy.

Yeah. He's, he's great. He's, he is new. And he, it's funny because he showed up, he's a real quiet, reserved guy. Um, and he'll admit it, like, I'm, I'm out of my comfort zone coming to even this, you know, because he's a, he's a computer guy and yeah, he, he likes to do stuff alone. And he gave a, uh, you know, he gave a talk and I'm like, I, I have spoken in front of groups my entire career. I've done that, right? I, I spoke I spoke about a product I was selling in front of 1,000 engineers one time. Uh, I, I don't want to ever have to do that again, but, uh, it didn't go that great, to be honest.

Um, he shows up, he's prepared, he's a smart guy, he's prepared, he does his presentation, it was flawless, it was great. And, um, and, and he was talking about how that was the first time he'd done it and And I'm like, man, like, I've been doing this my entire career and he's already better than me. Well, he has, has taken AI and, you know, he's forgotten more about AI than I know, but he, he's really good at it. Well, he, he knows it's all about the prompts.

So— Yes.

If, if you've got a large language model that, and you can tell it exactly what to do, how you want it to be done and how you want it to look like and sound. Um, it's all about detail. And I think where we fail when we use it is we just, uh, tell it to do something without giving it context. We don't tell us how— tell it how we're thinking about it being done.

Mm-hmm.

Um, now sometimes I'll tell it like, no, that's not what I meant. And then I'll say it in more detail and eventually come around to it. That's why I started using ChatGPT because Groq doesn't seem to be able to do visual stuff as well.

Right.

Or at all. You could tell it to do like a marketing, like an ad or something, just a still ad. Tell it the exact same prompt and the Grok one will look like a 3rd grader did it with construction paper. I mean, it's terrible. And I'm like, for as I know it's the amount of knowledge that it has access to. And I know, and it's faster at some things, and you could give it the most complex math problems and it can do it. The most simple things that we think would be simple, apparently it's not that simple.

Right.

But, um, and it's funny that faces, like, if you want, because I use it a lot for marketing and ads and stuff like that, Things that would cost 10 years ago would have cost thousands of dollars a month. We were able to do for the cost of a monthly subscription to ChatGPT for the most part. But what it really still can't do right is, or it's got training wheels on, on purpose. I think it actually does have some limitations.

Oh, it has guardrails on it for sure.

So they've like— why, if I, if I give it a picture of me and tell it to put, um, a cowboy hat, like, it'll do all the stuff and then I will look like, um, my brother, and I don't even have a brother, right? It doesn't look like me. Yeah, like, the structure's there, it all looks similar.

Mhm.

Not even close.

Yeah.

Not even close. So I don't know. I guess there's reasons for that, but, but I've heard that it's all about prompts now. And I say, make it look exactly like me. Still doesn't work. So I don't know what those prompts are.

Well, so some, some of it is, are you familiar with like ElevenLabs?

No.

So ElevenLabs back in the day was an electronic guitar modeling company. Okay. So like they could make it sound like a Marshall, they could make it sound like a Fender, they could make it sound like an Orange cab, whatever. If you're a guitar person, you know what I'm talking about. Well, what they got into is, you know, that, that's making things sound like what they're supposed to sound like. Well, then they got into, oh, well, we can copy anybody's voice, and then we can get that voice to say whatever we want, and then we can get it to say in the tone that— and so they became the voice people. Um, and you can, you

can go online and like, there's, there's, I think there's certain celebrities that have like sold their voice as something that you can use. And then they have like generic ones that you can buy to read your copy for like a commercial or something like that. Well, the reason like a lot of AI won't do, when you say like, make it look exactly like me, they're, they're putting guardrails in to prevent themselves from getting sued. Because once your likeness is out there and people can use it, if you're a Matthew McConaughey, you know, if you're a Sylvester Stallone, all of a sudden people can use your likeness in their ads without your permission because AI created it.

And, and so they're, they're trying to put some things in place so that you can't actually steal. It's not people's, um, it's not their— what do you call it?

Um, intellectual property.

It's not your intellectual property, but it's your likeness. Sure. And, and, you know, that's, that's going to be a— that's going to be a big thing moving on down the line. I mean, because you already have families that are claiming rights to relatives who were famous that are now dead, and they're, they're trying—

Carrie Fisher was in the Star Wars movies.

Right? Yeah, that's exactly— that's not exactly how they did it, but the very same.

That was before the tech.

But because I think it was her daughter that ended up playing her, but they just like AI imaged her likeness over her face.

Yeah, they could have done anybody.

But like, you, you think about, you know, um, you know, if Charlton Heston's grandchildren like now own his likeness and his voice, they can now license that to companies that now want Charlton Heston in their new movie. And like, that's going to be way cheaper than hiring a live-action DiCaprio.

So that's why they're so afraid of it.

Yes. It will. And the, the entertainment industry has been trying to fight this for a long time because they've seen it coming.

Yeah, kind of whatever they're against, I'm for. That's usually the way it works. So if You know, they have taken advantage of the American public for long enough.

Sure. But, like, you know, say, like, you know, you, you come on this show and everybody begins to realize, like, oh my gosh, he's such a trusted name in roofing. And then all your competitors start making videos of you advertising for them saying what a trusted brand they are. Right. But you didn't make that video. Sure. AI made that video. It looks just like you. It's got your voice because they were able to capture it. based off listening to you on the show, they've got all your inflection, they have your tone, they have like your vocabulary, and they just start using your likeness and it looks just like you and you're just out there promoting their business,

you would probably be a little upset.

Yeah, but we have, I do believe we do have avenues for that. That's, I think that would be an easy case to win.

Maybe. Again, that's— I think that's why they've been screaming and howling about this for a long time, because people were starting to do it.

Well, you remember when David Bowie sued Vanilla Ice and it was—

Oh, over the bass line?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he won that. So, and that, that wasn't a shut— open and shut case, uh, is, uh— but I, I definitely see your point. But it's, um, it's—

I don't know what the next 10 years is going to be. Yeah, I don't know what— I don't know what the answer is.

I don't know.

I don't know how you protect people. I don't know how you allow businesses to be creative. I don't know how you— I don't know any of it.

So, so we were— one of my daughters gets a really good tan and the other one not as much. And she was complaining about, you know, having a farmer's tan or something. And I thought it would be funny. I had a picture of her. She was wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts, but I had a picture of her and I asked ChatGPT to give her a farmer's tan. And it's like, she's a minor, I can't do that. I'm like, she's my kid though.

Yeah.

Doesn't matter. I don't like— so I call my ChatGPT Chad. He's ChadGPT for me. But yeah, so I'm like, so let me get this right. And I mean, I do just— it's conversational. I know I'm talking to a computer, but it's, You know, it's fun. And, you know, if you're just sitting at a traffic light talking to your phone, it's kind of fun. But there are things like that that I understand why it's there. I totally get it. There should be exceptions for me, but— Yeah. I feel that way about a lot of things actually.

I understand the rules, they just shouldn't apply to me.

Well, yeah, that actually could be my mantra actually. I generally am not a huge fan of authority.

Me either.

And, you know, so I consider traffic lights and speed limits as suggestions. They're merely suggestions. And sometimes when you do get a ticket, it's not necessarily a fine. It's just you are paying for past deeds that you got away with. But, you know, um, I actually don't even speed that much anymore. I think the older you get, the, the lighter your foot gets. I don't know.

Oh, I think that's definitely true. Like, I, I am much less interested in getting anywhere fast.

Yeah, I, I've seen people blow past me with the, you know, they, they, they took, they changed the muffler and they think that makes them cool and they blow past me because I'm a grandpa going too slow. And then We're at the same light right next to each other. Yeah, 30 seconds later.

My dad always used to say, well, they're going to be the first one at the scene of the accident.

Well, it's, um, you know, with, with our businesses, um, and I, I really think this tech is going to make a lot of— I, I love the fact that I'm in a blue-collar job.

Oh, same.

Um, I, I, you know, and I think I make a good living. Um, I would gnaw my arm off if I had to sit at a desk every day. I just— that's not me.

Um, I would start with somebody else's arm, but yeah, same.

Yeah, well, if I feel like I'm chained to that desk, so that might be the only way to get out. But, um, and I, I've had those types of jobs before, and I'm, um, you know, I, I More or less, I wear what I want to work. I answer to no one but my homeowners and my family and my God. And that's how I wanna keep it. And I don't think that all this technology, it will help us as a tool for marketing or as a helper for, you know, things that we don't really wanna do.

Yeah.

I don't think it's gonna— it's certainly not gonna change your business. I don't think it's gonna change mine.

No, I mean, I mean, there's, there's gonna be tools that we have access to that we didn't have access to before, but I don't think it's— it's not gonna change the application of the business. I mean, it's, it's still gotta be people.

You still have to go out there. Yeah.

I mean, like, you don't— you really don't want, like, the robots doing what we do. It's— it won't be good.

I, I've had pest control people who seemed kind of like they were like robots. But yeah, I, I, um, I, I'm— I've never been happier to be in a, a job where I use my hands and my brain. And because, uh, I don't feel particularly replaceable, um, certainly not by tech.

Yeah. And I, I think, I think that's the message that we're getting right now is the— with the way things are advancing and how quickly they're advancing, that if you want any sort of security, look for a trade. I mean, a hands-on trade where you can actually learn how to do something that's valuable to the consumer. And that doesn't necessarily mean just to homeowners. I mean, like, there's lots of, you know, like trades, you know, like I've got a good buddy that works in like cryogenics and, you know, like he has to custom design systems for cryogenics all the time. And it's like, it's welding and it's plumbing.

Mm-hmm.

Like that are doing those, that, that kind of stuff, you know. And so like, it's not, it's not just like unclogging toilets and replacing light switches, right?

You know, um, no, as a matter of fact, that plumbing and electrical, those are— that, that's a small percentage of what they do. They— that, you know, of the trades, the, the people who do, you know, re-bottle and repair, that's a small percentage of, uh, my— the first 20 years of my career, I was on the sales side, but my customers were largely plumbers and mechanicals. So, and I did mostly commercials. So I was wearing a hard hat a lot of the times. I understand how plumbing systems work and I did all of that. But I talked to, you know, I talked to the union hall a lot, more than once.

Yeah.

About this, how there was nobody on the bench. If you want to leave high school, and by the time you're—I can speak to the plumbing trade. Just show up at the hall and say, "I'd like to be a plumber." They'll sign you up as an apprentice, and five years later you can sit for your master plumber's license. Well, maybe not five years. I think you can do. You're an apprentice first and then you can be, uh, eventually, I think it's maybe it's 10 years. You have to have your plumbing, actual plumbing license for a period of time. I don't remember what it is, but, um, before you're 30, you can own your own business and be a master plumber.

Yeah.

Um, there's a plumber in this area who's a friend of mine. I won't name him because I, I didn't tell him I was going to talk about him, but, um, the guy, uh, he was one of my best customers when I was, uh, in wholesale. And, uh, he told me, um, I have an 8th grade education. I dropped out of school before we even got to high school. I dropped out because I just knew that I wanted to work for a living and they had nothing for me. Um, he is one of the richest guys I know.

Mm-hmm.

Um, based solely on hard work and doing something that people need. Yep. Uh, so based on that, and probably doing it honestly.

Yeah, there's that. You can't, well, you can't do anything for anymore. Well, no, well, I mean, like, look, if you're honest and you're good, you shouldn't be cheap. 100%.

You know, and, and I paid a plumber $900 the other day to do some things that I probably could have done myself. And, um, but one was gas.

It's like, oh yeah, you don't mess with that.

That's the only reason I did that. Um, and I was like, Man, I've always thought I was in the wrong business when I was selling to these guys. Picking up scraps is kind of how I felt because these guys, but they did something honestly. And you know the plumber I hired.

Okay.

But it's, and I'm more than willing to hand that over to a guy who runs his business honestly, um, gives you a quote, does exactly what he says he's gonna do.

Yep.

Um, that's all we can ask.

Yeah.

From each other and from the people that we use. We're both homeowners. We have to do that. That's all I expect from people who use me is, uh, give me a shot and I'll do what I say I'm gonna do. Um, my mentor, professional mentor. He didn't— he was reluctantly my mentor. If I told him at the time he was my mentor, he would have cringed at the thought. But the truth is, he's retired now and haven't seen him in a long time. But he, he said, this job's pretty easy. 2 pieces of advice he gave me that I will always remember. Um, this job's pretty easy if you do it right. You just go around and visit your friends every day. Uh, the other piece

that he told me is, um, just pick up your phone when it rings and do what you say you're gonna do. That's all you gotta do. You're gonna be better than 90% of the people that you compete against if you do those 2 things.

Which, it's insane that that's true, but it is.

I just bought a car. It's true. Yeah. I was blown away at how lousy it used to be if you made it known that you were willing to buy a car. you were gonna be bombarded by salespeople right and left, um, trying to sell you a car. I sent an email to 10 dealerships with what I wanted to buy and that I was willing to buy it and, um, didn't even talk about pricing, just reach out to me so we can talk. Um, this was on Wednesday of last week.

Mm-hmm.

I've since bought the car. I went a different route. Not one person contacted me.

That's insane.

Not one.

Here's, here's something that I've noticed, man, and you tell me if you've noticed the same thing. I've noticed that young people— I mean, because we're both in our 40s— people that are more than 10 years younger than us, the reluctance with which they have to answer the phone and/or make a phone call is insane to me. Like, they— it's, it's almost like a quiet protest. It's like, if you don't text me or message me through some social— and even then you do that, it's at their leisure that they're going to respond in any sort of form or fashion that seems reasonable to me. Like, I, I panic if I don't respond to a text message within about 5

minutes, you know? Like, I, I feel like that's rude. And I, I have people like on a professional level that will wait like 2 days to respond to me. And like, and I'm not trying to say like I'm super important or like I'm this—

But you've moved on by then.

You know, well, here's what I want to say is like the, the few people within those generations that figure out what's respect, what's respected from people in our generation are going to make an absolute killing. Because they're going to be able to make moves in business 24 to 48 hours before their competitors because they're just not answering the phone.

Yeah. I, I've mentioned my wife's in HR and we talk a lot about who they're hiring, these younger generations. And I, I've noticed that these large companies, these large businesses have made a concerted effort to attract talent from you know, Gen Z, these young new grads that are coming out and they're trying to attract them to come work here. I don't remember that being a thing when I was 20, 22.

Yeah, me too.

It was, you're gonna come here and learn the way we do things. And if you don't like it, there's the door. And now we're bending over backwards to make sure that a new generation feels wanted and needed and valued. and has a Segway they can ride around the office or play ping pong. That was not a thing. I, I still— I work for myself. No one's— I don't punch a clock. No one— if, if I'm going to, you know, take my daughter somewhere in the middle of the day, I can do that. I still feel guilty about it. Well, still—

well, and I, I think that's actually— I think that's most people in business. I don't think, I don't think that they're like big, big companies, I think are being pressured to do that because at this point they probably just need warm bodies. People like you and me, I, I don't, I don't know how you feel about this, but I got, I have employees and like, if you're gonna behave that way, fine. I'm gonna go hire the 60-year-old dude that's retired and is just bored. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna hire the old guy and I, yeah, I know he's not gonna be around for the next. 10, 20 years. Like, he wants— he probably wants a 5-year commitment. He wants to, you know, just

not be bored.

Yeah.

You know, I'll take that all day long. All day long, I'll take that. And, and then all these, all these people out there are saying, well, I— there's no jobs, there's no jobs. It's like, no, you're not hireable. Like, they've interviewed you, they don't like you, they don't want you. Get better skills.

We, we offer This is what people don't seem to understand. Um, what, what I offer people that come in here, what our company offers— I, I train, um, I'm tasked with, with training new people that come in, um, and I like that. I like doing it. I like showing them a pathway to life-changing money, frankly.

Sure.

You can, you can go and start at the bottom at some company where you're just a cog. You're not valued. You're just a guy. Or you can come and I can show you all you have to do is be willing to work hard and you have to be able to talk to people. That last part is the problem.

Yep.

They have no clue how to talk to anybody. Um, and it's very difficult. I've found that—

Do you think that's like a lack of skill or do you think that's a lack of want to? Do you think it's like they only know how to do it on, I don't know, what is it? I forget what they call it. Snapchat. Like, do you think they only know how to do it like on Snapchat or something like that?

Well, that's about how, how long their, their, um, attention span is. I mean, um, That's why Snapchat, or not, uh, TikTok, those things are so big. It's because you don't have to put any time into it. Now, making them, sure, that, that takes time.

Sure. Yeah.

But watching them, what, TikTok, 10 seconds, 12 seconds? I don't even know how— I'm not on TikTok. I don't want China to have all my information. But, um, but the truth is, it's, uh, it's an attention span thing. Um, That thing you said about the phone is 100% true. I have found that I get things done quicker if I make a phone call and pin somebody down. But even I, I'm 48 years old, even I would rather text. Now, I don't know, maybe that's a me thing, but I don't particularly like talking on the phone.

Well, the nice thing about a text message is you don't have to recall the conversation later on. Yeah, you know, you know, you have like a written record of what actually was said between you and them.

Yeah. And if I don't want that, I'm going to call you. Yeah. Now I actually, in, in business professionally, I got, I did get in trouble, uh, for, for sending an email that I should not have sent. And, um, it was one of those situations where I had an end user customer with a supplier in between. So, so basically the, the guy, the in-between guy was my customer technically, but the end user was both of our customers. And I had sold this end user a job through one wholesaler and it went flawlessly.

Mm-hmm.

Um, we were having nothing but problems on the second one and he was threatening to, to leave to go to a different manufacturer. And I said what was on my mind. I said the quiet part out loud. I said, and this was in an email, um, you've done jobs with me before and we've never had a problem. And, uh, the only difference between this job and those other jobs is the supplier that you're using.

Hmm.

I told him to put this material in stock and he refused to. That's, that's the problem. And it wasn't 5 minutes, that guy had already read that email and was blowing up my phone. And I learned a lesson. Um, in person is the way to have that conversation. Yeah. Because I could have had that. I could have driven down there, had that conversation in person, brought him over to my side. Not that we're going to get pitchforks out for the other guy, but we could have fixed the problem without anybody getting upset about it.

Right.

But instead, I went the easy way and just sent an email. And you can't control it after that. It's in the ether. It's out there.

And the way he read it is the way he read it. It's not necessarily the way you meant it.

That's right. It didn't matter. So that's when I learned, uh, that's why, like yesterday, I mean, it was my birthday and it was a Sunday and a customer wanted, uh, some answers on something. I just went to their house. And sat down with them. And that's the sort of thing that separates— I'm not just tooting my own horn.

Yeah.

That separates a, a good contractor from somebody who you're just a number. You're just another guy. Um, if, if this one falls apart, I got another one right behind it. Yeah. I don't see it that way. Yeah. I got to get new business, but until the people that I'm working with now are satisfied, I'm not going to have new business. Because I— because that's how I get new business is from those people telling their friends about me.

Man. Well, um, we've been at this for an hour and a half, man. Oh, any— anything else we need to do? Anything else we need to cover before we wrap this thing up?

I don't think so. I mean, we talked for an hour and a half before the podcast.

We did. Yeah. Which I enjoyed that too. Yeah. Um, well, let everybody know how they get ahold of you, man.

Yeah. So my, uh, my company's Priority Roofing. You can reach me at jeremy@priorityroofs.com. Um, that's my email. My phone number's 936-548-9231. Um, I'm, I've, I've been in the, uh, Montgomery area for about, I don't know, 12 years now. Um, and And so I like to work where I live. And so my own neighborhood, that's where I do most of my work. And then it kind of spreads out from there. So it doesn't matter where you are. I've done jobs all over the Houston area, all the way out to New Caney, Cypress. I'm all over the place.

Gotcha.

So come let me get on your roof. I'll be— I'll shoot you straight.

Awesome. Well, guys, if you if you have any roofing questions, you now know who to reach out to. We always appreciate everyone tuning in to the Homeowner Show. If you if you have an idea for an episode, send us a message. You can always reach us on all the socials. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, all the places you can. But like most importantly, subscribe to the show if you hadn't done that yet. That's a big help to the show, especially if you're watching on YouTube. But until next time, see ya.