In this episode, Daniel discusses why finding a cheaper product online or at a home-goods store is not always the better (or cheaper) option, especially in the long run.
Podcast Transcription- RoofLifeB018-149:
Shayla: You are listening to the Roof Life of Oregon podcast and I’m talking with a roof specialist, Daniel. And, Daniel, sometimes we like to use knockoff products because they’re a little cheaper and maybe they do the same thing. Is that the case with working with generic products on your roof, too?
Daniel: There are some places, and I’m guilty of it, my wife is guilty of it, where we go, I’m not going to pay the full sticker price for that product. I’m going to use this widget in this location and I’m going to pay less for it, and it’s going to do its job just fine. Sometimes you cannot do that and you shouldn’t do that. And on your roof is one of them. Your roof protects everything else in your house. If you get a leak, if something else is going wrong, it’s not just going to damage the roof, it’s going to damage the interior. It’s going to leak on your hardwood floors and things like that. In this case, it didn’t cause damage, but it still wasn’t functioning the way it was supposed to and it’s a potential leak for later on.
I got a call from a client who said, “Hey, I had this solar tube put in and the thing just doesn’t work for anything. I was told that this thing was going to give me all kinds of light inside the hallway. Can you come to take a look at it?” So I drive out, take a look at this thing, and I’ve never even seen this brand before. Been doing it for a while, and I have no idea who it is. There were no labels on it, no nothing. It was a solar tube. Most solar tubes have a dome top and they have a reflector. So you steer it toward the southwest to collect as much sun as it can. It goes down the tube on the inside, reflects, and it gives you light on the inside, as though you have a light on in a hallway downstairs. But it’s just natural light.
This thing was flat with no dome, and no reflectors and the tube inside was really weird looking, so she was getting no light through this thing. It was dim at best. And then I looked at the seal going around it and there were these two weird screws that were kind of exposed and rusting, and I could see where water was starting to work on them. So there’s a huge difference in quality between different brands. Velux makes one. Solatube. Really high-quality brands versus this weird knockoff thing that I saw.
Shayla: And it can make a huge difference, right? I mean, could that potentially ruin a roof, if it’s not done right?
Daniel: It could. And that’s what I noticed when I got to this one those weird screws that were starting to rust through. When I pushed down on the seal where those screws were, I could see water kind of poke out. It hadn’t gotten into the house yet, but ya know if those screws are rusting, they’re eventually going to go away. Then that water’s going to go down on the inside and you’ll have a leak. The better brands, they’ve been doing this for a while. That’s what they do. And they’ve designed them so that you don’t have those exposed screws. They don’t have that weird kind of flashing. So when it comes to knockoffs or generics, please don’t do that on your roof.
Shayla: When you work with Roof Life of Oregon, you can be sure that they are installing the proper components for your roof. If you have any questions about anything that Daniel has talked about today, please reach out to the team at Roof Life of Oregon. Thanks, Daniel.
Daniel: Thank you.