Standing Seam Roofs And The Aftermath Of A Colorado Hailstorm

By Rod Taylor, Premium Panels

The old expression, “when life hands you lemons..make lemonade,” takes on an unusual twist when talking about severe weather events. Case in point is one particularly nasty hailstorm that hit Colorado in July 2009.

Our state in general, and Denver in particular, has had a long history of being an ideal location for stormy weather which, in the summertime, usually translates into violent hailstorms. And this year that proved once again to be the rule rather than the exception.

Our July hailstorm was said by local TV newscasters to have caused approximately $350 million in damage, and triggered more than 52,000 insurance claims. Sometimes it seems that Mother Nature gets jealous of all the local beauty we enjoy and sends a little package our way as a reminder of just who really is in control. This year, she may have outdone herself just a little.

The evening news on July 20th was the normal garden variety broadcast with the weatherman telling us about a small front passing through our area—nothing apparently out of the ordinary. Approximately 10 minutes later the broadcast was broken into for reports of heavy rain at the downtown TV station, and almost immediately was followed by reports of heavy wind and hail in the close-in suburbs of Wheat Ridge, Arvada and Lakewood. Shortly afterward, the first pictures started filling my TV screen with what looked to be a hailstorm of a very serious nature and, since the building where our company is located, sits in the middle of the hardest hit area, I was having thoughts of broken windows, fallen trees, and a roof that resembled a giant soup strainer. Fortunately for us, that wasn’t the case. We came through it with virtually no damage, but the morning news reports told a different story for tens of thousands of others.

Destruction was everywhere. From the very simple things like broken windows to the horrific, where houses were literally cut in half from falling trees. From shiny cars with hundreds of little hail dimples to complete structures with plastic vinyl siding that now resembled Swiss cheese more than a wall covering. Solar arrays were torn from their racking by the wind, littering streets and yards. From large commercial structures to small suburban houses, Mother Nature played no favorites. Everyone in her path got handed equal treatment.

Now for the part about lemons and lemonade…

Not far from our company’s location, right in the middle of all the devastation, we found a building whose roof was virtually untouched by the storm. The roof was standing seam metal. Since our company manufactures the same type of product, we were very interested and pleased to see how well it stood up. After looking it over closely and not seeing any damage, my thoughts ran to all those home and building owners whose asphalt or composite roofs were either partially damaged or totaled by the hail and quickly realized how they had just been handed a whole bucket of lemons and were probably still too much in shock to know what to do about it.

How many of these people, I wondered, know that if they replace the roofs they lost with standing seam metal, they could qualify for a $1,500 government-funded tax credit? I’ll bet I could help them with that, I thought.

Once I started thinking along those lines my salesman’s imagination really took off!

How many of these people know that standing seam metal carries a Class 4 impact resistive designation which qualifies them for a discount on their Homeowners policy? I’ll bet I could show them how to save money there as well! And as long as we’re at it, we also need to let people know how a metal roof will improve the value of their property, look great, last twice as long as asphalt and save them money (maybe thousands) in air conditioning and home operating costs to boot! We also need to inform folks about thin-film PV Solar as well; how it stands up in hail, resists winds to 160mph and doesn’t become a flying missile in heavy weather!

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to inform everybody about the various ways metal roofing could help them and how they would be money-ahead in the future by replacing that roof or wall panel with metal rather than going back with asphalt or some other product they previously had.

There’s an old expression about nothing being as sure as “death and taxes”. Well, here in Colorado, they should change that to “death, taxes and hailstorms”! It’s a fact of life we live with, and at Premium Panels, we want everyone to know that when Mother Nature hits folks with all those lemons, we want to be the ones who can show you how to make lemonade! And putting competitive differences aside just for a moment, this is a message I believe other metal roofing manufacturers should echo as well. There’s plenty of noise out there, denigrating our products. We should be just as loud in singing metal roofing’s praises, especially when Mother Nature hands us a song book.

Rod Taylor is an outside salesman for Premium Panels of Denver, CO. He has five years of experience in commercial and residential standing seam metal roofing industries and 12 in the general construction industry overall. With questions about his column, e-mail Rod at rod@premiumpanels.com.

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