Remodeling sales tip: give flat roofs a pitch

DOTH aging, shoe box shaped lJbuildings with leaky flat roofs constantly in need of repair and a retailer's bottom line get a new lease on life with a pitched or slope roof conversion.

Using rafters or trusses and structural wood panels, this remodeling project sale is a profitable market niche for lumber manufacturers and retailers. With more than half of all commercial remodeling jobs in the nation involving roof repair or replacement, the conversion of flat Buildings Suitable for Roof Convercion

School

Bowling alley

Warehouse

Residential Commercial CommunitY

Church

Smallbusiness

Apartment complex

Dormitory

Military housing

Auditorium roofs to pirched roofs pays off with a string of benefits, all very highly marketable.

In addition to pointing out to remodeling contfetor customers how a pitched roof conversion can solve chronic leakage problems connected with a flat roof, a salesman should stress it can reduce energy costs, pf(> vide greater strength for snow loads, add storage space under the angled top and give a stylish, new look to an often drab building, all for about the same cost as tearing off and r€placing a flat roof. The benefit that may cinch the sale is the assuran@ that for the owner the inconvenience and expense of patching holes over and over in a flat roof will end"

Cathy Man, engineered systems markets manager for the Southern Forest Products Association, points out that construction exp€rts estimate that even the best new'flat roof job can develop leakage problems within five years. Pitched southern pine roofs, which provide dimensional stability and srength o withstand heavy snow and wind loads, often will last for 20 to 30 years without repair.

"The conversion isn't complicated at all," she says. "The new trusses arc simply placed on top of the existing flat roof. Then the new attic area can

Story at a Glance

How to develop profitable sales of trusses, rafters and structural wood panels for convertlng llat rcols to pltch or sbpe style ... ways to sell a remodeling prolect that glves new llfe to an aglng building ... sultable for all Upes of strrrcturcs.

be insulated to realize a dramatic reduction in heating and cooling costs. No more puddles in the d€p'ressed areas of a flat rmf. And an immediate improvement in the appetrance of tb building."

Candidates for conversion from flat roof o pircbed rmf are found in every neighborhood. Buildings successfully transformed range from an 1894 auditorirrm, a school, a warehouse and a university dtrmitory to a two bedroom rcsidence.

Retailcrs wanting inlomation on converting flat roofs to pirch roofs c@t 8et a free booklct, 'Roof Aluraions and Renovations," from tlv Soulurn Pfuu Mar*cting Council, Box 641700, Kenner, La. 7OM4 - Editor.

,1|| RE bar codes and scanning f,lworting for building producti retailers? More dealers are reporting positive experiences with the technology, although many small stores with limited inventory still choose to record transactions manually.

Improvements in hand-held scanning guns account for a high percentage of the change in attitude. Laser guns, which have higher readability than digital or CCD guns, have become less expensive. Their reliability can be judged by the "CCD killer" niclname they have acquired.

Laser technology has increased readability by at least 307o and extended the scanning range up to 24 inches. Superior, accurate readings are possible even when bar codes are dusty or greasy, curved or extra small, Mark Gebel, national sales manager for Allegeier Conputer Corp., Tustin, Ca., expliains.

Because the laser guns can read bar codes as small as a thumbnail, they have made bar coding of lumber, moulding and millwork more feasible. Scanning can speed up express lanes and consumer checkout lines, but since prices for most contractor sales are read from a price book, the procedure is not as beneficial at a contractor desk. Scanner guns which attach to portable, hand-held terminals are helpful for inventory counts.

Development of a holster type holder which places the scanner in position to have merchandise passed under it or allows it to be removed for "shooting" an item has also improved the scanning technique. Because scanner guns have become easier to use, less expensive and available to plug into existing point of sale stations, more stores and even contractor yards are adding them, Cary Anderson, a consuhant with Hyatt,