The high winds and wicked weather that kicked off the month of December sparked a storm of business for roofing contractors in the Reno-Sparks area.
Roofing company executives kept crews busy working overtime the first week of December and also banked big chunks of revenue during a normally soft month.
D&D Roofing and Sheet Metal took more than 500 calls for emergency repairs after the first rainstorm hit the region at the end of November, Vice President Sam Chamberlin says.
As high winds pummeled the Truckee Meadows over the following days, D&D employees scrambled to accommodate frantic homeowners fighting leaking roofs and commercial customers who lost entire sections of their roofs.
Chamberlin says the storm series was the worst in the last four years and increased the company's business almost 1,000 percent from a sluggish November. D&D crews worked the entire weekend of Dec. 1 and 2 responding to service calls.
"With new commercial construction being almost nonexistent, it is a big boost for us," Chamberlin says. "A lot of people have put off their roofing and repair projects, and when it is leaking on their computer it is more of a priority."
Shawn Sjodin, operations manager for Burke Roofing Inc., says the phone rang steadily through the weekend and swamped the company's staff of about 20 employees. The volume of work was enough that Burke Roofing began pushing callers off to other roofing contractors.
"This is the most calls we have gotten," Sjodin says. "We have gotten to the point where we can't respond to the calls we are getting we just don't have enough people. We take as many as we can, but there is only so much we can do."
Burke was able to employ a handful of roofers over the weekend that normally would be unemployed, Sjodin says. He expected it would take at least a week of working long hours to catch up to all the service work in the company's queue.
"There are still calls coming in," Sjodin says. "It helps keep our guys busy at time when it typically is very slow. Rather than sitting home they are actually out working."
David Gurr, superintendent with Gurr's Roofing Heating and Sheet Metal, says the difference between the series of storms at the start of December and other wet weather that usually hits the region was the large amounts of wind-driven rain, which causes different types of roof leaks than regular rain or snowfall.
Gurr's roofing crews started responding to calls for repairs at the end of November and were expected to take at least two weeks to catch up, Gurr says.
Steve Nichols, owner of Ace Roofing of Reno, says his company usually fields roughly 10 calls a week. Business spiked to about five calls an hour to kick off December.
The wind damage has been widespread throughout the region, Nichols adds.
"We are going everywhere, from Cold Springs to Toll Road," he says. "We hate seeing this much damage, but it is really good for business."
Nichols says that despite the increased volume of work, small companies such as his can't afford to hire new workers who may be unfamiliar with the requirements of roof repairs or spot materials replacement.
"You have to know what kind of guys you have got," he says.
Clay Davis, owner of East Fork Roofing in Carson City, says the capital region was hit just as hard as the Truckee Meadows. Davis's crew of eight will spend the next two weeks chasing calls for emergency repairs to stop leaks.
The upturn in business has been so strong that Davis was forced to tackle several roof repairs himself, and he also had to turn away customers who couldn't afford to wait a week or more for repair work.
"It is a huge revenue boost more so than any other year," Davis says. "My Decembers, Januarys and Februarys are usually some of my biggest months as far as booking work, but I can't get to (the work) in the winter. Now I am banging away trying to get those leaks stopped."
