Does one size fit all?

Building Operating Management, Oct 2003 by Warseck, Karen

Although it might sound good on paper, STANDARDIZING A ROOFING SPECIFICATION is risky business for most building owners

One way building owners may try to save money on roofing costs is to use the same set of specifications at multiple buildings. The thinking behind it is easy to understand: By reusing a set of specifications over and over, the building owner can save on design fees and volume purchasing can include discounted material prices and special pricing from contractors.

It sounds good on paper, but how well does it work in the real world? When the buildings are nearly identical from place to place - such as fastfood restaurants and big-box retail stores - and the square footages are large, this approach can create substantial discounts. Giant retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target use this approach almost exclusively. They use the same roofing materials and a select group of contractors, or have their own in-house personnel, throughout the entire United States. Given the large number and square footage of stores involved, the savings of this approach are significant.

ADVANTAGE FOR CONTRACTORS

Another major reason for standardization is contractors. Installing the same roof on multiple buildings will help the contractor understand the system and the tricks of the trade that will allow them to install it well. As the old saying goes, practice makes perfect.

The approach also improves the contractor's ability to repair the roof. One repair manual will cover all buildings, allowing control over how repairs are done. Contractors who know how to repair one building's roof will know how to repair another. (This becomes very important with unfamiliar roof types. Some roof repairs can actually cause more damage than they solve. A good example of this is the roofer who "patches" a PVC or EPDM roofing membrane with asphalt roofing cement.)

Standardization over multiple buildings may also help in responsiveness to warranty claims. If the manufacturer knows that they are part of a standardized specification, they are more likely to respond well because they know that their material will be installed on future buildings as long as the materials continue to perform.

But what about owners who only have a few facilities? Does the same logic work for them? Maybe. As far as contractors are concerned, the amount of work they will get directly affects their willingness to create discount pricing and to spend the time and money to train workers to install the roofing system correctly. Roofing three buildings might not be enough to warrant special pricing. Roofing 30 buildings might.

With manufacturers, the square feet of materials sold can get their attention. This is not to say that manufacturers will not respond well and quickly to warranty claims anyway, regardless of the number and size of the roofs; it is just that a million square feet is much more noticeable to a manufacturer than a thousand.

BEYOND STANDARDIZATION

Among all the reasons for standardizing specifications, one stands out - to save money. A key reason that large retailers can reuse specifications is that they have in-house staff to prepare them. The in-house staff can make the changes to the standard specifications needed to adjust the roof design to the specific locale. This means that the specifications are not free, but the cost of an in-house staff is less because the retailer needs them for other reasons as well.

What's more, there are no questions of copyright protection in their work. This is not true of outside consultants' services, unless it is agreed to in the contract. Reusing a set of consultant's documents violates copyright laws. Design fees have to be paid if those documents are reused; however, the fees may be less per building if specifications are written for multiple buildings.

What about using manufacturer's free specifications? True, there are no design fees involved and the specifications can be used as many times as necessary. But rememher, manufacturer specifications are intended to cover all situations in all locations of the country. This means that someone needs to pick and choose which pieces of the manufacturer's documents apply to the specific building to which the roof will be applied. Usually, when someone is unwilling to pay for a consultant to design the roof, the roofing contractor ends up doing that job. That can be good or bad, depending on the contractor.

Roofing contractors are in business to make money. Even the best roofers have competitors who undercut bids because they are unlicensed, use inferior labor or go without insurance. Or they propose cheap, inferior roof systems, install them, get paid and disappear when the problems start. So contractors that would, if given a chance, install a perfectly good roofing system, are pressured into doing the minimum possible to stay competitive with the lower-tier roofers.

CUSTOMIZING SPECIFICATIONS

Using a manufacturer's specification and letting the roofing contractor customize it to the needs of the building can work if the roofers being considered are upper-tier contractors. But it's a gamble because even the best roofers have lousy crews occasionally. Facility executives who take this route need to be extremely careful when choosing contractors to bid.