A message from the President
posted October 18, 2011
Jacksonville Fall Home & Patio participation such a success.
A great big thank you goes out to Dave Gouge of ABC Supply,
Loretta Hartley of Sunniland Supply, Donna Dove of IKO, Ltd.,
Tonya Steele of Millennium Metals, John & Donna Gilmore of
John Gilmore Rfg., John Tatum & Chris Flex of Bradco Supply,
Mac McGonical of Certainteed Corp., Director Todd Brown
(thanks for sending me home after he found me cat napping),
Vinnie Marino of Affordable Contr., Brad Clark of Atlantic Coast
Rfg. & Const., Eric Wheeler of Champion Rfg. Svcs., and past-
president Jerry Rowe.
Approximately 220 hours were volunteered by these individuals
& businesses to educate the
public about safe contracting
& roofing practices and that our
website “www.nefrsa.com’ was
the one place for all their roofing
needs in north east Florida.
Questions were posed and answered about a large range of topics from materials,availability, costs, to pros
& cons. Also there was a fair share
of disaster stories told by members
of the public that had used a friend
of a friend good ole boy un-licensed ‘shingle banger’ for their repairs, most of which ended indisaster. As expected, the show started slowly on
Thursday but it gathered momentum into the weekend.
According to Directors Gilmore & Steele, Sunday afternoon
produced the heaviest traffic while the Jaguars were being
dispatched cross town. It seemed to be the general consensus
of those who worked the booth that a high percentage of the
inquiries concerned the use of metal roofing particularly the entry level panels. Based upon the traffic generated on our web-site
and response from those volunteers previously mentioned, we
need to consider involvement in the Spring Home & Patio Show
as the new standard. This is the message I’ll take to the floor at
this months’ membership meeting when our speaker Chuck Gibson, Assistant Chief Building Inspector of Duval County tells us of the
new Code changes coming out of the glitch cycle affecting our
trades that will be effective in March of this coming year.
Hope to see you there!
And why the new picture for the president’s message corner?
No, I’m not bragging about catching a redfish, it’s a subtle hint
for non-members to ‘catch on’ that membership in this organization has value.
Ralph DeCicco
President NEFRSA
posted 9/22/11
To our public, Let the buyer beware
I was always intrigued as a youngster by the Latin concept or phrase
‘Caveat Emptor’. It held such a mysterious shroud about it. In today’s
business climate it is more important than ever for you the buyer to
beware. Several residential roofing and general contractors have
executed business plans that includes extremely aggressive ‘low ball’
bidding to be awarded the project, complete the job, collect the
money from the homeowners, and not paying for materials, insurance
premiums, & payroll taxes until they are shut down by DPBR & the IRS
(which seems to take forever). In the meantime, homeowners are
getting notice to owners, liens, hate mail, and anything else mail able
to induce payment for materials they have already paid for to their
‘contractor’. Homeowners are not aware suppliers of material have a
very powerful weapon to aid them in the collection of their funds as
long as they timely avail themselves of those rights granted by the
Florida Lien Law. Meanwhile, the ‘individuals’ (as I hate to call them
contractors) involved are probably not complying with the Florida
mandated disclosures that include consumer education about the lien
law. In these trying economic times, homeowners seem to be overly
fixated on the lowest figure in front of them and are willing to follow
these pied pipers down the path to paying for materials twice. Just
think, how competitive could your business be if you didn’t pay for
insurances, taxes, and of course materials and how long would you
last?
Ralph DeCicco / President NEFRSA
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