Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Cost of Organic Shingles

My neighborhood was built around 2001, and now all my neighbors have to replace our roofs. It seems the trendy roofing tile was this Certainteed Organic product, which combines waste paper with asphalt. Unfortunately the shingles seems to have a 10 year life because they are literally simultaneously disintegrating across hundreds of homes, necessitating massive replacement. Most people get about $500-$2000 from the class action suit, but new roofs cost between $8 and $25k depending, and so this is a costly mistake. Many are getting their insurance company to pay via 'hail damage' clauses, but most don't.

I have a feeling that when they were selling these organic shingles they were heralded as being green and progressive. The new fiberglass shingles should last 50 years or more, but unlike the old ones, you can't eat them.

2 comments:

J said...

The Northern side of the roof generally is in good condition while on the Southern side shingles curl up. Isnt it obvious? Climate change.

Mercury said...

About a year and a half ago a buddy of mine was working for this company in FL that installed residential solar panels. The whole business basically ran on Obama "green" tax credits and subsidies. When those didn't get renewed the whole thing enterprise more or less folded.

The last thing I told him was to make sure they installed some defective/toxic/recallable part on all those units so that in a few years they'd be sure to get government subsidies to REMOVE all the panels they installed!

Krugman would be so proud of me.