Kevin from East Kentucky Metal discusses supplying metal roofing and siding materials in southeastern Kentucky. Much of their customer base is agriculture, with many barns and equestrian facilities. Kevin emphasizes the rewarding feeling of contributing supplies to build up the local community.
This video also covers East Kentucky Metal’s first equipment purchase from New Tech Machinery – the SSQ II™ MultiPro with the Board and Batten Profile. Kevin highlights the quality, versatility, and onsite training that went into this investment. He advises those entering the metal roofing business to find an experienced mentor rather than reinventing the wheel, as he believes their industry has many willing to help new businesses succeed.
Transcript
It’ll be the first of many. I think it’s something that we’ve thought about for a while. We probably didn’t have the demand to help get us over the line to making the investment.
I’m Kevin from East Kentucky Metal in London, Kentucky. We sell metal roofing and siding.
We got started in the roofing business as a contractor working for residential homeowners and then eventually grew and then started supplying materials to customers and had an opportunity to grow and have equipment to supply customers in our area. And there’s a big demand in metal siding and roofing in our part of the world in southeastern Kentucky.
I think most of our customer base are agriculture. We have a lot of equestrian, a lot of horses in Kentucky so there’s a lot of pole barns. Most of what we sell is for residential customers that are building a barn for their farm.
What gets us the most excited about selling metal roofing and siding in southeast Kentucky is it feels like you’re building the community around you. A lot of times you’ll see different projects that you’ve worked on, and while we didn’t officially build the projects, we worked as a part of the supply team to build someone’s pole barn down the road or supply the materials so you can see your daily work turn into a completed project.
This will be the first New Tech Machinery that we purchased but I can tell based on the product support, the quality of the equipment, the training on site, it’ll be the first of many. I think it’s something that we’ve thought about for a while. We probably didn’t have the demand to help get us over the line to making the investment. But really, if you’re gonna make this investment for your customers like we are, you wanna make sure that you do it right and that you get a quality product. There’s plenty of used stuff out there but you know, it’s a subpar product versus what you can get here at New Tech.
We decided to purchase our equipment through a New Tech Machinery based on the quality of the product and the versatility that it offers. We purchased the standing seam machine with a interchangeable Board and Batten Profile and the SSSQ2 and it’s gonna give us, as we see our residential customers demanding different options for residential roofing that’s gonna give us that next leading edge to being able to provide them with a new profile as well as the siding on their house.
I think what attracted me the most about the Board and Batten Profile is the concealed fasteners component. And in our area in southeast Kentucky, there’s a lot of traditional wood board and batten that needs staining and painting. And it’s given customers an option with a 40 year paint that we offer at East Kentucky Metal to apply and have it virtually maintenance free the speed of the installation. So we can take the equipment on site, run the panels off and install ’em right away.
I think the first project for us is gonna be a barndominium, which is very popular. We’ve seen since Covid, there’s been a lot of relocation into our area. So many of the customers from some of the coasts and other areas of the country have moved into Kentucky and they’re bringing with a demand for more of a premium panel, premium offerings.
My advice to someone starting off on the roofing business is don’t try and reinvent the wheel. There are plenty of other metal roofing and siding companies, plenty of contractors. Find a good mentor. It seems like in our business, our industry, there are plenty of folks willing to help, so hit your wagon to somebody who’s successful and go from there.