Many roofers are trying to increase the efficiency of their business—and with good reason. Increasing efficiency means more roofing jobs, more happy customers, and more profit for your business. Cutting costs and saving time are both great ways to increase efficiency, and both can be achieved through processes like reducing roofing material waste. Here are a few ways to make sure you minimize waste of your roofing materials.
Improving Estimating
Improving estimating is an easy way to reduce roofing material waste and increase efficiency. An inaccurate estimate produces one of two results: either you order too much material, or you do not order enough. In the case of ordering too much material, you will have spent more than necessary, causing your profits for the jobs to take a hit and your customer to be frustrated with the price. In the case of not ordering enough material, you will have to spend time ordering more material and waiting for it to arrive. In both of these cases you are wasting valuable time and sacrificing your efficiency.
To avoid these situations, it’s important to take steps to improve your estimating. This might include making sure you take the amount of hips and valleys on the roof into account, or considering how the weather affects certain materials and what you will need to create a durable roof. AccuLynx’s estimating tools can help you fine tune your estimates by providing you with accurate roofing measurements and help you keep the ordering process organized. Within the AccuLynx platform, it’s easy to spot materials that you have forgotten to add and adjust the quantity to reduce roofing material waste.
Also, AccuLynx gives you the ability to input roofing measurements already in the system into your estimates, reducing possible errors from trying to transfer the information over or attempting to calculate how much material is needed for that particular roof. By refining the estimate process, you can ensure you end up with an accurate price for the customer as well as ensuring you have the perfect amount of materials every time.
Aerial Roofing Measurement
One of the easiest ways to reduce roofing material is to use aerial measurements instead of traditional roofing measurement methods. Aerial measurements are much more accurate than climbing a ladder to measure the roof by hand. When you use aerial measurement services like EagleView or GAF QuickMeasure the result is significantly improved measurements, without the hassle of getting on the roof yourself. Measuring this way saves time and money by giving you a more accurate idea of how much material you’ll need right from the start. Besides, taking an aerial measurement simply requires the click of a button, rather than the hours spent measuring a roof by hand. This means aerial measurements also increase efficiency by saving time that can be used to complete other jobs. AccuLynx integrates with EagleView and GAF QuickMeasure, meaning that their reports are delivered directly to your AccuLynx account and can be used to directly populate your estimates. The result is a much more seamless estimating process that frees up time for the rest of your work.
A Well-Trained Crew
One last way to help reduce roofing material waste and promote efficiency is to have a well-trained crew. The better training your crews receive, the less likely they are to make mistakes that cost you extra material and time—automatically increasing your efficiency. To help ensure your crews are well trained, encourage them to get certified in the proper installation techniques. This way, the materials you order are used properly and roofing material waste is minimized. Part of having a well-trained crew is having a well-trained supervisor to make sure crews are following those correct installation practices and to keep them working in an efficient manner.
Improving your estimating and taking advantage of technology like aerial measurements can do wonders for increasing your company’s efficiency. Using a system like AccuLynx to organize your estimating can help you order just the right amount of material and provide your customer with an accurate price for their roofing project. AccuLynx helps reduce errors that arise from double data entry because the measurements are automatically in the system and do not need to be transferred over. Using aerial measurements that are integrated with AccuLynx estimating tools not only further keeps these mistakes from being made, but also helps improve the accuracy of your roofing measurements and saves you the time of measuring by hand. Finally, having a well-trained crew can help make sure installation goes smoothly, materials are used properly, and the work is efficient. When you save money and time in these ways, the efficiency of your company receives a boost, meaning you will be making more profits, producing more satisfied customers, and creating more business for yourself. And that’s something every business can use in the new year.
