This year, Chaffee Industrial Roofing hit two milestones: a century in business and more than 20 million square feet of roofing put down.
One of those milestones doesn’t really do the company justice, however, President Steven H. Chaffee said recently.
“Frankly, the 20 million [feet of roofing] only goes back to when we started keeping computerized records around 1980,” the third-generation owner said. “Other than that, you have no way of consolidating, adding up the data – we’re certainly not going to go dig through all the files.”
The company has done well over the years, too. Its annual sales have been steady at about $4 million in recent years, Chaffee said. In 1987, it made the Inc. 5000 list, said Sandy Chaffee, the marketing manager and Steven’s wife.
The company replaces and patches roofs along the Providence-Boston corridor, although it will sometimes go farther for a loyal customer, such as U-Haul or the TJX Companies Inc.’s buildings.
And the cost of re-roofing a building can vary widely, Steven Chaffee said. Size is, of course, a factor. But there’s also the ease of getting onto it and whether it’s free of obstacles. A flat roof without a lot of pipes and devices sticking out is cheaper. Chaffee calls them “runway” roofs.
But at others – like the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution or Skyworks Solutions Inc. in Woburn, Mass. – the roof is “cluttered” with devices.
“Someone used the example once of laying out a carpet in a room with no furniture, as opposed to laying out a carpet in a room with furniture and having to fit it around all the stuff,” Chaffee said. “And that’s obviously what drives the labor price.”
For the most part, a roof is “rolled out” and then hot-air welded into place. “It’s sort of a heavy-duty hair dryer with a motor on it,” Chaffee said.
And a product, once it’s in place, will last about 20 years.
“I think the roofs that were done in the 1930s and the 1940s, frankly, lasted a little bit longer for a variety of reasons,” he said. “With added insulation to the roofs, it obviously reduces the customer’s energy costs, but it also subjects the roof to many more thaw cycles.”
Chaffee took over as president in 1982. Even before earning a business degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1974 he had worked in the business for his father, Henry N. Chaffee. The company was founded on South Water Street in Providence by Thomas K. Chaffee in 1908. The company moved to Washington Street and South Main Street before heading to East Providence. It first was in a 2,500-square-foot building on South Brow before moving, in 1992, to its current 10,000-square-foot warehouse on Amaral Street.
Because the rubber membrane used in roofing is a petroleum-based product, pricing is partially based on the cost of oil and can fluctuate, Chaffee said.
Installed, the total price for a roof bottoms out at about $3 a square foot, but could rise extensively because of labor costs and the type of insulation the customer wants.
“People call me up and say that they have a 100,000-square-foot building and want a new roof,” Chaffee said. “That’s like calling a car dealership and saying, ‘I want a new car. How much will that cost?’ ”
And roofing materials usually are shipped directly to the job site, without stopping at Chaffee’s warehouse. A new roof can take anywhere from two to six weeks – the company does about 80 a year – and there’s also an old roof to be ripped off sometimes. So to save time, Chaffee sometimes hires subcontractors to do “night rips” and take the old roof off.
“Essentially, you’re turning the job into 24 hours a day, so therefore you can get a lot more done in a week,” he said.
The company isn’t immune to economic downturns, because the service it provides is a large capital expense – much of the time costing more than $100,000.
“When the economy is down, or they’re concerned with the economy, oftentimes people will try to patch their roofs for a while,” Chaffee said. “We try to work with them, saying there’s no guarantee with patchwork, but it will buy you some time.”
Along with a number of repeat customers, the company generates clients through direct mailing and some telemarketing.
Chaffee has put up some recognizable roofs, too. At Newport Grand Slots, which had been Newport Grand Jai Lai, the company put a tan roof on the prominent building.
“That’s probably the only color-coordinated roof that we have ever done,” Chaffee said. “We were trying to match, to make the building pretty.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
Chaffee Industrial Roofing
OWNER:Steven H. Chaffee, president
TYPE OF BUSINESS:Commercial roofer
LOCATION:193 Amaral St.,
East Providence
EMPLOYEES:30
YEAR ESTABLISHED:1908, as T.K.
Chaffee Company
ANNUAL SALES:$4 million to $5 million
