My name is Dmitry Lipinskiy. This is Roofing Insights and today i’m bringing you Roofing Insights, 2020 roofing asphalt, shingles guide if you’re the homeowner looking for the products to install on your roof watch to the end, because we will explain who makes the best and the worst in those in the United States today, if you the homeowner and doing your research looking for the best asphalt, roofing shingles for your roof watch to the end, we will explain who makes the best and the worst shingles and what to look for when you are in the market. Choosing your asphalt! Roofing shingle today we will be reviewing eight shingles in ten different categories. The shingles will review in today, OC Duration, Tamko Heritage, IKO, Dynasty, Malarkey, Highlander, CertainTeed, Landmark Atlas, Pinnacle PABCO, Premier, VP Vanguard, GAF Timberline is not gon na be in this test.
We just added them to the shingle manufacturer number nine, because we know how many questions we’re gon na get on this video and why GAF is not included GAF. We inviting you again. Gaf has been invited to this test, but we didn’t get a respond, so we’re just gon na say not applicable in all categories. If GAF replies to us and say yes, please rate our shingles in your ten categories. We’Re gon na do an update, will just around GAF Timberline through all ten tests and we’ll give them our rate or ranking.
For the last three months we’ve been comparing in testing shingles and ten different categories: number one weight, nail zone, pull test coverage, count and consistency of bundles online reputation, granule loss contractors, programs and education that brands are doing for the contractors sealant test, sealants warranty extended, warranty, Fails class actions category then we’re going to combine all the scores, give them total score and total placement in our chart. What we did different this year is, we have switched to five-star rating system the most popular rating system in a universe on the internet. We pretty much look at every single category and brainstorm. What makes it five-star for that category. Our objective here is Roofing Insights is to help manufacturers to produce five-star roofing shingle or to get as close as possible to that five-star mark now, not a single shingle made 5 stars in all 10 categories.
Most of them failed somewhere and have some weaknesses shingle, who did overall really well in most categories or we’re all gon na get higher score overall shingles were pretty consistent, but there’s definitely being weaknesses and strengths in different categories for different brands. Let’S go one by one. First, we compared all the shingles in the weight now one thing what we want to say about the weight weight is not absolute criteria for shingles to be better, but here the Roofing Insights. We believe that shingles also should not be paper thin. As a matter of fact, manufacturers who are saying that weight is not important and those manufacturers usually compare their shingles to computers.
We don’t agree with it, because it’s building material and building materials supposed to protect your house. It’S supposed to be thick and durable and perform really well now we’re not saying that heavier always gon na be better, but what we are saying that we have to come up with a criteria or standard. What consider to be better, so we have decided that heavier shingle will be considered better. Now, it’s only better in one category. Heavy shingle still can fail in all other categories and at the end have two star rating, but at least it was heavier.
So we want to give more credit to manufacturers who put more materials in their shingles, doesn’t mean they’re better, but in our chart at least in this category, their product is thicker, bigger, heavier, so IKO, Dynasty, CertainTeed, Landmark Atlas Pinnacle, definitely stood out they’re considerably heavier than Their competitors they’re getting 5 stars, the rest of them got 4. They also were very consistent, usually a 1 square shingle weight anywhere between 65 and 75 pounds. Some manufacturers make 78 close to 80 pounds, doors very heavy bundles. We think that heavier is better. For the sake of the comparison ii would jump to nailing zone nailing zone is one of the most important aspects of roofing shingle.
Why nailing zone is so important because it’s easy way out for the manufacturer to deny the claims. So if manufacturers are producing shingles with a nailing zone that hard to understand easy to miss in case of roofing shingles blow offs, when manufacturers come out to the warranty claims with their warranty departments, they look at the shingle and they say well, you high nail here Or you miss the nailing zone or you didn’t go between these two lines, and sometimes you don’t see those lines. So it’s a really easy way out. What we see in the industry nailing zone actually have connection to warranty issues because a lot of manufacturers they just walk away from the warranties and blame installers for installing it not for their specifications. So we pay very close attention to those manufacturers who make it visible.
Who make it big? Who make it pretty much bulletproof for installers not to make those mistakes during installation? So few players here who have a superior nailing zone is OC Duration with the sure nail technology IKO Dynasty with their reinforced strip in the back, also Malarkey Highlander. But here’s the results today, so we did many many times we did it at Expo last week and the winner is OC and IKO. They go hand in hand.
So we’ve seen that many times here at our studio, OC actually beat IKO like we just did it again: 71 versus 72, and what we’re doing we actually was doing one foot section with the two nails on each side and another thing what we was doing is We were using both common bond area and regular nail and we have first three star rating here for Tamko Heritage, one of the worst nailing zones. I’Ve seen very hard to understand poorly made, and, I would say overall, the worst nailing zone out of all of the shingles that we’ve seen in a test. The rest of them got four stars next we’re going to pull test when we have two five star ratings here: IKO Dynasty and OC Duration. You probably have seen our videos from few months before so those two shingles being fighting each other at expos. Do you have IKO Dynasty here Dynasty, your competitor just lost your own game.
A lot of roofers are using them in a sales pitches. You see. Iko goes to different expos and showcases IKO Dynasty, so IKO. Definitely with the Dynasty shingle. It have improved their shingle.
As far as the pull test goes and goes head to head with OC Duration, we’ve seen OC Duration beat IKO Dynasty, but also we’ve seen IKO Dynasty beat OC Duration, but one thing for sure they’re better than all other shingles, so the rest of them are getting For only two shingles here got three its BP and Tamko, and again those two shingles were very, very easy to tear the rest of them were somewhere decent, but duration and Dynasty definitely stood up in a pull test. Next thing is coverage, most roofers and most homeowners are seeing materials and if you talk to the sales reps, usually people think that three bundles cover one square, usually not the case or some manufacturers, even with those three bundles. They don’t cover one square as a matter of fact, and our tests here only Malarkey Highlander and IKO Dynasty, pretty much the closest to that one square and I’ll talk a little bit more about Malarkey Highlander here, because they’re, actually, the only one who covers more than One square just slightly, but more we’re Dynasty, it’s like 0.99, some change, some other manufacturers covers way less 0.9.
Six point: nine eight! So they open about. They talk about it, but we have to give credit to manufacturers who did do the change and make sure they have. You know true coverage, because if they could do it, they were getting five stars and other manufacturers, in our humble opinion, should follow the lead in our book. Those three also Atlas Pinnacle the they’re, also bigger shingles, they’re 42 inch, shingles they’re getting five stars.
The rest of them are getting four next category is a count per bundle and consistency of bundles, not many roofers know, but a lot of bundles are not even. We usually think that all bundles are the same, but if you ask manufacturers, count per bundles actually varies. A lot, usually usually it takes about 64 shingles to cover one square in case of Malarkey I mentioned earlier. They actually use 66, so in Malarkey and they’re getting five star here. They use three bundles in each bundle has 22 but true coverage to get that.
One. Squared that’s why I said Malarkey it’s actually exceeded at one squared. Most manufacturers don’t want to give you more so math does not work for them with the size of the bundle, so some bundles will have 20. Some bundles will have 22, so most manufacturers have that formula. They want to give you 64, but they don’t know how to spread it split it between the three because it just doesn’t split.
So what they do is in the pallet. They would give you few bundles that are 20 count per bundle and few bundles. There are 22 over all it’s 64 the amount they needed to give you to get that point 98 squares of point 99, wherever they promised you in materials again a lot of times. It’S less than one squared, but I mentioned you finished on the job and you just short one or two bundles a lot of times the reason you’re short, because their bundles are short to begin with, because it was not true. One squared numbers don’t lie, we say it a lot on the Roofing Insights, but because of that little shortage.
Now you need another bundle. You go to the store and you don’t know if you’re going to get 20 or 22 pieces in it. Sometimes the one or two piece might be a deal breaker so anyway, because manufacturers, how like Malarkey also IKO Dynasty, they are consistent. They always have the same. So IKO Dynasty have 20 pieces, but they’re shingles actually bigger it’s a 42 inch, so it’s bigger than Malarkey the same coverage.
It’S about one square but they’re. Also consistent. Every IKO Dynasty you’re gon na buy you’re gon na get 20 pieces. Every Malarkey bundle you’re gon na buy it gon na get 22 pieces where you know OC Duration. You never know, we’ve seen OC Duration with the eighteen pieces, in the bundle with the nineteen pieces in the bundle all over the place.
So definitely some math problem, but because of some manufacturers figured it out our ideal shingle want to have the same amount in all the bundles. I know it’s a problem for a lot of other manufacturers, but because of some manufacturers figure this problem out there getting five stars and the rest of them are getting four we’re in the middle of our comparison. We have five more tests to go over with you and to share our results, who makes the best shingle, but I want to take a second and give huge shout out to all our sponsors who made this video possible. I don’t know if you guys know this, but I have a huge passion for roofing industry for this pass. I absolutely love what I do, but it cost a lot of money.
We have videographers, we have professional production and I have to find a lot of time to put my research together. So despite the fact that those brands are reviewing our billion dollar brands and they could easily sponsor our content, we can’t just take their money. So I just want to give huge shout out to all the companies who are in our network help roofers become successful. Business owners. Companies like JobNimbus was one of the best CRMs for contractors.
Company Cam one app that absolutely every contractors needs to have contractors choice. Insurance, don’t go uninsured. Insurance is super super important. You need your liability, you need to work comp in place and you want to make sure the policy is read by someone who understands roofing risks and liabilities. Also, Enhancify.
Everybody needs good, solid financing options, whether the homeowner, you look in the finance your project or you, the contractor. When it wants to offer financing services to your customers with Enhancify. You don’t have to be in business for a long. You can literally start offering financing in the second day, you open your LLC. If you need good, solid website, I want you to meet my friend Chris Linder and our friends at roofingbrand.
om. If you need help of the Facebook marketing check out our partner, Adam Sand, also known as Canadian Bear and his company Roofing Business Partner, also huge. Thank you to Primeline tools. The best tool manufacturer for roofing projects also Leaf Solution. The best gutter guards to complement your roofing system to all our sponsors, you guys, are amazing, we wouldn’t be here without you, we wouldn’t be able to do all our resources that we would have to think how to pay for everything.
So thank you for supporting the channel making our roofing industry just a little bit better. If you want to see a full list of all our partners, we have way more companies that we highly recommend for your marketing needs just go to roofinginsights.
Com/Partners we list all our preferred partners, not only sponsors, but people who will recommend doing business with check it out. Now, let’s go back and finish five more categories and, let’s see who makes the best roofing shingle in 2020. Next category is online reputation.
This one was a little bit trickier, but not as much. We would pretty much look online on all the reviews: feedback from our customers, feedback from contractors and also do those companies that we list do they listen to their feedback. For example, there’s only two players out of eight that we review and today only two of them enabled their Facebook reviews. I know how hard it is for the big brand to be open for the criticism, because when you deal with the contractors and homeowners a lot of times, people are not fair when they review in the products, and I know how hard it is. But because few of them did it and those two are PABCO and Atlas because they open that gate and they say you know what you can leave us a review on a facebook.
Now we know it’s possible, it’s doable now. We know if two manufacturers are able to do it and they still maintain over four star rating on a Facebook. Now you six, who didn’t we invite you and if you want to have five star product, you also have to have five star rating online and you have to be open to receive that feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, because if I cannot go and have a Conversation with you online, especially in a social media, you know what are we talking about? You’Re gon na hide from negative feedback, don’t hide open the gate, and next year you’ll have five stars. Also we gave Malarkey Malarkey Malarkey doesn’t have class-action lawsuits, everybody else has, and some of them have a lot of them.
Five star online reputation for simpler reason is because they never have class-action lawsuit and everything we find online about Malarkey. They don’t have major issues with the claims; they don’t have a claims they pay them out, so they never have class action. Of course they have problems, but they fix them pretty fast. So we pay attention to those and Malarkey also gets five star, but Malarkey. We do want you to enable your Facebook reviews, if you don’t next year, you’re gon na lose one star.
So again, Facebook rating is not the only rating we’ll look at Malarkey. We give you credit, because everything everywhere else. You look good, like Better Business Bureau. We’Ll look at a Google reviews, we’ll even look at the local factories reviews, because a lot of times those factors actually have. Google listings and people leave feedback on those profiles.
So we were very thorough with online reputation a lot of reading a lot of studying a lot of search, but we got it and only three companies are getting five stars, the worst one here again Tamko a lot of complaints. Certainteed Landmark got three because a lot of complaints, so CertainTeed Landmark got three IKO Dynasty got three again: it’s based on amount of reviews & complaints or digging how many people are sharing negative experience with the companies. How many people are willingly sharing those reviews on many? Many websites, so we will be publishing few more details about online reputation later, but we feel like we were very fair based on information we provide, and maybe today, in 2020 companies are a little bit better. So it’s not reflecting what’s happening in 2020, but in the last couple years, IKO CertainTeed Tamko definitely have major issues with the customer service with the claims and how they dealt with them gave them three star on our comparison chart.
Next one is granule loss. One of my favorite, the only one-star review that we have here goes to IKO Dynasty, actually affects him. A lot kill the rating, but, to be honest with you, they perform very, very poor. We believe that all manufacturers should figure out how to keep granules on the shingle. Some of them were doing an amazing job and some of them just slap it and they don’t care.
You know that our gutters and our grass and becoming full as a matter of fact I have this very funny comment just came today. I want to read it, I’m not going to mention the brand name. You can guess it and comment below which brand is that. My shingles are well loved by my chickens, since the granule loss is so severe. They love to eat the tens of pounds of granules that end up on the ground and their gizzards need that gravel.
I would not use brand or in the future on a dark house or if they were free so because of the granule loss. This homeowner pretty much absolutely hates his roof, and a lot of roofers complain on a regular basis that not only it’s super dangerous. But then you have to clean and it’s just the whole, it’s a problem, nobody needs and because some manufacturers are figured it out and do an amazing job and earn our five star rating. We have to give IKO one-star rating, because how much granules IKO Cambridge is losing in this test, so Landmark getting three stars: PABCO Premier get three stars: BP did pretty well five Tamko Heritage. Indeed, five OC Duration did five.
So those brands they keep their granules on the shingles pretty well, and this is initial quality, but we believe if the shingle have major problem with the granule loss in the beginning, most likely in lifetime. It’S also going to be the case next category. We really wanted to review and compare our shingle manufacturers. Is there programs with the contractor super super important? We see.
Some manufacturers are doing the amazing job there when I educate contractors sign him up with the resources they’re very active on the line, they’re doing webinars special right now, COVID-19 times came in some manufacturers immediately cancel their rebate programs, their discounts. They do like some other stuff, and some manufacturers are stepping in spending money, make sure they educate, make sure they collaborate and they doing events and stuff like that. So very, very important. I want to highlight few companies here. Oc Owens Corning has always been putting huge amount of money and effort in a contractor.
Education companies like CertainTeed, also takes their contractors and roofers education to the next level. You know Malarkey is doing really well, we see IKO is doing a lot of events per year. You know they’re doing portals they’re doing you know, Atlas they’re doing so many, not only events online, but events. You know in person they’re also very active at different expos. You can always reach them for the support and we want to.
You know highlight those few other companies, they just don’t care, they don’t have even contractors programs, they don’t have much materials to help us to market to sell. You know just doing less now we have to rank them. We want to manufacturers to engage the best friend of a roofing contractor. That’S the only way we can live the industry and install better roofs. Next category is a sealant, that’s the only category where we gave all those participants today, five stars now.
This was not even performance because visually we could see that some ceilings are thicker. We actually did test twice. We did it first in a warehouse we seal without exposure to the Sun. Obviously we we raised our temperature to 80 degrees and within first two days. Nothing actually sealed only one brand actual sealed, not gon na even mention them, but then in the very next day, we’d roll it outside.
It was about 60 degrees and within 24 hours, all eight shingles were completely sealed. Now we, because of all of that, we can’t speculate that you know we could measure the ceilings. We could see the difference, but we could not speculate the performance, whether it’s in a warehouse or outside. We could see the some of them. We’Re sealing a little bit faster than others, but they’re they’re, all sealed.
We didn’t see the problem with any one of the shingle that we’re testing. So that’s the only category that every single one of them got five stars, so a good job for all manufacturers. Hopefully, in the next couple of years, we’ll have more fives throughout entire board in the last category. Today, it’s a warranty. We’Re gon na actually do a separate video on a roofing warranties, because we see the conflict between warranty.
It’S a legal language and actual performance of the shingle and legal warranties have legal part, warranties, obviously, reading for liability of the brands. We did not feel that it’s fair to talk about shingle performance and warranty, but we also could not just completely ignore it. So we’ll make video with our attorney reviewing all the warranties is going to be completely separate video, so what this rating stands for? It’S my personal opinion. No more than that, it’s me a reading.
I’M a historian! I love read! I love fine. I love that fine print. I like to do my study, so this the category I actually spend the most time on so I reviewed class actions.
I reviewed failures in the last five years. I also have reviewed all the exclusions and all the BS that I personally hate so, and I also reviewed the feedback from the contractors and reviewed the claims were. You know when claim takes place, what our manufacturers are doing to walk away from that claim, not to pay for the failure of the product a lot of times like we mentioned earlier. It’S a you know, failure to install. So for those reasons you know you have to read your warranty very, very careful, but we gave few five stars.
I gave PABCO MVP threes and Tamko Heritage threes. We have IKO Dynasty
For IKO Dynasty improve their warranty a lot. Their warranty was one of the worst in the industry. Today they have five stars of four stars and OC Malarkey CertainTeed Atlas all are getting five stars for their warranties. It doesn’t mean they’re, perfect, but they’re better than others.
They have less exceptions, less exclusions and again this is just my opinion. After spending probably 50 hours reading, all of the fine print of all manufacturers, I know what to look for, but I also know the failure rate and I also know performance of the brands. For example, sometimes manufacturer will have exclusion in writing, but in reality they never use it. They actually cover those claims all the time. Why?
Because that’s kind of the of the brand they are, so you don’t always want to look just the fine print. You also want to ask maybe opinion of the roofer how’s it in the real life. So I’m your insider, I know what I’m talking about. I know what what word on the street is. I know my roofers.
I talk to hundreds of roofers every year. I know when someone’s have a claim or headache he shared that experience with me, and I share it privately via YouTube with you, after all of that, after we’ve broke it all of them and again, if you guys want more information about it on our website, we Actually we’re gon na publish our resource per category. So if you are one of those geeks who needs to know exactly how we arrive at the conclusion, we’ll share it publicly as well later, but right now we have OC. Duration arrives at 4.6 stars Tamko Heritage 3.
. Stars:
Iko Dynasty 4
3 stars Malarkey Highlander Highlander the highest score in our chart today, 4.7 stars Landmark 4.2 by Certainteed Atlas. Pinnacle receives 4.
stars PABCO Premier 4.1 stars and BP Vanguard 4.
0, four stars, even so here the here’s, the final place so the highest rated shingle in our chart today for 2020, it’s Malarkey, Highlander they’re, absolutely amazing, shingle perform really well in most categories didn’t have big holes. Didn’T have big issues obviously have few four points, but overall doing it three twos nones 4.7 stars the highest score for 2020.
We’Ve been reviewing shingles for last three years and Malarkey shingle always been at the top they’ve been second they’ve been first, but they’ve been very consistent with our product. We believe that they are the closest shingle to the five star shingle. That roofers, wants to install second place today is split between OC Duration and Atlas. Pinnacle four point: six: to be honest with you guys: we’ve tried different ranking system, but no matter what we did. The results always were very, very similar.
We tried Olympic system, we try to rank them from 1 to 8, no matter how you look at it for the last couple years, the numbers were pretty consistent and today you know OC Duration and Atlas Pinnacle also top three, like they did last year, 4.6 stars For both brands, fourth place IKO Dynasty, it’s the first year we are reviewing IKO Dynasty last year. It was Cambridge. We actually agreed with other manufacturers that IKO Dynasty should be in this test. There are a few products that we wanted to review originally not by IKO but like Malarkey, for example, we wanted to bring Vista, and some other manufacturers were saying.
No Vista should not be in this class.
This class three shingle: it’s not your regular shingles, not Apple to Apple, so IKO Dynasty, it’s the first time in our test. It’S the biggest comeback for IKO as a brand, because last year they were all the way down. So today, they’re in the fourth place, with the 4.3 stars Congrats to IKO, but you still have a lot of work to do – is special with that granule loss fifth place.
It’S a 4
2 stars CertainTeed Landmark very heavy shingle, very consistent personally one of my favorite brands, because how consistent the brand is, they have a lot of fans, a lot of guys, love to install CertainTeed, shingles and shingle overalls. Very, very good. The next one is PABCO Premier. Thank You, PABCO for sending your shingles to us again this year same with the BP 4.1 star goes to PABCO not available in our market, not available in many places, but where it’s available, that’s our rating for it.
Bp Vanguard, Canada based product four stars and the lowest one is at Tamko Heritage 3.7. So you guys see the gaps between the first place in the last place, it’s about 1 star 3.7 to 4.7.
What I have to say about Tamko Heritage. What we’ve seen is actually reflects and our chart pretty well. Tamko has a lot of holes, we’re very poor nailing zone. It’S builders grade shingle, it’s cheaper than a lot of other shingles on our list, so it’s not a bad product per se, but it’s definitely economy grade builders grade product, also not very strong brand and not very contractor friendly. If saving money is the most important thing for you, Tamko is not a bad option.
Again. Three point: seven stars from your personal. What I think about the entire rating I mean, if you have Class A personality, you always want to go to highest rated hotels or even the best restaurants, you’re always going to go. For you know four point: seven four point: six, but guess what if you’re hungry and ever and close, can you eat it? 4.
2, star, restaurant or even 3.7 – I don’t know I have to be very hungry to go to that place, but our job here at Roofing Insights is to educate to show you the difference between different products, I’m very happy with our new ranking system. I want to hear your opinion. Please comment below about any of our tests that you don’t agree with or if you read give us some love smash the subscriber support us anyway, and guess we’re here doing this work for you. If you are at the homeowner.
Looking for the contractor, we have an amazing directory to connecting you with the best of the best you’re, the contractor, in a need help not only about the products but marketing even for your business. We’Re also here, for you just reach out. We will always read our comments, we reply and come back to you as soon as we can I’ll see you guys in the next video and enjoy. Let me know what you think:
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