Good morning. Roofers are getting squeezed from both ends this year: the stuff on your truck costs more, and there are fewer storm jobs to put it on. Here’s the picture and how to protect your margin.
Top story — The roofing market cooled while prices climbed
Owens Corning — one of the big three shingle makers — reported full-year 2025 roofing sales of $4.4 billion, down 4%, with a brutal Q4 down 27% to $774 million. The cause was weather: an unusually quiet storm season, with no major storm making U.S. landfall in the back half of 2025 for the first time in a decade, which gutted the non-discretionary replacement demand roofers live on. The company estimates the U.S. asphalt shingle market fell about 10% for the year. Fewer storms means fewer forced roof replacements — so more of your 2026 pipeline has to come from sold work, not weather.
Quick hits
Prices went up twice. Roofing-distributor tracking shows GAF, Owens Corning and CertainTeed each raised shingle and accessory prices 6–10% effective June 1, 2026 — a second round on top of a 4–8% increase in April, and the two are cumulative.
Tariffs hit the metal. The Section 232 steel and aluminum tariff — now 50% (up from 25% since mid-2025), and since the 6 April 2026 restructure charged on the full customs value (50% on the primary metal, 25% on derivative products like flashing and fasteners), lifts the cost of metal panels, flashing, drip edge, vents and fasteners — the accessories on every shingle job.
Weather is still the swing factor. A quiet season means distributor destocking now; the next big storm flips demand overnight. Your revenue rides the radar — plan cash for both.
The Tip — Stop eating price increases on old quotes
With two hikes already banked this year, a bid you wrote in April can be underwater by the time you install in August. Two fixes: shorten your quote validity to 15–30 days, and add a material-escalation clause so a documented manufacturer increase passes through to the customer. On signed jobs, buy and stage the shingles early to lock today’s price before the next letter lands. Protecting a point or two of margin here is cheaper than chasing another job to make it up.
Tool watch — [Not sponsored]
Build a one-page material-cost tracker — your top shingle lines and accessories with the current per-square price and the date of the last increase. Update it the day a manufacturer letter hits. It’s what turns “prices went up” into an actual repriced bid instead of a margin leak.
That’s the callout. See you next time.
The Callout — the business brief for the trades. We label every commercial placement: [Sponsor], [Affiliate], or [Not sponsored]. Today’s Tool watch is our own honest read — no one paid for it. 231J Ramparts Road, Te Anau 9600, New Zealand · Unsubscribe anytime.
Sources: Owens Corning — Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2025 Results · Roofing Contractor — Owens Corning reports declines on slowed demand · RoofSmart — 2026 roof material price increases · Congressional Research Service — Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs, IN12519