Getting your ducks in a row

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn from a panel of professionals on how to conduct inspections that set you and your client up for success. 

In this CoatingsTalk™, Karen Edward talks to an expert panel about how inspections can be a valuable source of information and growth for businesses across the industry. The panel included Eugene Zukowski, a senior project specialist with Jobba; John Kenney, the CEO of Cotney Consulting Group; and Joe Sorrentino, a regional account manager at The Sherwin Williams Company. 

Inspections are a crucial part of a project’s success. Eugene explained, “The big reason why we want to do inspections is for the information. It's going to help everybody involved, the customer, us, the manufacturer. It's going to help everybody.” But an inspection also gives you the chance to keep all your ducks in a row when it comes to documentation. Eugene elaborated, “You have to keep track of when your customer has a warranty on their roofing system. There's the paperwork, the date filed, the stipulations and having all of that information in a single place when you need it is very, very key to be able to do inspections.” 

But getting these ducks in a row can be a challenge, especially with the variety of stakeholders involved. John emphasized that one way to make this easier for yourself is by implementing a standard operating procedure for inspections. This starts with simply getting on the roof and seeing what’s going on. John shared an example, saying, “Looking at new construction, you want to make sure you're inspecting a substrate, that you don't have low spots, steel's not wrong, all the things that come in. The same as if you're doing another type of roof system over top of a new construction, you want to have your checklist for that.” The core of this inspection is to determine what is and is not suitable for the roof so that you can explain that to your client to ensure the project starts smoothly.  

Joe chimed in with some of his experience involving this type of initial inspection, sharing, “It is key that, when you're going to be eventually getting on a roof to do an inspection, you have the right materials to take care of certain things that need to be done, having the right materials to do adhesion pull tests and so forth.” He explained that having a toolkit that can handle any surprises is key because sometimes you discover things on the roof that the building owner might not have known. Joe shared an example, saying, “What if four of the five roof areas are all accurate as far as substrates being a mod bit, but let's say the fifth roof is not a mod bit, it's an EPDM? Do you have to come back again? Well, no. If you have the right toolkit to be able to take advantage of the materials, based on what you see and have to do, your life will be a lot easier and you will be more effective and efficient to avoid any types of issues.” 

Read the transcript, Listen to the episode or Watch the recording to get more information about the importance of inspections.