How a roofing misstep sparked a retrofit revolution

By Jesse Sanchez. 

One contractor’s headache became an innovative  solution, marking the beginning of Roof Hugger. 

When Dale Nelson set out to re-roof a modest 8,000-square-foot property in Florida in the early ’90s, he had no idea he was about to help launch an entirely new category of retrofit roofing. “I called the erector, because I had never done that before,” Dale said in this Roofing Road Trips® podcast with Karen Edwards. “He says, ‘Well, we’ll just run hat channels across the top of the ribs and screw that down and put the new metal panels on top.’” That standard approach, once seen as the go-to fix for aging metal roofs, was quickly challenged by Dale’s mentor and long-time business partner, Red McConnohie. “You’re not putting those darn things on my roof, are you?” Red asked, kicking off what would become the foundation of Roof Hugger, a retrofit framing system that has since become a staple in the metal roofing industry. 

At the center of the conversation is the story of how a seemingly routine construction project evolved into a patented innovation that changed the re-roofing game. After engineers confirmed Red’s concerns, that the original method was “not structurally adequate” and would likely “leak like hell” after six months, the pair set to work. The result was a notched Z-shaped structural member that allowed new roofs to be installed over existing ones without compromising integrity or flexibility. 

“We built the first prototypes, retrofitted the building and it came off just as good as you could ever imagine,” Dale recalled. What began as a fix for one building quickly snowballed. “Then we did another building and then we did another building.” 

In 1991, Roof Hugger became an official corporation. The first year’s sales? “Rocking sales of $9,600,” Dale joked. From there, though, it was a steady climb. Roof Hugger earned a patent in 1994 and leaned on industry publications like Metal Construction News for early marketing help. The breakthrough product was a result not just of necessity, but of a commitment to doing it right and rethinking what “standard practice” should mean in roofing. 

“People are going to love the name ‘hugger,’” Red once said when christening the brand. Over 30 years later, that instinct has proven spot-on. As Dale puts it, “We’re sort of the Kleenex brand now of retrofit roofing.” 

Read the transcript or Watch the interview to learn the full story, including how Roof Hugger navigated testing standards, expanded its product line and became a trusted name in structural retrofitting!