Recently, we had the opportunity to re-roof the historic home of Booker T. Washington in Tuskegee, Alabama using Berridge Victorian Shingles.

As I am writing this, we are in the middle of the re-roofing process and I wanted to let our readers know how it was working with Berridge Manufacturing the actual installation itself and our thoughts on the product.

Ordering Materials

As you already know, Berridge makes specialty metal shingles. There are almost no installers that have a lot of experience with this shingle (including us) so we really needed Berridge to step up and help us. We were really left in the dark as they would not help us with our material order. However, we did push through and for this 70 square roof, the material order was around $55,000.

The Pre-Build.

When we have a client who is paying us six-figures to put on a roof. We are going to go the extra mile in customer service. For this client, we decided to build a mock up of what the roofing system would look like before we installed the roof to make sure they were happy with the overall appearance. I know our readers love pictures, so here are a few from the mock up. We really love how these metal shingles look.

In the middle of the mock-up build

Here we are with the finished product and man does it look good. This did not take us long to do and the client loved it

Installing Berridge Metal Shingles

I’ll skip to the chase. Installing this product is not going to go quickly. Installing these Victorian metal shingles comes with it’s own set of challenges. For one, each shingle is packaged in plastic wrap. Now I understand why they do this, but it adds a SIGNIFICANT amount of labor as you must open each shingle individually.

We completed this project in 4 weeks with around 4 guys working. I honestly have no idea if this is slow, fast or average for this shingle type but it felt pretty darn slow.

In the above picture you can see some of the ridge and copper flashing that was installed. One thing to note is that the shingles may look a little scratched here but it is just dirt from us working on the roof.

Berridge Customer Service

I want to be fair to Berridge here but at the same time provide our readers with a full view of what they are getting in to. Overall, I was not happy with the level of customer service that we were provided. Now, this was my first job using their products so I needed a lot of help with making sure my material orders were right and that I was not forgetting anything. Berridge was extremely nice and helpful up until I let them charge my credit card for $40,000. After that, they were practically useless. Once they had the money, the communication was very short and lax.

Now, I understand their position as well. They can’t babysit every roofer who calls them and I have no doubt that if I knew this product backwards and forwards it would have been a much more pleasant experience.

However, my biggest complaint came AFTER the job was finished. One of their reps went to the job site and told us that the flashing we used is not compatible with their product. Is some of the blame on me for not reading the manufacture specs closer? Of course it is! However, when I made the order they knew what flashing I was using and never said anything. Ultimately, I am responsible for all my projects so the blame falls on me but I do think they have room for improvement here.