Roof Thermal Scans, Material Shortages & the Case for Recapping: Soprema + IRC Building Sciences on Atlantic Canada's 2021 Roofing Crisis

0:03All right, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today we have two representatives, two major players in the industry — IRC Building Sciences Group, a Rimkus Company, and Soprema. So we have Charles McCormick from Soprema and Kyle Kennedy from IRC Building Sciences Group. Thanks for being here, guys. Thanks for having us. Kyle, you made the trip from New Brunswick this morning. Yeah, it's nice to get into another province. Yeah, some good weather for the drive anyway. So yeah, we're going to talk

0:34about a lot of things today, guys — the current state of the market, mostly focusing on roofing and the roofing industry. So roofing contractors, leave your comments and hope you get a chance to tune into this. But maybe we'll start with just a little background with you guys, your journey in the industry, and then we'll touch on a couple of points about Soprema and IRC Building Sciences Group. So maybe we'll start with you, Kyle. I know you worked for Flynn for — geez, I

1:02don't know, was it ten years? Yeah, it was eight years. So I got pretty lucky. I went to college right out of high school, did civil technology for engineering project management, and I got scooped up by Flynn right out. They're an awesome company. I worked there for eight years — as an estimator, then transitioned to project management. And they're the biggest building envelope contractor in North America, so it was a great experience. So had Flynn been in — like, when you joined Flynn,

1:28eight years ago — was that around the time they kind of expanded into Atlantic Canada, or shortly after? So they had been in Atlantic Canada for a while, about four years before I got in there, I believe. But the growth they had over those eight years was crazy. I think they went from 20 branches to 32, and I can't even keep track anymore — they're adding one a month at this stage. It was a great experience. I did a couple of projects for them

1:52out west, and I was in Manitoba for a bit. Yeah, I was in Brandon — the big city of Brandon, Manitoba. So you drive for two hours and still be on the same road, right? Straight. You can see your dog run away for days. Yeah, that's the saying, I think. But awesome city and a great group of guys there. I really enjoyed my time at Flynn. And so you managed jobs for Flynn all across Atlantic Canada, or just New Brunswick, or all around? I

2:17was just New Brunswick based, but we worked pretty closely as a team. I mean, in the Maritimes — same as it is at IRC now — everyone works so close together, right? And as a project manager you're likely dealing with multiple projects at the same time, different roof assemblies, all kinds of labor force, all kinds of things. I wish it would be A, B, C, D, but it's a lot of A to D to F, you know, that kind of thing, back to A. So no, it's it's

2:43part of the gig. All right. And we'll come right back to you, Kyle, and talk maybe about just what it's like going from a contracting background to working with IRC Building Sciences Group, a Rimkus Company, and just kind of what it's like to see the industry through a new light, a new perspective. But Charles McCormick, thanks for being here. You've been working with Soprema for — I don't know how many years? Twenty-five? No, I've been in the industry for about 25 years. I didn't start with

3:11Soprema, but I ended up here. I've been here for a little over 10 years. I went to University of Waterloo, took environmental studies, anticipated that I'd be in some related field, and ended up kind of organically getting into the roofing industry. Went with a couple of other companies, then came to Soprema. It's a good place to be. Our corporate culture spends a lot of time on sustainability and design for long-term solutions rather than kind of a quick fix that

3:50doesn't last. So in a very strange way it's now aligning with what I went through university for, and it makes me feel whole or something like that. Well, that's always good. That's how you tie in the education. And I guess environmental studies is never going to go to waste no matter what industry you're in — it positions you well. I spent — I was on the board of the Canada Green Building Council down here for quite a few years, and it was nice to tie in my interest with my profession. I

4:18met a lot of like-minded individuals, so it's a good place to be. Yeah. Tell us about Soprema — obviously Soprema is a leader in the industry, obviously very high quality materials and all that. But they have in-house design, they're dealing with architects, that kind of thing. Just maybe give us a little background on what you see at Soprema and why you guys have been able to achieve the status that you have. Well, I think one of the things that

4:49differentiates us from some of the manufacturers is that we take a holistic approach and we look at a complete system — and it's not just the roofing system or the wall system or the foundation system, but the building as an entity. So we spend a lot of time thinking about how the wall relates to the roof, because when you get a tie-in that's not done properly, it doesn't matter where it is, it's going to affect the entire envelope. So we consider ourselves a

5:21building envelope company. We started as a roofing manufacturer but we're bigger than that now, and we look at projects as a whole. If we have a good relationship with a contractor who's on the roof, we try to leverage that into getting into some of the other systems within the building. I think we're also very deliberate in how we develop products — we look at long-term solutions, what's going to work, what the pain points are in the industry. When we developed laminated panels, it was because

5:56there's a real shortage of labor out there, and with that shortage of labor sometimes comes quality control issues on jobs. So we thought, what can save contractors some time, differentiate us in the market, and produce a product that's going to be a kind of a game changer? So with our Smart Board system — that's where we were going with it. And it's taken off, because the labor shortage in the industry isn't going to get better anytime soon. Right, so

6:25with your position as senior sales and business development — am I right? Is that it? Yeah, and there's architectural rep in there somewhere too. But that was what I was leading into — you're dealing with these architects, that's a big part of your job, trying to get these new materials specified, maybe try and talk them into using something that's more relevant for a certain situation. Yeah, yeah, I think one of the things a lot of the architects

6:50like about dealing with us is that we don't experiment with products. We don't bring it to the market, cross our fingers, and hope it works. We do the vetting up front in our labs, we do some case studies and see how it works, then we introduce it to the market. So they know — I can count the products that didn't work as planned on one hand over 10 years. I mean, we really don't have significant product issues because we do the research up front, so that

7:18when an architect calls and says, "I need a solution for this" — that's kind of what we get more and more of. We're solutions providers as much as anything else. Whether it's roofing or walls or whatever, we're offering the architect or the owner an answer to what they need. We're not trying to say, "Okay, our box is square and you're round — how are we going to make it work?" We figure out how to make our product work for their need. Right. And at the same time you're in tandem

7:44working with the contractor to provide the material with cost efficiency, with something that's going to work and be in line with their labor rates and those kinds of things too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of things to balance. You always have to be aware that as a manufacturer you may have an absolutely amazing product that's five times more expensive than anything else out there, and you know it works, but you'll have a hard time getting buy-in from the contractor because

8:12they have other products that are sort of okay — unless you can talk them into the fact that they're eliminating layers of labor. If you can justify the streamlining, if you can justify that price point and make them understand that the labor costs a lot more than material, and if you can do that and it works, that's fine. But there are some products where it's just not going to take in the market because it's not serving a purpose. Right. And talk a little bit about

8:39the R&D situation with Soprema. Obviously it's backward integrated, there are so many different players — full of staff, building engineers, building sciences people. How's the company kind of set up that way to stay on top of the market, stay on top of the products? I mean, that's a big operation. Yeah, so we've got R&D labs all over the country, actually all over North America, effectively worldwide. So in Drummondville we have an active lab that is testing existing materials for

9:13quality control plus looking at developing new products all the time. So we don't know everything they're doing as far as what's coming up — we hear of some products that are being developed and sort of have a heads-up, and then we see what comes. When we acquire companies — we've acquired a few companies over the last few years — Soprema will look at what they're doing and how we can change the product line or make it work better for

9:44our systems. And a lot of times the lab is spending hours figuring out what works and what doesn't work. Well, that's got to be subject to the fact that developing business in Atlantic Canada is going to be different than if you're at the other end of the country or somewhere in the States, right? Contractors are wanting different things, they have different weather conditions, all kinds of different elements. Absolutely, yeah. What works in Texas doesn't necessarily work here.

10:10It may work here, but you have to pre-qualify it. It's not always a one-to-one. You know, if you're going to play in Texas, you've got to have a fiddle in the band. That's exactly it. So Kyle, you mentioned QAs — quality assessments. I think that's a good lead-in to IRC Building Sciences Group. Obviously IRC Building Sciences Group is a Canadian national engineering firm, recently merged with a Rimkus Company from the States — forensic engineering. And so I just wondered if you could tell us about — obviously your background is in roofing, and

10:45then making the switch to working with IRC Building Sciences Group now as a project manager — sort of what that's like, to see the industry from that point of view. Obviously you've dealt with QAs before. There are a lot of QAs done on roofs. I mean, the roof is an element of the building envelope, it's obviously very susceptible — anything that's not done right is going to show up, right? So just tell us what it's like for you to see things now from that perspective in that

11:12light, working with the building sciences group on that end. Well, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And like Chuck alluded to earlier, anytime you're dealing with tie-ins — your walls, your roof — that's your problematic areas when you're building down the road. So that's where you really want to make sure you have a design that works. And what's been fun for me is being a part of that and making sure that the owners get a quality product. And that starts with using products like

11:35Soprema or other manufacturers out there. And what we really do and take pride in is putting these specs together that we know are going to work — we know they're quality products, we know they're going to have a quality contractor — so that you don't have to worry about those tie-ins at the walls and the roof. And then it's been fun being on the contractor side of things: hey, let's get this project done on time, on budget, and at good quality. But it's been a lot

11:57of fun going to an owner that says, "Hey, look, I've got this massive project and I don't know where to start." And it's fun to kind of take them and say, "Hey, this is what you do, and we'll be with you all the way through — all the way to quality observations." So we're on site with them, with the contractor, working with them — making sure, two or three times a week probably, or even more than that sometimes, depending on the size of the job or whatever is

12:17needed. And the fun part about being with a company the size of IRC now, and with Rimkus merging with us, is that if we're not an expert ourselves, someone in the company is. We have such a wealth of knowledge that there's very little we can't do. I always say — I said this to all the services we provide — I guarantee there's everything you can think of, and I guarantee there's more that you can't even think of that you probably could use. So yeah, it's

12:44and it's more and more every day. Every day we hear of new technology out there and how we can serve customers better with it. So when it comes to the roofing contractor, IRC has got a list of preferred contractors, they write the spec, put in the materials that they know work, and then they go, and when the materials are being installed by that preferred contractor they're doing quality observations the whole way through — all the way through. Just for our listeners who aren't

13:11familiar with that — I always get asked what IRC stands for, and we kind of got pigeonholed as "the roofing consultant" because what we were known as is Industrial Roofing Consultants. And we're so much more than that since we became a company in 1992. In the 30 years since, we're full building envelope now, we're forensic for everything. So yes, we write the spec, but we're there before that. Especially myself, with a background in roofing — we're on that project site before we even

13:37think about specking it out. We're doing core tests, we're doing dimensions, we're making sure — leak investigations, thermal scans. So it's a lot — and sometimes for the customers it's, "Hey, I'm not ready for a new roof yet," or "I don't have the capital funding — how do I get through this for another two years?" And that's when we can do a thermal scan, we can write you a spec for repairs, and we can walk the contractor through it. Not that the contractor is

14:00not knowledgeable — there are a lot of really good contractors out there — but we're there to give a hand and kind of bridge that gap. And you can never know everything, right? I mean, sure, there's conflict on site whenever you're an installer and someone's coming by checking your work. No one ever likes being watched. But at the same time, if you're a good contractor you don't mind that, because you know how things are supposed to be done, you're confident in what you're doing,

14:22and they're just there to bounce things off of, make sure things are done right. And you can't cut any corners when you're doing roofs, or the owner's going to pay for it. Wow. And that was my hesitancy coming over from the contractor side to the consulting side — of course I don't want to be that inspector up on the roof. But that's been so far from the truth. I mean, we're working up there together, we're all friendly about it. At the end of the day,

14:42all the contractors — the good reputable contractors — they want to work with us to give a good result to the customer. Like, yeah, they're not trying to hide anything. No, exactly, exactly. Let's talk about contractors, and specifically roofing contractors. So you're working in New Brunswick for IRC Building Sciences Group. Chuck, do you mainly focus on sales for Soprema in Nova Scotia — HRM? Yeah, we're all over. Well, Nova Scotia, and I work with one of our reps in Newfoundland as well, just because I've

15:10been there for a long time and we have some relationships there. So yeah, I just want to kind of talk about the roofing industry in general and the current state of the market. But Kyle, I remember you saying with New Brunswick there are a lot of good quality roofing contractors there, and I think Chuck, maybe here in Nova Scotia the workload is so big, the industry is booming so much that there's not enough quality contractors. Is that — do you agree with

15:40that statement? Yeah, I think what we've got now is that the quality contractors are busy — their plates are full. We're now seeing periodically a foreman from an existing contractor starting his own firm, or maybe a contractor from away who sees some opportunity here coming in. So it doesn't mean that these new contractors aren't good contractors, but there's a learning curve when you start contracting. And we typically work with the larger established contractors, but the market's always growing —

16:18they all started somewhere. Exactly, everybody started somewhere. But you were saying, Kyle, that there are a lot of new roofing companies now starting up in New Brunswick too, because the market is so busy there as well. I mean, general rule of thumb there's one or two that are going to try to come in each year. And what's good for the province in general is that it seems like it's sustainable, right? You know, five or ten

16:39years ago there was maybe four or five big players, but now it seems like there's six or seven. Yeah, and the market can sustain it now. And a lot of them are pushing into Nova Scotia too — we're seeing a lot of branches that were just in New Brunswick kind of coming into Nova Scotia to help with the workload, because it's needed. Like, Halifax is booming right now. Drive into town, look at all the cranes that are up. Yeah. So who are the — who are the four or

17:03five big roofing contractors in New Brunswick that you're working with on various sites for IRC Building Sciences Group all the time? Who do you see on site? Yeah, I'm sure I'm going to leave some out, so I apologize guys. But you've got Flynn, obviously — I worked with them before — Atac, Evolution Atlantic. I would say those are probably the four main known guys, with BRO coming into the province recently. Yeah, and it ranges from province to province — some are more prominent in some provinces than

17:31others. But those would be the main players, and they've been around for a long time. Chuck, who are you dealing with in Nova Scotia? I mean, all the same ones and then some others. Yeah, we've got some larger but slightly smaller ones like PMC, and we've got some other contractors that we deal with local to the Newfoundland market — there's Newfound Roofing and some of the other folks over there. But generally I think we're pulling from more or less the same

17:57gene pool. We're working with the same clients, and that makes it good because I think between companies we've got a pretty good synergy. So yeah. Well let's talk about how things are looking right now in the current state of the market for roofing. What are the issues? I know, Chuck, you're — what are the biggest issues? You don't have time to talk about all the issues, but you were telling me before we went on air that

18:23it's so busy that you're having to turn down certain jobs sometimes, and the backlog of supply chain situations are pushing things back. And when people need roof attention, they kind of need it right away — especially as a building owner. So let's open that up and talk about that. Well, I think certainly in the Halifax market specifically, we've got exponential growth in development — the multi-unit residential is on fire,

18:54and it's been strong for quite a long time. But now the demand is so high that a lot of these developers are full before they even finish the building. In a normal market that would just add some stress to the supply but would be able to carry on fine. But we had affected production — a lot of staff weren't fully in place in some of the operations, plants were closed, and a lot of manufacturers kind of had to cut back on their production.

19:28Then in February in Texas they had ice storms and snowstorms — three of them in a row — that paralyzed the state for a good few days. The problem with that is some of the manufacturing of the raw materials that go into insulation, for example, is done in Texas. So when those plants went down, they didn't just stop producing — a lot of the equipment was destroyed as well because it froze, and they didn't have the ability to unfreeze it. So that supply backed up, and the

19:59effect of that just ripples into everything. So we've got kind of a higher demand, lower capacity to service the market. And it's not Soprema — it's worldwide. Similar instances have happened around the world with supply issues. So it's been a challenging time to provide product in a timely fashion. So for our listeners — we're talking about commercial and industrial flat roofs — it's mod bit, EPDM. What do you see mostly? What are the main assemblies? Mod bit would be your

20:33torch-on type roofing — it's the most common, certainly in Atlantic Canada. The other technology, single-ply, has a market share. And we've actually had liquid PMMA roofs installed as well. I did one in Halifax — the building that's now called the Crane Building, where the crane fell on the building. That was my favorite marketing story — his first big PMMA job in Halifax, and it worked perfectly. So there are a few different technologies out there, and that's one of the important things we have now: if

21:08somebody comes to Soprema and says, "I want Roof A," well, maybe a couple of components of Roof A may not be readily available or there may be a delay. We can kind of offer a couple of different solutions to try to fill that need. And that's what's becoming more and more important right now, because some of our competitors are in a much worse position than we are as far as supply — they've actually stopped taking orders. We're not there; we're just managing expectations, right.

21:38And Kyle, you're seeing the same thing when you're on site with these contractors, when you're doing QAs and thermal scans and stuff? Yeah. And it's funny to think — you would have thought that back at the early COVID we'd have seen it right away, but it hasn't been the case. Everything kind of carried along — not normal, but normal-ish enough for contractors. And then in these last few months the wait times have just kind of multiplied. And it's like Chuck said — it's not just Soprema, it's everyone

22:04across the board. Some are handling it better than others. It's just challenging. But what we're seeing now is that, realistically in the Maritimes, we get what — eight to twelve good construction weeks a year? So we're getting into that time crunch now where it's — what do we tell these customers? Yeah, because if they have roofing needs, it's got to be done in the next few months before the temperature goes below whatever, five degrees. And what we see a lot in

22:29roofing too — I mean, you're not up on your roof every day. It's normally the last thing you think of when you're in your building. And sometimes maybe wrongfully so. But a lot of times we get into these situations where their roof is shot, and they've just come to realize it now. And now we're dealing with the challenges of — like Chuck said again — well, we can't give you Roof A, but maybe we can do Roof B, or maybe we can do some repairs for you, get you

22:53through — yeah, until — I mean, this isn't going to be forever, but it's definitely challenging, right? So you're thinking, what's the wait time like? You're thinking it's a 12-week kind of lead time on average? Yeah, on some of the components. Some of the insulation technologies are stretching out there. Is it mostly the insulation as far as the ingredients in that mod bit assembly, or is it everything? No, it's — once you figure out

23:21what it is, somebody tells you there's something else that's not available — that's the frustrating part. Because you've got your sandwich, and then — well, for example, right now it's fasteners. So it's a screw-down system, we find out we can't get fasteners. The whole component's ready to go but we don't have the six or eight inch fasteners or whatever. So you have a lot of orders sitting there waiting to go. So are you dealing with architects whenever there's, say, a five-

23:48inch insulation spec, trying to say, "Hey, we have some five-and-a-half — can we use this?" Yeah. I actually sent out a communication and made some calls to contractors and architects and said, "Look, I know we're used to giving exactly what you asked for, and we don't try to fiddle around with the specs. But we're in a really difficult time, and we are the same as every other division in a construction process — we're all challenged. But what we can do is offer you a solution that may not

24:17be exactly what you asked for, but it's not compromising what you're getting — it's just not exactly what was written. So can you please at least consider it?" And so far, I think I've had one job where the architect just said, "No, I want this," and we ended up accommodating, but it wasn't easy. But we all, as a community, have to be flexible. Yeah. Well, let's talk about how IRC Building Sciences Group, a Rimkus Company, and Soprema are working in tandem to try and

24:49solve this problem. So if I'm a developer, a building asset owner, and I've got roof problems, and I'm thinking I'd like to replace my roof now because I've got a few months left — if I don't do it now I'm going to have problems and spend more money — and there's backlog on materials, I can't wait that long — there's kind of a repair-versus-replace option where IRC can come to site and do a thermal scan, do a roof condition assessment, and say, "Here's what we can do for you.

25:21Soprema can supply the materials, and it's not just a band-aid solution — it's actually going to solve your problem. And given the way the market is now, this is the best avenue to go." Yeah, for sure. So what we tell our customers a lot is, first off, we have to know where you're coming from and where you're at. So a roof condition assessment is the way to go to find that out. We'll tell you exactly how much more life you have in your building

25:44and what we can do. And then we'll work really closely with the manufacturer. We're in constant communication with Soprema and the other manufacturers out there, roofing-wise. Look, this is what we really think works well for this building — what are the lead times before we even put this out to spec? We have a pretty good pulse on the market, on how busy these contractors are. We only use a preferred contractor list, so it's a couple phone calls — how

26:10busy are you guys? Like, if we put this out, is it even going to get done before winter? And then the next call is, "Okay, Soprema, we want to do a fully adhered system with your Smart Board — what's the lead time? What are we looking at?" And then we'll adjust from there. And then it becomes, "Wow, if we can't do it this year, let's do a thermal scan and maybe we can give them a recap." So we can leave the majority of

26:33the existing roof up, navigate away from the products that are short — like the ISO right now — and still service our customer and give them a good product, right? For our listeners, just to explain the difference between a full replacement and a recap and what that means — starting at a certain layer, the importance of it. Yeah. So we're in a cold climate here, so typically in a common system you'd have a vapour barrier, then some insulation, and

26:58then your waterproofing — which could be mod bit, could be single-ply, the list goes on. So what we can do is we can go up with a thermal scan and have a look at your roof. A thermal scan is an infrared scan that's going to find where the moisture is. It's just a tiny little camera — we always say it's a tiny little camera, but it'll save you a whole bunch of money. Because what it

27:23will do is pick up differences in infrared. So by doing that, if you had a leak in your building or on your roof, that's going to show up like a big bull's-eye for us on that camera — saying, "Look, that's wet." We'll spray-paint it, we'll probe it to confirm it. Yeah, that's wet — unfortunately that's going to come out. But oftentimes that's not your whole roof. If you're proactive enough, it might just be 5 or 10 percent — and as a building owner, if you can leave 90 percent

27:55of your roof up there, it's in good shape, it's still warrantable, we'll take out what's old and put in new — that's a great compromise. Yeah, that's going to help you, Chuck — you don't have the full roof material sitting there in the warehouse, you just have to provide 10 percent, you can make that work right away. Well, it's funny because the company for a long time has been talking about sustainability and design — not replacing things that don't need to

28:21be replaced. We've had a program in place with recaps. We've actually done a couple of recaps with IRC — we did one in Newfoundland, quite a big one. And we've talked about scanning, checking the roof condition, replacing the areas that are bad, and if it's feasible and it makes sense, recap and off you go. We even had a marketing campaign with the "100 Year Roof," which was a series of recaps — we even warranty that recap system. So what, every 20

28:52to 25 years? Yeah. And typically, if you put a new membrane on — with proper drainage, there's no reason you couldn't get 20 to 25 years of life out of your roof. And the whole idea is that we don't believe in throwing everything in the landfill, you know, creating a bigger footprint than you need to. And it's kind of — it's not exactly counterintuitive to manufacturing, because you think we want to sell as much product as possible. But we already had that idea in place that

29:26we're trying to be more responsible corporate citizens. But because of need now, this is something we strongly believe is a way to deal with another issue — which is the difficulty getting product in the market. So we're trying to work with IRC together and offer some solutions to keep people going — kind of hit two things at once. Yeah. Maybe we can talk a little bit more about IRC Building Sciences Group. I know it's kind of a hard thing

29:56to explain to people exactly what a building sciences group is. And since you're here, Kyle, we should touch on it a little bit. I have the pleasure of knowing Mike Stewart — he's from New Glasgow. I might get some of this wrong, but I think he's grown in the last seven years from basically a starting point to, I think, well over 30 employees here in Atlantic Canada — field techs, engineers, architectural technologists, CAD people,

30:24him and his wife Tracy Stewart. And it's a unique business in that — like you said — it's not just roofing. They focus on four pillars: parking lots and paving, roofing, building envelope, and structural. That's right. So they're doing building condition assessments — full BCAs, some people will call them FCAs, different terms, facility condition assessments — where they're managing buildings for building asset owners as if they're assets, saying whether it's a QA of a parking lot, a building envelope assessment,

31:04or a roof assessment — they're approaching the life cycle of the building, trying to identify the issues and report on them. Engineers report on it, field techs collect the data, and then kind of telling building asset owners where they can spend money now to save money in the future — treating the building like a living organism, here are the issues, and constantly keeping up that upkeep. So it's not something that all engineering firms do and specialize in. And I know

31:34that IRC as a building sciences group is different in that regard as well. And some of the testing they can offer — there's not a lot of other people to go to for things like pull tests and bonded uplift tests and those kinds of things. I know IRC is into drones and some new technologies with the Matterport camera, and there are all kinds of things to talk about. But maybe just give us a little bit of a — it's a

32:01lot to summarize, for sure. I'm trying to get it articulated in the way that I want to. I think I did okay. No, you did a great job. And what you said — life cycle — that's a huge part of it. And the four pillars. We talk four pillars, but honestly, at this point anything building-related, we have the expertise to take it with you, or if not, we can point you in the right direction. A lot of fun for me working at IRC

32:29is all the technology we have. We already touched on the thermal scans. We also have technology for pull tests. A big part now — we're seeing especially general contractors, as they get into more design-builds, they're taking on more of the spec writing, more of the risk, more of the responsibility. And what we're seeing from that is an increased need: well, if we're going to put this system down, whether it be a wall system or a roof system, we should make sure that it's going to perform. And

32:58we can read the specs, we can go to the manufacturer and make sure that that's the case. But at the end of the day, you've got to test what's going on site. So we have the expertise to do that — we go on site, we'll do a pull test, we'll make sure everything lines up, it's all checked by an engineer, with the proper gear, with the proper tools. Exactly. So that gives peace of mind to both the owner and the general contractor, right,

33:21or the team that's working on that project. So that's becoming a big part of what we do. Another cool part that we're just getting into — it's so cool to see, because 20 years ago, what I'll talk about next would have blown people's minds. But now it's like, "Oh, it's just a camera." But it's so much more than that. So we also have technology now — this Matterport camera — and what it does is it

33:47takes a 3D render of your building, takes a whole bunch of photos — kind of like what you'd see with a realtor now, you're seeing a lot of, maybe high-end, point cloud. Exactly, yeah. So they'll go in, take a 3D render of your building, and you can kind of walk through the building without walking through the building. What Matterport does for us, and how it applies to the construction industry — we can do that and give you just that if you want. But what we can

34:10actually give you now, which I find incredibly cool, is that you can measure off this 3D render. So we can go into your building, set this Matterport up a couple of different times in a couple of different setups, and we'll generate you a 3D floor plan. You can walk through that forever — that is a permanent historical record of what your building is. Yeah, it's almost like using Google Earth — you're just constantly clicking forward and walking through the space. Exactly. And then the cool

34:37part about it is you can actually measure within that program. So if you have a wall — and this really comes in handy for general contractors that are doing a fit-up or a brand new build where the walls are exposed but they're covering them all up with drywall tomorrow — what they can do is we can come in, do that scan for them, when all the conduit, all the plumbing, all the wiring that you're going to bury is exposed. We'll do that — you have that forever now. Yeah.

35:02You can go back and look if the screw went through the pipe, or any number of things within that assembly. Because — ask any general contractor — when you go to commission a building, you go and turn everything on and cut that ribbon, something's not going to work. A light switch isn't going to work, some plumbing is going to be — you know, go back to that specific area, zoom right in, you could see as close as if there's a little insect on there. And

35:21this thing is accurate at 10 feet within an inch, so it's more than close enough for what you need. And you'll have it forever. So to go back to the light switch example — if for some reason you're turning on a light switch in a building and it's not going on, before they would have had to tear out a whole bunch of drywall, right? They've got to expose it and find out what the issue is, unless they have really, really good, detailed

35:45drawings and as-builts. Now it's as simple as, "Okay, well we have that Matterport and we can go back and measure that." So that's another cool piece of technology. And again, when we talk about IRC, a lot of people think they're roof consultants. Yeah, it's more than that. That's not the case anymore. So any general contractors, architects that are listening, building owners — IRC Building Sciences Group, you can find them online. And like I said,

36:14employees all through Halifax, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, PEI. We're across North America now, honestly — we have branches coast to coast in Canada. And with their parent company Rimkus, we're acquiring new consultant companies by the week. Wherever your base, we can service you essentially. Yeah. Is it Alex — is she based in New Brunswick and now doing some drone work with IRC? Yeah, that's actually pretty cool. So Alex was actually a commercial pilot before she came over to us — not that you have to

36:42be a commercial pilot to fly a drone, but it's still pretty cool. So the big thing with drones right now is you have to really make sure — if you hire someone for a drone, you can't just hire anybody off the street. That person has to have the proper licensing, the parachutes, the safety equipment, all these things. Exactly, there are a lot of restrictions that go into it. Alex has all that. Yeah, we can fly almost anywhere. You can fly downtown Halifax, whereas

37:08maybe I don't know anyone else that could do that, right? Yeah. We were actually at Acadia last week, and you're using the drone as a tool to do an envelope assessment. Yeah, so Alex was actually on-progress — on video — on a 20-story high building doing a building envelope inspection that otherwise we would have had to bring a swing stage in, you know, scaffolding, who knows what. So it's a great tool, it's a complementary piece now to help us — whatever you need. Like,

37:38I say — going back — I think they can do orthographic measurements as well. Yeah, so it's topographical — we can generate roof plans right from the drone, integrated with CAD. Yeah, integrated with CAD exactly. So there's very little we can't do now, and we just keep adding this technology. So it's great. Chuck, didn't mean to leave you out that long, but in fact it was a learning moment — I was learning some new things. So for you, for the state of the market and for Soprema

38:08now — how do you see things progressing, moving forward into the future? It's been a tough couple of years for everybody. Yeah, well, I think we were both talking earlier, and we both felt the COVID situation would make things go bad quickly, but we didn't see the results of everything that was happening until this summer and moving into the fall. So that combination of the Texas situation and

38:38COVID hasn't made it easy. I think we're going to see some real challenges moving forward. I mean, we're all struggling through, and I keep saying Soprema is kind of ahead of the curve as far as being able to supply the products — but we're feeling pressure too. I think the worst isn't here yet, because some of the companies out there that are holding on as far as supply — I think we're seeing that well dry up a bit. I think it's going

39:06to be a bit more challenging. But the other problem is when you slow down your to-market product, you start getting backlogs. So our production may be full speed, but we've got so many orders in the hopper in the back that we're not showing that we're ahead of the market now because we're trying to catch up with what was already kind of booked. So it's going to take an adjustment as an industry. I

39:35think all industries — it's not just roofing. We're talking about roofing or waterproofing, but go to a gypsum board manufacturer, they have the same thing. Paving, asphalt — same thing. So I think as a world, really, we're not going to see a righting of this until the beginning of next year. I think we'll hit — not a crisis point, but my feeling is mid to late September it's going to be quite painful. Right, and that's why you're trying to get this out now,

40:06prior to that. Exactly. Hey, be prepared. Yes, we want to be proactive. And partnering with IRC — we know each other, both companies enjoy doing business together, there's already a synergy there — coming to market with a solution before everything stops. I think this is a really positive approach. It's recognizing what the market needs and maybe offering a solution that isn't obvious. And it's also good

40:43corporate culture to look at — you know, question why are we replacing everything? Why aren't we looking at our existing buildings and saying, "We don't have to tear everything apart — why don't we just look at making it more efficient, or repairing the areas that need attention?" It's really being good humans, as well as offering a solution. I don't want to overstate it — it is roofing, we're not that noble. But it is a good, it's a good

41:09approach to a situation, I think. Yeah. Also, is Drummondville kind of the muster point within your supply chain where all of your ingredients are coming into Atlantic Canada — most of the materials? Most of them, yeah. So that's not just R&D stuff that goes on there — it's manufacturing as well. Yeah, the majority of our manufacturing is concentrated in Quebec. We've got Drummondville and Sherbrooke for some insulation products, and the majority of things. And we actually bring some products from out west, from

41:38one of our plants. But the majority of our components for our projects come from that Drummondville hub. The only time we have very little control over what's happening is when we're using a third party — like a roof board manufacturer where we're buying their products and reselling them. We're somewhat at the mercy of them. And that's why Soprema has always taken an approach where, if it's an essential component in our systems and if possible, we try to acquire the company so that we have control over

42:09that vertical integration. We can have much better control over the market and we're not at the mercy of another company. It's more that we hold all the cards — we take full responsibility for those. Absolutely. Well, any final thoughts? Any final comments? I know this has been a great conversation. Hopefully we have lots of developers and building owners and GCs and roofing contractors tune in and

42:40watch at least a few clips of this conversation. It's been a pleasure. Any final comments? I just think it's — where we're going, if it works, is a natural progression in the market. We're forced to go there somewhat because of what's happening, but I think it's a really smart move that's being kind of pushed on us because of the situation. And I think in the end you'll see a lot more uptake than perhaps we expected. But yeah, I

43:14think COVID has really forced us to look at things — as cliché as it is — in a different way. And this material shortage, like you said, it's just another case of, "Well, how do we adapt?" And there are going to be new solutions that come out of this. And it's going to be a good thing in the end. It's tough right now — I'm sure all the roofing contractors listening right now are going to say, "Well, when's it going to get better?" And there's no

43:36magic answer right now. But I think it's going to be a good thing in the end. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Kyle Kennedy from IRC Building Sciences Group, a Rimkus Company, and Charles McCormick from Soprema — thanks so much for being here, guys. It's been a real pleasure. Thanks for making the trip from New Brunswick, Kyle, and Charles, thank you as well. It's been a pleasure, it's been a great conversation. Thank you. Thanks for having us. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the

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