Augusta roofer describes the challenges ahead for homeowners in need of repairs

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Augusta roofer describes the challenges ahead for homeowners in need of repairs

At least it hasn’t rained.

That’s the good news for thousands of Augustans who sustained damage to their roofs after Hurricane Helene blew through the region with such ferocity in the early morning hours of Sept. 27 and dumped up to a foot of water on the Central Savannah River Area.

Since then, it hasn’t rained a drop, a godsend to Augustans who’ve nailed down blue and green tarps to keep their homes dry as they deal with a slew of roof issues. There are shingles damaged or blown off by the wind. Other roofs have gaping holes after trees landed on them. Yet others have fractured roof beams from the impact of fallen pines or oaks.

At the offices of R.L. Hayes Roofing and Repairs on Wheeler Road, company owner Blake Giesbrecht has doubled his small staff to address the flood of calls and emails from homeowners seeking quotes on roof repairs.

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Blake Giesbrecht, left, owner of R.L. Hayes Roofing and Repair, inspects the roof of Tina Dawson’s house along with employee Lee Roberts, right, on Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024. Dawson’s roof sustained damage after a tree fell on it from the high winds from Hurricane Helene last month.

“Thank goodness it hasn’t rained,” said Giesbrecht. “That’s a blessing. There are lots of open roofs and who knows if the tarps will hold in a storm. We expect another flurry of calls when the rains finally arrive.”

Giesbrecht’s staff is busy. The company receives as many as 30 calls a day from homeowners looking for a local roofing company to seal up their homes after the hurricane wreaked such havoc on Sept. 27.

Working the phone on Thursday was executive assistant Lauren Fugate, who said recent calls ranged from homeowners with crushed roofs from fallen timbers to others with minor leaks that needed quick repairs. The earliest time for a quote was Dec. 6, six weeks hence.

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Lauren Fugate, left, executive assistant at R.L. Hayes Roofing and Repair, works alongside fellow assistant Trinity Stein, right, handing calls and emails for clients needing roof help Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.

“Some were very lucky,” Fugate said. “Some were not so lucky.”

Giesbrecht, a real estate developer who lives in Jefferson County, wasn’t expecting so much activity when he bought the roofing company a year ago during a downturn in the real estate market. He had 2.5 employees running the company as R.H. Hayes filled a niche in the region’s roofing sector.

Then Helene swept through. His phone started ringing at 7:30 a.m. while Helene’s gales still howled from the southeast. In no time, he had 150 voicemails from homeowners in need.  He pulled four employees from one of his other ventures. The expanded R.L Hayes office staff of 6.5 was off and running.

He bolstered his roster of construction workers adept at carpentry and roofing – and soon R.L Hayes had three crews in the field.

Griesbrecht said almost all of those he’s signed up for roof work will pay for the jobs through homeowner’s insurance. That means the policyholders need to negotiate the gauntlet of approvals from their insurance company before a check can be issued, and work can begin.

“We have a dozen jobs waiting to be built at any given time, with hundreds of quotes in customers hands,” he said.

He expects the roof work could continue for some time.

“The rebuilding effort will easily take six months, and most likely will take more than a year to fix all the storm damage,” he said.

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Many homes around Augusta are left with tarpped roofs following Hurricane Helene while roofing companies work to help repair and replace the damage.

Griesbrecht estimated that as many as 10,000 Augustans needed their roofs replaced, with another 20,000 needing repairs. He said a typical replacement roof for a small home could cost as much as $7,000, with the average Augusta-area roof costing from $10,000 to $12,000 to replace.

But roof repairs after a hurricane can be more costly, especially if the wood structure supporting the roof was damaged by a fallen tree, as was the case at myriad homes damaged by Helene.

Adding to the costs is the 70% increase in the cost of shingles during the COVID pandemic. Giesbrecht said his suppliers have assured him that prices will remain stable through December. But he expects a price hike in January.

“We could sell a job based on today’s prices, but not get it built in time,” he said. “Price will be an issue. We’re worried, too, that the availability of materials could become a problem.”

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Assessing the damage

On Thursday, The Chronicle accompanied Giesbrecht and estimator Lee Roberts, the pastor at Oasis ******* in Thomson, as they drove to damaged homes as they worked up quotes on the cost of repairing the rooftop damage.

They stopped at a townhouse on Northrup Place in Grovetown where the Patel family was awakened on the morning of Sept. 27 by a towering pine that toppled down on the roof.

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Grovetown resident Mike Patel, right, talks about the damage he hopes to be repaired to the home he rents with R.L. Hayes Roofing and Repair owner Blake Giesbrecht, left, Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.

“We heard two big sounds, and rushed out of the house,” said Mike Patel. “The kids were scared.”

Giesbrecht and Roberts explored the cramped attic to see the gaping ***** in the roof, now covered by a tarp. They detected a ****** in the beam along the roof’s crest. They found broken rafters as well. Giesbrecht said the construction crew would also have to open up the front part of the roof, which wasn’t damaged by the tree, to replace the top beam.

At a home on Ashbrooke Way in Grovetown, Giesbrecht analyzed the roof, where several shingles had blown off from the gale-force winds of Helene.

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R.L. Hayes Roofing and Repair employee Lee Roberts inspects the attic of Mike Patel’s Grovetown home for additional damage while doing an estimate Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024.

“At the end of the day, this home needs a new roof,” he said. “There’s just too many missing shingles.”

Their final stop that morning in Columbia County was on Edwards Drive in Evans, which had been particularly hard-hit. Homeowner Tina Dawson awoke that morning to 22 towering pines down on her street. Another pine that shaded her house from the backyard, with a girth of 24 inches, slammed down on her garage and punctured a ***** in at her home. Her roof still leaked.

Griesbrecht said this crews should be able to repair the ***** without replacing all the shingles, which his company had done within the past two years.

Then he returned to Wheeler Road to schedule work on nine signed quotes, including five that came in on Thursday.

“We’re drinking from a ***** hose,” he said. “We want to make sure that people get taken care of. We want to help as many people as we can.”

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle:

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