Roofing woes sparked by snow, cold and wind

Steve Simons, owner of River Cities Roofing, Davenport, has plenty of roofing jobs to tackle, in part because of the difficult winter.

The problem is, he can't really get started because of the difficult winter.

"It has been a bad winter for roofing," he said. "There is going to be work. I am just not sure when we are going to be able to do it. We have gotten more calls, a lot of wind damage. And we are not being able to get anything done. It is too cold. There is too much snow, and very windy now. It has been a struggle to get anything done. But the work keeps coming. It is kind of frustrating."

Simons said for newer roofs, cracks and leaks are not as bad of a problem as it is for older or poorly constructed roofs and gutters. In recent weeks, his company has received four calls about frozen gutters that have fallen completely off buildings.

"Sometimes it freezes and refreezes" Simons said. "And I am seeing a lot of ice damming. It is snowing all the time, if you notice. It is nonstop. I have been roofing 28 years, and this is probably the most sitting I ever did in the winter. We have tons of work. We are just waiting for the weather to break. It will be a good year, once we get going with it."

Mike Cota, general manager of Jim Giese Commercial Roofing Inc., Eldridge said at one time, it was so cold the leaking roofs calls slowed down.

"It was too cold to get on roofs to do repairs any way," he said. "But with all the snow and this past week with 1 inch of rain, we got flooded with calls."

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Roofing woes sparked by snow, cold and wind