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If you’re reading a news story about a roofing company, chances are the story isn’t flattering. The roofing industry is notorious for scammers and sticklers, but the truth is the good roofing companies easily outnumber the bad roofing companies you constantly read about.

It’s a breath of fresh air when one of the good guys is recognized, like Vancouver-based Ibex Roof. Ibex continued the fading holiday spirit by offering a free roof installation to La Center resident Kayla Marshall.

Ibex had recently participated in a fundraiser to help a Washington girl battling leukemia. The fundraiser involved roofing companies purchasing ‘bundles’ of roofing material with all proceeds going to help the girl. Ibex purchased four of the bundles but instead of adding the material to their normal stock, Ibex decided to put the bundles towards a free roof for a local resident in need. “We (Ibex Roof) bought three or four of the packages and we were just going to install it, but then we decided to do a roof giveaway in the month of December,” said Sam Etter of Ibex Roof. “We wanted to use this opportunity to give back to the community.”

Ibex posted the free installation contest to their Facebook page right after Christmas 2019. The company picked one contestant at random, La Center homeowner Kayla Marshall. “Her roof was really old and nasty and so it worked out really well,” Etter said. “Her whole thing was that she had kids and she had been debt free up until this point.”

Marshall’s roof was in poor condition and in need of replacement, but Marshall had been forced to redirect all income toward paying off debts and living expenses for her two little girls. The contest came at just the right time. “We were excited to win a roof because we had just got done paying off some bills and we are a one income family with two little girls, so every dollar saved is helpful to us,” said Marshall. She plans to direct the money saved on the roof to other necessary repairs around the house.

This was Ibex’s first time to give away a new roof, but the company seems to enjoy giving. “Kayla was super appreciative throughout the whole process. Everything ended up going as smooth as possible.”

Choosing a Roofer with a Good Reputation

It can be difficult to separate the good companies from the bad companies but looking for a roofing company that gives back to their local community is one of the easiest ways to secure a great roofer and to affect change in your community.

Roofs have been a part of our lives ever since our earliest ancestors crawled into caves, but it’s taken hundreds of years to get roofs to work for us. The latest trend in roof technology is not new shingles, or new metal, but green-conscious roofing components like solar panels and green roofing. Once an empty, unused space, the roof is now on the forefront of fighting climate change and urban issues like quality of life and the urban heat island effect. Whole countries are making use of roof space, including Austria.

Austria’s new government recently pledged a goal of 1 million roofs outfitted with solar panels by 2030. The nation has pledged to source all electricity from renewable resources by 2030 and to become completely carbon neutral by 2040.

The government and the new laws are led by a coalition of the Austrian’s People Party and the Green Party. The Austrian People’s Party is led by Sebastian Kurz who appointed a super minister for changes in energy, infrastructure, and environmental standards. The roofing and solar panel program has already been fixed into the new government with an agreement that runs from 2020 to 2024.

Austria’s new climate minister Leonore Gewessler believes in the power of solar energy to reverse decades of damage from fossil fuels. “Photovoltaics in general and the 1 million roof programme in particular will add substantially to these goals in a world where mobility is to be switched to electric driving and also fossil heating systems have to be replaced speedily during the next decades,” said Gewessler.

Austria’s pledge comes with others to make use of their roofs for renewable energy and higher quality of living. In 2019, New York City passed Sustainable Roofing Laws, which require solar or green roof installation on new roof constructions or large-scale roof replacements. In 2016, Denver, Colorado voters passed the Green Roofing Ordinance which requires all new roof builds and replacements over 25,000 sq. feet to require a green roofing component like reflective roofing, planted roofs, or solar panels.

The pledge also lines up with the Solar4Buildings effort, which calls for solar panel installation on all buildings in the EU. Jasmin Duregger of Greenpeace Austria applauds the efforts by the new Austrian government but recognizes solar panels won’t fix everything. “Energy demand is still rising,” said Duregger. “Only an effective energy-efficiency law can guarantee that we not only cover rising energy demand with solar power, but also replace and phase out fossil fuels.”