Name: Countryside Roofing Siding & Windows Inc.
Address: 633 E. Ogden Ave., Naperville
Phone/website: 847-221-5600 or 847-566-8487; www.countrysideroofinginc.com
Owners: Ken McKendree, 60, of South Barrington, and Patrick Dolan, 65, of Arlington Heights
Years in business: 53
What does your business do? “We do roofing, siding and windows. Sixty percent of our work is roofing. … We’re residentially based. We do a little property management work. … And we’ll do maintenance for homeowners too,” Ken McKendree said.
What is maintenance? “After a roof gets to be 10 years old, aluminum expands and contracts. All your vents, the nail heads, the wood. It slowly pops the nails out. When they pop out past the caulk, it can cause a problem. Every 10 years it’s good to have someone walk the roof. General roof maintenance is $450. With all the soaking rain, we’ve had so many calls.”
What’s the background? “(The business) started in 1973. We bought the company 23 years ago from a guy who was hammering his own nails for years and years. … It was a family-run business. Now we have more than 45 employees.”
Why do you have an office in Naperville? “We’ve done so much storm work in Naperville over the past 20 years. I think we have well over 2,000 customers in Naperville.”
How did you get into this business? “Right after college, I started working for a friend’s brother in sales. I was a finance major at Towson University in Maryland, which helps in this business. I came out here in 1999 to help manage a company. Worked there three or four years and then bought this.”
What do you like about your job? “I like solving problems. If someone has a roof leak or severe ice damming or a problem other people can’t solve, usually we’re able to solve the problem.
“I’ve been doing it a long time. I’m sometimes still on call during weekends. … If a neighbor’s roof is leaking on a Sunday, I’ll run over and help them out. It all goes into being a roof guy.”
What about electric cables on roofs to melt ice? “A lot of the cables have a direct circuit so you have to hire an electrician.”
What about competition? “We focus on what we do, not what anybody else does. We do a lot of preventive things that are extras on every job.”
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Preventive things? “We’ll use the better ice shield. We’ll run the water and ice shield (higher up). It ends up costing a little more but in the long run it’s the right thing to do. … Roofing is all about redundancy. The more you put in place, the less likely you are to leak.”
Is autumn busy? “Yes, because everybody is trying to get everything done before winter. … December, January, February, we do a lot of training.”
What about siding? “We do a lot of vinyl siding. We do a lot of LP SmartSide Siding, a compressed wood siding. It’s really strong. They put insecticide into the wood so there’s no termites. It’s better than the James Hardie Siding, a concrete composite board.”
How about windows? “We do Pella, Marvin, some vinyl windows. We do a lot with Simonton. Anderson? I just don’t like that some of the parts are plastic. … Vinyl are probably $1,000 a window.”
Do you still get up on roofs? “Yes. I was on a roof just before this (interview). In Elmhurst. I don’t go on anything too steep. You don’t want to be on a 12:12 (roof pitch). That’s a 45-degree angle. You have to have ropes and harnesses. … We turn down a lot of flats because they’re either too detailed or are a different product.”
What’s your business philosophy? “Our motto is do the right thing for our customers. If we see something that can be done better, we’ll try to do it better.”
Do you have any favorite stories? “After 16 years (with a roof we installed), a guy called me yelling. (It turns out) the guy had a hole in his siding. So, the water was hitting the siding, running behind the roof flashing and into the house. … You’ve got to look. Every spring and fall, walk a few laps around your house.”
What about leaf guards? “We sell two different types. Some let pine needles in. Another is flat. Leaves sit on top. There’s no perfect system.”
What if the thermometer is in the 90s? “(We) give (employees) small jobs or have them work from seven to noon.”
What’s your advice for anyone starting a business? “Work for someone else in that business first to make sure you like it, make sure you have a passion for it, make sure you’re good at it.”
Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun. If you know of a business you’d like to see profiled in Down to Business, contact him at [email protected].