Superior Built Roofing

Superior Built Roofing Superior Built Roofing has been serving the roofing industry since 1997. We specialize in resi...

We specialize in residential and commercial roofing in Florida including Lee, Charlotte, and Collier counties. We install and repair shingles, tile, metal, flat, and stone coated steel.

If a roofing contractor asks you to pull the permit yourself, stop the conversation.Florida law has an owner-builder exe...
08/25/2026

If a roofing contractor asks you to pull the permit yourself, stop the conversation.

Florida law has an owner-builder exemption. It lets you act as your own contractor on your own home without a license. It exists for people who genuinely do their own work, and it is written into Florida Statute 489.103(7).

The statute also includes a disclosure statement the permit office has to hand you. Item 7 on that form says something worth reading twice. It states that it is a frequent practice of unlicensed persons to have the property owner obtain an owner-builder permit that erroneously implies the owner is providing his or her own labor and materials.

The state put a warning about this scheme inside its own form. That tells you how common it is.

What actually changes when your name goes on that permit:

You become the responsible party of record, not the contractor If an uninsured worker gets hurt on your roof, you may be liable, and your homeowner's policy may not cover it Anyone unlicensed working there must legally be your employee, which means withholding, F**A, and workers' comp If the permit gets pulled improperly, the building department can revoke it and withhold final approval

Item 3 of that same disclosure spells out the alternative in plain language. It says you may protect yourself from financial risk by hiring a licensed contractor and having the permit filed in that contractor's name instead of your own.

So the question to ask any roofer, ours included, is simple. Whose name goes on the permit, and can I see the license number it is pulled under?

A licensed roofer answers that instantly. Anyone who hesitates just told you something.

You can verify any Florida license yourself at myfloridalicense.com. Ours is CCC1334737.

Call (239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com

Most Florida roof leaks do not start where people look.Every plumbing vent in your house runs up through the attic and o...
08/24/2026

Most Florida roof leaks do not start where people look.

Every plumbing vent in your house runs up through the attic and out the roof. That is a hole in a surface built to have none. The thing sealing it is a rubber or neoprene collar called a pipe boot, and it is the most exposed piece of rubber on your entire property.

Sunlight is what kills it. Ultraviolet light breaks down the polymers in the rubber, so the collar goes from flexible to chalky to brittle. Then it cracks, or it shrinks and lifts away from the pipe. When that happens, rain does not soak through your shingles. It runs down the outside of the pipe, into the attic, and onto the ceiling below.

Here is why this fools people. The shingles around it still look perfect. A homeowner sees a stain near a bathroom or laundry room, assumes the whole roof is finished, and starts pricing replacements. Plenty of times that roof had years left and one small part failed early.

You can check this from your driveway. Binoculars, look at the base of every vent pipe sticking up:

Cracks or splits in the rubber A gray, chalky surface where it used to look black A visible gap between the collar and the pipe A thick blob of caulk, which usually means somebody patched a boot instead of replacing it

Count the pipes while you are up there looking. Most homes have several, and they all aged on the same clock.

If something looks off, deal with it before the next stretch of afternoon storms. A failed boot is a small repair. Wet roof decking is not.

We will come look at it and tell you straight, including if the answer is that nothing is wrong.

Call (239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com

Most Florida termite talk is about subterranean termites and mud tubes at the foundation. There's a second kind that ski...
08/21/2026

Most Florida termite talk is about subterranean termites and mud tubes at the foundation. There's a second kind that skips the ground entirely and heads for your roof.

Drywood termites live inside the wood they eat. No soil contact, no mud tubes. Swarmers fly at night toward lights, from late spring into early fall, and they get in through small gaps around eaves, roof lines, fascia boards, trim, and unscreened vents. Attic framing and rafters are among their preferred addresses.

They work slowly. A colony can sit inside sound-looking rafters for years before anything surfaces.

The tell is frass. Drywood termites push their droppings out through pin-sized kick-out holes, and it piles up on whatever sits directly below. Hard six-sided pellets, roughly grain-of-sand size, tan to reddish, bone dry. It rolls between your fingers. Sawdust from an old repair looks fluffy and uneven with visible splinters. Coffee grounds clump when you press them. Frass does neither.

What you can check without paying anyone:

Look at the attic floor directly under the rafters and along the top plate. Check windowsills for small piles you can't account for. Look for discarded wings near light fixtures after a warm night. Tap accessible framing. Hollow is worth a second look.

Our honest position: we're a roofing company, not a pest control company. If you find frass, you need a licensed pest professional, and that isn't us. What we can tell you is that the same gaps at the eave, fascia, and vent line that let swarmers in are roof-edge details, and those are ours.

Screening soffit and attic vents is cheap and it does two jobs at once.

(239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com



August in Lee County. Highs near 90, heat index into the upper 90s. Your attic is running far hotter than that, and if t...
08/20/2026

August in Lee County. Highs near 90, heat index into the upper 90s. Your attic is running far hotter than that, and if the ductwork lives up there, your air conditioner is paying for it all day.

Roof color gets all the attention. The physics actually runs on two measured properties, both on a 0 to 1 scale.

Solar reflectance is the fraction of sunlight the surface bounces back.

Thermal emittance is how well the surface radiates the heat it did absorb back out to the sky.

A cool roof needs both. High reflectance with poor emittance still gets hot, because the heat it absorbed has nowhere to go.

The Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Heat Island Group puts the difference in plain terms: on a typical summer afternoon, a clean white roof reflecting 80 percent of sunlight stays roughly 50 degrees cooler than a grey roof reflecting 20 percent.

ENERGY STAR sets a minimum initial solar reflectance of 0.25 for steep-slope roofs and 0.65 for low-slope. Note that word. Reflectance falls as a roof collects dust, dirt, and biological growth, which is one more reason a low-slope roof nobody ever cleans quietly loses the performance it was specified for.

Two caveats, because this gets oversold constantly.

Savings estimates vary widely between sources and depend heavily on your insulation and where your ducts run. We're not going to hand you a dollar figure we can't stand behind.

And a cool roof won't fix a hot attic by itself. If ventilation is blocked or the insulation is thin and compressed, the roof surface isn't your bottleneck.

The time to weigh this is when you're already replacing. Not before.

(239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com



This changed in 2024 and a lot of boards are still running the old playbook.Florida Statute 720.3035(6) now applies to e...
08/19/2026

This changed in 2024 and a lot of boards are still running the old playbook.

Florida Statute 720.3035(6) now applies to every homeowners' association in the state, regardless of when the community was created. It requires the board or the architectural committee to adopt hurricane protection specifications for each structure or improvement on a parcel. Not react to applications as they arrive. Adopt specs in advance.

Those specifications can address color, style, and any other factor the board finds relevant, so long as they comply with the applicable building code.

Then subsection (6)(b): the board or committee may not deny an application for the installation, enhancement, or replacement of hurricane protection that conforms to the specifications it adopted.

The statute defines hurricane protection to include roof systems recognized by the Florida Building Code that meet ASCE 7-22 standards, along with permanent fixed and roll-down storm shutters, impact-resistant windows and doors, polycarbonate panels, reinforced garage doors, and more.

There's a second piece worth knowing. Under 720.3035 generally, architectural authority reaches only what is specifically stated or reasonably inferred in the declaration of covenants or in published guidelines the declaration authorizes. If the declaration is silent on roof color, color alone is thin ground.

Property managers: if your association hasn't adopted written hurricane protection specs, that's a gap worth closing with your association attorney before an application arrives that you can't cleanly answer.

Homeowners: ask for the adopted specs in writing before you choose a product. It shortens everything.

We're roofers, not attorneys. Run the specifics past counsel.

(239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com



Two roofing quotes. One says the shingles are rated 110 mph. The other says 150. Both can be telling the truth about the...
08/18/2026

Two roofing quotes. One says the shingles are rated 110 mph. The other says 150. Both can be telling the truth about the exact same product.

Florida recognizes more than one lab standard, and they measure different things on different scales.

ASTM D3161 mounts a roof section and blows air across it with fans. Its classes run A, D, and F.

ASTM D7158 calculates the uplift force wind exerts on a shingle and compares it to that shingle's mechanical uplift resistance, which depends on things like rigidity and how strongly the self-seal strip bonds. Its classes run D, G, and H.

You can't rank a Class F against a Class G by comparing mph. Different scales, different methods. Which is exactly why the code names acceptable classes instead of acceptable wind speeds.

Here's the line that settles most driveway arguments. Under the Florida Building Code, Residential, Section R905.2.6.1, asphalt shingles classified as ASTM D3161 Class F, TAS 107, or ASTM D7158 Class H are acceptable for use at all wind speeds. Class D under D3161 or Class G under D7158 are only acceptable where Vasd is 100 mph or less.

So the question isn't "how many miles per hour." It's "which class, under which standard."

And the part that outranks all of it: a wind rating describes a shingle that's properly fastened and sealed. Nail count, nail placement, nail depth. Miss the nailing line and the number on the package describes a roof that isn't yours.

Ask for the class and the standard in writing. Anyone good will hand it over without blinking.

(239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com



Everybody in Cape Coral watches the cone in August. Almost nobody watches the 3 p.m. thunderstorm.Here's what NOAA's Nat...
08/17/2026

Everybody in Cape Coral watches the cone in August. Almost nobody watches the 3 p.m. thunderstorm.

Here's what NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory says: damage from severe thunderstorm winds accounts for about half of all severe weather reports in the lower 48, and it's more common than tornado damage. Thunderstorm winds get classified as damaging once they reach 50 to 60 mph.

Those winds come from downbursts. Cold air inside a storm loses its support, drops, hits the ground, and blasts outward in every direction. If the damage swath is under 2.5 miles wide, it's a microburst. Wider than that, macroburst.

Not theoretical here. On June 10, 2012, the National Weather Service surveyed damage in eastern Charlotte County near Babcock Ranch and attributed it to straight line winds of roughly 70 to 75 mph in a macroburst. Damage path: 4 miles long, 350 yards wide. Roofs came off outbuildings.

Seventy mile per hour winds with no cone, no name, and almost no warning.

Why your roof cares: uplift damage from a downburst looks nothing like the movie version. No tarp, no hole. What you get is shingle tabs that lifted and resealed crooked, a ridge cap that shifted, drip edge pulled at a corner, tile that slid half an inch. None of it visible from the driveway. All of it a path for the next rain.

Lee County is running roughly 40 percent storm chances most afternoons right now. If one parks over your street and the patio furniture moves, that's your cue.

The leak that shows up in October usually started in August.

(239) 241-7040
https://superiorbuiltroofing.com



A tenant mentions "a little water spot in the back bedroom." What happens in the next 48 hours decides whether that's a ...
08/14/2026

A tenant mentions "a little water spot in the back bedroom." What happens in the next 48 hours decides whether that's a $600 problem or a $16,000 one.

For anyone managing rental property in Southwest Florida, the roof is where a communication gap turns into a repair bill. Here's the structure worth having in place before you need it.

Know where the obligation actually sits. Florida Statute 83.51 puts responsibility for maintaining roofs and other structural components on the landlord. There's an exception worth knowing: for a single-family home or a duplex, those obligations can be altered or modified in writing. So the default is the owner, and the lease is where you find out whether somebody changed the default. Read the actual lease rather than assuming.

Make reporting frictionless. If tenants report maintenance by texting a phone somebody checks twice a week, you'll hear about the water spot after the drywall has gone soft. One channel, timestamped, photo required, identical across every unit. The friction you remove gets measured in dollars later.

Document the response, not just the repair. Date reported. Date inspected. What was found. What was done. Who did it. That file is the first thing an owner, an insurer, or an attorney will ask for, and rebuilding it from memory eleven months out has never once gone well for anybody.

Interior first, roof second. Move belongings, contain the water, photograph everything, get airflow moving. Then deal with the roof. Those are two different jobs on two different clocks, and treating them as one is how interior damage quietly triples while everyone waits on a roofer.

Small stains are the cheap signal. The expensive version of the same problem is a sagging ceiling, and there are usually months between the two.

If you manage properties across Lee, Charlotte, or Collier and want a straight assessment of where each roof actually stands, that's a conversation we're glad to have, portfolio or single building.

(239) 241-7040 or https://superiorbuiltroofing.com



Three roof materials dominate Southwest Florida, and most of what people believe about the differences is wrong in at le...
08/13/2026

Three roof materials dominate Southwest Florida, and most of what people believe about the differences is wrong in at least one direction. Here's the straight version, including the parts that don't help us.

Asphalt shingle. Cheapest to install, fastest to replace, most common by a wide margin. In this climate UV and heat are what kill them, and they generally don't reach the lifespan the package promises in a milder state. The upside nobody mentions: when a shingle roof needs a repair, it's usually the simplest and least expensive of the three to fix.

Tile, concrete or clay. The tile itself can last decades. But the tile is not what keeps water out. The underlayment beneath it does that, and it has a much shorter service life than the tile above it. Tile is also heavy, so it isn't a straight swap onto a structure that wasn't designed to carry it.

Metal. Long service life, strong wind performance when it's installed to spec, higher cost up front. Two myths worth putting down:

Metal does not attract lightning. According to the Metal Construction Association, the odds of a strike are driven by height, topography, and what surrounds the building, not by what the roof is made of. Metal is also non-combustible, so it conducts a strike rather than igniting from one.

Metal is not loud in the rain. That reputation comes from barns, carports, and sheds, where panels are fastened over open framing with nothing underneath them. A residential metal roof sits on solid decking with underlayment and attic insulation below, and those layers do the sound damping.

What actually decides it: your building's structure, your budget, how long you plan to own the place, and what your HOA or community allows. Anybody who tells you one of these three is simply the best is selling that one.

Happy to walk you through what each would really cost and mean on your specific building, whether or not you end up doing anything.

(239) 241-7040 or https://superiorbuiltroofing.com

Hashtags


The best time to cut back the branches over your roof was March. The second best time is the next three weeks.Here's the...
08/12/2026

The best time to cut back the branches over your roof was March. The second best time is the next three weeks.

Here's the case for right now. The tropics are quiet, NOAA is still forecasting a below normal season, and Colorado State's early August update points at a strong El Niño and high wind shear as the reason. That's real good news. It's also exactly why this is the cheap window, because tree crews across Lee, Charlotte, and Collier are not booked three weeks out the way they will be the moment something shows up on a forecast cone.

What overhanging limbs actually do to a roof, past the obvious falling-on-it scenario:

Abrasion. A branch resting on shingles shifts a little with every breeze and scrubs granules off. Granules are the UV protection. Once they're gone, bare asphalt cooks in a Florida summer.

Debris damming. Leaves and needles pile up in valleys and behind the drip edge, hold moisture against the roof surface, and slow drainage during exactly the storms where drainage matters most.

Access. Squirrels and rats use limbs as a bridge. They chew into soffit and fascia, and once they're in the attic you have a roofing problem and a pest problem at the same time.

Leverage. In real wind, a limb whips a lot farther than people picture when they're standing in the yard on a calm day judging clearance by eye.

Common guidance is to keep limbs roughly six to ten feet back from the roof surface where the species allows. Talk to a certified arborist about your specific trees, because cutting an oak the wrong way can kill it, and a dead oak next to a house is a bigger problem than a live one.

Doing this in a quiet August costs a fraction of what it costs in an emergency in October.

(239) 241-7040 or https://superiorbuiltroofing.com

Hashtags


Address

10231 Metro Parkway, Suite 200
Fort Myers, FL
33966

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Superior Built Roofing posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category