Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Should Texas Require Roofers to have a License?

Many states do not have licensing requirements for home service companies such as roofers. Texas is one of these states. On a recent Caller.com article, Lyndell Haigood of Wichita Falls questions where Texas should require licensing for roofers. The article states:

Before a barber can charge $20 for a haircut, he or she must have taken 1,500 hours of course work during a minimum of nine months training. They will be required to take a final examination and then pay $60 to obtain their license. To place a $10,000 roof on someone's home requires no experience, no training and no license. We hope that is about to change.
While the write ragrees that no one is recommending 1,500 hours of training, she does argue that roofing contractors should secure liability insurance to protect homeowners from damages, whether accidental or intentional. Fair disclosure, Lyndell is the president of the Association of Fire and Casualty Companies in Texas.

Some of this is common sense and sometimes common sense lies with the homeowner.

First, comparing a roofer to a barber is silly. Whether you think barber should have 1,500 hours of course work and pay a government fee to be in business is up to you. Personally, I don't know many people that tip their roofer after a job (though I'm guessing the average roofer and his crew wouldn't mind the gesture).

Second, this has already been solved by the private sector. Roofing manufacturers given certifications to roofing companies. Again, this puts the burden on the homeowner, but does more to protect than a 8.5" x 11" piece of paper that a license does. Roofing manufacturers require course time, tests and have created their own quality standards within the roofing industry. Companies can display these credentials on roofing websites and discuss it during sales proposals.

Third, licensing only creates protective barriers to keep other out competition. When this happens homeowners pay more because the market isn't allowed to compete. Take the below John Stossel video as an example. In this video John Stossel discusses florist licenses in Louisiana.


Want another angle against licensing? Look to Hurricane Sandy. Electric workers from Alabama were turned away to help. State requirements, including being union members, were caveats that the Alabama crew were unwilling to cope with. These volunteers were planning on helping those in need, but despite being capable professionals were able to help. Hundreds of thousands of homes still didn't have power two weeks later because of the fact the electrical industry has such controls and the current workforce could not handle the overflow of work.

2 comments:

  1. This is such a great post but I'm interested also to the post of roofing Simi valley. Keep it up!

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