Jim Johnson explains the "dumpster tax": contractors order 10-15% waste on shingles instead of the realistic 8-13%, padding orders to boost revenue. This inflates costs by roughly 1%, costing about $200,000 in lost profit that could go toward employee bonuses and retention.
Number 3 is what we call the dumpster tax. Now, guys, it's been a pretty good 6, 7-year run here. Uh, like I said, lots of jobs, lots of revenue, companies growing and all the other good stuff up until about May or June of last year. And then, woo, all the bottom fell out. So we are ordering jobs maybe a little heavier than we need to. So we are ordering at 10% and 15% waste factors. When it could be 8%, 9%, up to 12% or 13%. Like, hey, I wanna get paid for these extra shingles. So they mysteriously just— we used every bit of 'em. Is that reality? Is that true? Like, you that perfect of an order that every single time you use every single shingle and everything's great? There's no bundles left over. If anything, they're usually asking for more bundles so they can get paid more. We don't want to have this dumpster tax of wasted materials that we're not returning that ultimately when we've done research on this is another 1%. Now we're talking about $200,000. $200,000. I don't know. You can do a lot with that. Maybe some bonuses for people and taking care of your people so that they stay with you. Maybe a vacation. Maybe it's a new piece of equipment. Man, there's a lot of money right there.
