Westlake Royal's Steve Booze walks Green Builder Media president Ron Jones through the exterior package at the VISION House Las Vegas with Beazer Homes: a concrete roof tile and elevated batten cool roof system, and manufactured stone made with closed-loop water and reclaimed scrap.
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Ron Jones: Hi, everybody. I'm Ron Jones, president of Green Builder Media. We are here at the vision House Las Vegas in conjunction with Beazer Homes. This is a completely remarkable house that we're at. It's our part of our vision, our series. But we also, what we're calling, crossing the Rubicon. The Beazer company is going to take the industry to new heights and, with an all electric subdivision here and net zero already in every single house.
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Ron Jones: This particular, unit here is actually, again, zero, to the bones. And we're here today with Steve Boes, who is from Westlake Royal, and they are the purveyors of the, stone material that you see here, as well as the roofing. And so, you know, we can do all of the great bones, we can do all of the great technologies and all of the other things.
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Ron Jones: But you better you better cover it up from the outside, have a great roof and it's great durable products to protect all that investment. And also, it just adds to the beauty and the esthetics and makes this a wonderful attraction. So congratulations on your project. Tell us about your products there. Yeah.
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Steve Booze: So we provided the our new point concrete roof tile, products, for, for this project, and for the net zero house, we did our cool roof system, which is a combination of some of our accessories, our elevators, battens, underlayment, as well as the roof tile itself.
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Ron Jones: Let's explain that a little bit. So, especially in this extremely hot, climate here in Las Vegas, it was important to get that air movement in between some of those layers. Tell us about.
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Steve Booze: That. Yeah, that our movement is very important. And the concrete tile has some good mass to it. So it does absorb some of the heat of Las Vegas, but not all of it. But having an elevated batten system where the roof tiles actually set up off of the roof deck about an inch or so, allows airflow to move that hot air that gets in there out of the of the of the of the roof deck into the attic.
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Ron Jones: So it's not transferring it directly on to the, the subsurface. And also in addition to that, they have completely sealed, thermal units in terms of their attics. So that helps to break it down even further. It would. Yeah. So that's a tremendous improvement over the way people have been doing things for sure. And in terms of the, the wonderful stone facade, you guys found the beautiful variety of products on that.
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Ron Jones: And I know there's a good sustainability story with that as well.
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Steve Booze: There is, you know, it is also a, man made product, out of out of aggregate and cement, but it's a lot thinner. That natural stone and a lot less energy to get it out to the jobsite, a lot less effort to get it onto the wall. And it's colored, on the outside.
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Steve Booze: And it'll be, it'll look great forever, but spectacular.
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Ron Jones: So, you don't have any maintenance issues with that? It really helps to break up the design without that, you know, frankly, wouldn't be that exciting. But when you put the components together, it dresses everything up, and it does it in a way that really speaks to quality. I also notice that they've done some wonderful technique there.
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Ron Jones: Probably they have some irrigation there in the stone areas. And so, that prevents it from waking up and, and helps to create a situation where it's more durable and, less likely to have an issue down the road.
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Steve Booze: That's correct. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So that it really dresses up the outside of the house rather than just being a monolithic stucco structure. It gives you a little bit of character, a little bit of curb appeal.
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Ron Jones: Well, it's it's magnificent. And, you know, I noticed as we, as we move down the sidewalk that there's actually some elevation break in it too. So that adds another dimension of difference to it. Now, most of your product is is manufactured in what part of the country or.
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Steve Booze: Oh, we actually have 30 plants across the country. So depending on, on, what the product is, where it is. But products like the roof tile, we make right here in Nevada, also California, Arizona, a number of other places that the stone is made either in our Mexico plant or our California, Napa, California plant.
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Ron Jones: So by having that widespread manufacturing footprint, what that reduces the amount of transport that you have to really know in those markets, in those various jurisdictions. Now, your products are probably, ubiquitous in terms of, code approval. You don't have any place where you have any questions or doubts about, any of these.
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Steve Booze: Things that we meet the most stringent codes, in terms of wind uplift, fire rating, hail, issues. We meet the most stringent aspects of all three of those severe weather events that continue to keep.
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Ron Jones: Happening, and especially in the West. You know, we're all concerned about fire.
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Steve Booze: Yeah. And,
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Ron Jones: And it's just, beyond my belief that people continue to put combustible roofs on, when they could have something as glorious.
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Steve Booze: As.
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Ron Jones: This beautiful.
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Steve Booze: Tile. It's a it's a noncombustible product. And as long as the rest of.
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Ron Jones: The roof structure.
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Steve Booze: Doesn't catch on fire, you'll be in good shape.
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Ron Jones: It's well protected.
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Ron Jones: Tell me about, the sustainable approach that, Westlake Royale takes and and and is that a thread that runs throughout, the decision making of your company and and your path forward? Yeah.
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Steve Booze: It all starts with our parent company, West Side Corporation, who is a global chemical manufacturer. And so, you know, reducing our carbon footprint, is a big part of what we do as a company. And then as we go downstream into Westlake Royale, we have products like our roof tile and our stone that are made with closed loop water systems.
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Steve Booze: We consume all our own scrap, that we might make within the facility. Try to send nothing to the landfill, from ourselves.
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Ron Jones: That's the very commendable side that tells me that you're probably also, continually researching ways to have a, a more environmentally, environmentally friendly mix that's all in the concrete products and so forth.
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Steve Booze: That's right. There are green cement out there. And we continue to look for ways to incorporate, those types of technologies to make make more environmentally friendly products.
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Ron Jones: What about in terms of the different esthetic styles around the country? If we were looking at something in the southeast, it would probably be vastly different from here in the southwest.
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Steve Booze: A lot of times it's color difference, more than anything else. You know, we'll have a barrel tile and out here also have it in Florida. Yeah. You know, we'll have, the slight look here. We'll have the same there. So it's more color driven. We generally have regional color palettes, that will be attractive to, to those types of, communities.
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Ron Jones: Yeah. The desert, the desert landscape is, slightly different from Tennessee.
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Steve Booze: Exactly. Florida. Exactly like that.
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Ron Jones: What are your big hopes for, the company going forward and your penetration in the market? What what would you like to see in 2025 and beyond?
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Steve Booze: Yeah. You know, concrete roof tiles are a small part of the overall. There's a, roofing industry as far asphalt shingles remain the largest part. So for us to be able to penetrate that marketplace, and bring a better product to areas like, these desert climates, is, is a big part of what we're trying to do.
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Ron Jones: Although I have seen recently, reports that, there's going to be some pressure on the asphalt, sector and, and, there is that's going to open up a vast market for alternatives.
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Steve Booze: Really? Well, I guess is the insurance industry group is working on things like severe hail, wind. And really the longevity of asphalt shingles, which, may not be as good in some of those areas, as we may have thought ten years ago.
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Ron Jones: Yeah. And, you know, they're a fossil fuel based product to begin with. And so that's an issue. And then the durability of them. Yeah. Yeah, certainly there are different grades and, some are much higher quality than others. Right. But, you know, to make a distinction between a 20 year and a 25 year shingle, it seems a little bogus to me.
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Ron Jones: I, you know, it's you have to as long as the mortgage at least.
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Steve Booze: Yeah. That's right.
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Ron Jones: And, so I'm, I'm a big fan of, doing a good job. You know, the thing about it is we're seeing, I think, a transition in the market in general to where we're looking at the value, not just the price. And so we see the long term value of products, the selections, the specifications that we make. We look at the long game, and over time it's actually going to save you money.
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Ron Jones: So in the amount of time that these reps are going to stay here, you might have to reroof 1 or 2 times. And not only is that an environmental issue, but it's a big cost issue.
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Steve Booze: That's right.
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Ron Jones: Yeah. Anything else that you want to really, share with our audience and with the builders or the consumers are both, in, in, in terms of what, you're doing.
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Steve Booze: Yeah. No, we really appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this Beazer, partnership with, with with Green Builder Media. And, yeah, I really look forward to seeing this takes off for you.