About G-Tape

G-Tape started a couple of years ago, when business was very good and we were swamped with work. We had a good customer that thought our quality was slipping but liked our speed and how neat we kept the jobs. I talked with my guys about the quality and we need to pick it up. Upon starting another job for him I missed a few days with strep throat AND scarlet fever. By the time I was back at it we were on another job and I got a call from the builder, I was fired. He said for the money he was paying, we were doing sub par work. It was humbling to say the least.

I started to think of someway to have the employee do perfect work all the time. But in doing perfect work, production always takes a beating. It was one or the other, speed or quality. Why couldn’t I have both?

My brother-in-law suggested chalklines. I had the guys give it a try, and BOY was it slow. Taking out the tape measure, running it up the roof and marking every 5 inches, then getting out the chalkline and start chalking. It seemed to go OK. The guys were shingling and I was feeding them. When I looked behind us and my heart stopped. We were losing a row of shingles in the middle of the roof! How could that happen? Come to find out one of the guys had marked a wrong measurement. When you are running a line 30 to 40 foot and inch or two off can’t be seen. But as you lay the shingles and they start shrinking to nothing, you see it right away.

I was ready to give up roofing. This was ridiculous, how could we mess up laying shingles? We have been doing it forever.

So, I had an idea, why not have a tool that had the marks on it so no measurements would be off? I thought of having a tape measure with the marks clearly marked on it. That helped with the measurement problem, but not the speed; we were still slow in the marking area. I needed something to lay on the roof that I could leave there and roof over it. The whole process was just taking too much time. I had been thinking of this problem for about 4 months and all of a sudden the ideas just started snowballing… that’s Michigan talk for "pouring in." Why not use a tape, preferably an adhesive tape, something that I could stick on the roof deck that would already have the marks on it? I had the idea, I knew what I wanted, now, could somebody make it for me?

A few months and hundreds of phone conversations later, without getting technical, all kinds of problems stood in our way. What kind of tape? Does it stretch? Color? Print? Measurements? Conversions? Size? Length? Working with different manufacturers and printers, I finally found someone that would work with us on the Tape.

I wanted this tape made exactly how I envisioned it. Having a tape that has your marks on it was good, but I thought it could do more for the roofer. And as the "snowball" kept getting bigger and bigger, safety came into play. Since the tape was going to be stuck to the edge of the roof, why not make it quite noticeable? So that without even looking, the tape would catch your eye while you were working. So I wanted a neon green color and a little safety warning on it to always remind the guys that the edge is near.

So purchasing new parts for a printer and trying unconventional ways of printing, and many, many rolls of tape, the prototype was done. It was exactly like I wanted it. The tape was ready. A name? Well, since it was green, and I like things simple, so green tape was a hit, but somebody already took that name. Why not make it simpler? Shorten it to G-Tape. So G-Tape was born.

But how would we identify the different exposure sizes of shingles? Different markings? That would bring that old human error back into the equation. Different colors! So the neon yellow became our metric size, still very easy to see on the edge and all the benefits of the 5-inch tape.

The final tape is a neon adhesive tape that’s 1 ½ inches wide and 180 foot long with premarked measurements at 5-inch or 5 5/8-inch. It also has "Work Safely" printed on it for constant reminder of a safe workplace.

I brought it out to the site to have my guys test it, they didn’t know it was coming, so they didn’t know what to think. I showed up and told them to try this stuff. I didn’t want to give them much to work with, hoping that I made it simple enough for anybody to use with minimal directions. They looked at the tape, put the mark on top of the shingle like the directions say, ran it up the roof, chalked their lines, and started shingling. I could barely keep them supplied with shingles; they were laying them faster than I have ever seen them roof. We did about 11 square in about 1 hour. Sure it was a 4/12 pitch and one side, but that was fast… and perfect. Every shingle was perfect, every line was perfect, every row, perfect. The guys stood up and couldn’t believe what they did. We all looked at each other and we knew it would work. As we continued to test it the ways to make it more and more useful just kept coming. Around dormers, tops of valleys, multiple guys on one side of the roof. Always a perfect roof, every time.

I asked for a few brave roofers that frequented the Roofers Coffee Shop website to test the G-Tape for me. They agreed, surprisingly a different roofer from every different part of the country said they would test it for us. We had Branch Roofing out of Akron, Ohio, Sunshine Quality Roofing, Inc, from Marathon, Florida, Baley Brothers Roofing out in Kenmore, Washington, Hasley Roofing and Siding down in Texarkana, Texas, then down through the middle with Schindler Roofing in Clearfield, Utah, and up to Michigan with Boss Construction and Roofing out of Grand Rapids.

We had no bad reviews by anyone, and the good reviews were coming from the testers, and most importantly my guys loved it. So it was a hit.

Since my background also includes carpentry, I expanded the tape line to include a stud layout pattern that is a 16-inch on center, and also a truss layout pattern that is a 12-inch on center and you lay a truss on every other mark. Both with as much work in them as the roofing. And both also a hit with the testers.

Many different tapes are being brought to the table everyday, some go to research and development and some sit awhile to see if an interest is there.

The tapes are going to be making their way into the lumber yards and roofing supply houses as fast as we can get them there. People always ask, "Why hasn’t this been done before?" or the old saying, "Why didn’t I think of that?" and as I have made the tape from the idea to the finished product, I could see the places that many have probably tried but just gave up when they hit the wall. You have to keep pushing and working for the vision you have in mind, never give up, there is always a way. I always think of a quote that I have by my desk, "Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again."