Dura Loc Roofing Systems

In spite of a 25 year warranty on our Dura-Loc steel roof, which was installed by Bjorkstrand Companies in 2001, we just replaced the roof of our home entirely at our own expense. After seven years the Dura-Loc roof was not leaking, but the granular material that gave the roof its gray appearance was flaking off so fast we could hear it bouncing down the roof and our gutters contained a two inch layer of granules. The undercoat of the roof was bright orange. Half our roof was the original grey color and the other half was orange. It was a neighborhood eyesore. We weren?t looking to sell, but who would buy a house looking like that? We tried to contact Bjorkstrand Companies, but they no longer exist. However, the former owner of Bjorkstrand Companies has a new contracting business across the Minnesota border in Wisconsin. He suggested we contact Dura-Loc. We tried to contact Dura-Loc, but it was sold to Metals USA in 2006. Allmet Roofing Products, a Metals USA company, is Located in Courtland, Ontario and is presumably the same manufacturing site of the former Dura-Loc. We do not know if Allmet has changed the manufacturing process since the Metals USA purchase. Dura-Loc has an office that responded to our warranty issues. Although we provided a copy of the contractor?s invoice that clearly shows we purchased Dura-Loc material, the Dura-Loc representative informed us that they had no signed warranty registered with them. We have no record either. It is possible the contractor had agreed to do this, but we have no memory of even needing to ?register? a warranty. We were also informed by Dura-Loc that we were supposed to contact them within 30 days of noticing a problem. Losing a few granules seemed normal. We notified Dura-Loc when the rate of loss became alarming. Finally, Dura-Loc?s comment was that ?this type of damage is generally excluded under our warranty.? The warranty includes the statement ?no? change of more than eight units of color?? Apparently that does not apply to the change in color as a result of granular loss. Their recommended remediation was to replace 25-30% of the roof and recoat the rest of the roof with granules, at our expense and their estimated cost of $9700. As a good faith gesture they offered $2000 to help defray the cost. We asked if the appearance of the roof would be different between the repaired and new areas. We were assured there would be no difference. We asked who could do this type of repair and were told to find a contractor at www.metalroofing.com who works with Allmet products. There was no Allmet trained contractor on the website within one hundred miles. According to Allmet?s warranty, ?this warranty shall not apply to: Allmet Products that are not installed by an Allmet factory trained installer or contractor.? If we pursued Dura-Loc?s solution we would have no warranty, a roof of two different ages and covered with product from two different companies. Our new roof was installed in 2009 using Metro Roofing Products and Lifetime Shingles as the contractor. It took Bjorkstrand Companies six weeks to install the first roof. It took Lifetime Shingles eight days. They cleaned up every night, were very considerate and recycled the old steel roof. We are very pleased with the service and results from both Metro and Lifetime Shingles.