Most roofing companies here do composition first. Metal is something they take on when it comes up, and the crew that installs it that week may not have installed one the week before. That is not a criticism of the people. It is how a general roofing business has to work when most of the roofs in front of it are shingles.
The problem is that metal is a different trade. Panels move as they heat and cool, and the fixing system has to allow it. Seams have to be closed properly or they open up. Flashings need forming for the detail in front of you rather than bending a stock piece until it fits. A detail that is perfectly good on a shingle roof will leak on a metal one inside two winters.
So this company does metal and nothing else. Installation, replacement, repair, coating, and the emergency work that comes with a wind event. Not composition, not cedar, not tile, not flat commercial membrane. If your house needs one of those, we will say so, and we have nothing to sell you instead.
The second reason is the county. Whatcom County is hard on roofs in specific, predictable ways: shade and moss in the Bellingham hill neighbourhoods, open exposure and driven rain around Ferndale, outflow wind at Lynden, salt air at Blaine and Birch Bay. Those are known problems with known answers, and a company that works here every week should be specifying for them rather than discovering them.
