Aastro Roofing Company Named Deerfield Beach's Roofer of the Year - AOL

Updated Aug 17, 2026

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla., Aug. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Aastro Roofing Company, a third-generation, family-run roofing contractor serving Palm Beach and Broward Counties, continues to build on more than seven decades of combined family roofing experience with a focus on hurricane-resistant construction for South Florida homes and businesses.

Founded on principles of transparency and craftsmanship, Aastro Roofing has spent over three decades as a company protecting residential and commercial properties against South Florida's demanding climate. The team is factory-certified to install products from major manufacturers including GAF, Owens Corning, and CertainTeed, allowing the company to offer extended manufacturer warranties. Its wind-mitigation approach is engineered to exceed thresholds of 150 miles per hour, well above Florida's already-strict building code minimums, and the company uses infrared moisture detection and core testing to diagnose roofing issues before beginning repairs.

"We treat every property's roof as if it were sheltering our own family," said Jason Wyatt Blair, Owner of Aastro Roofing Company. "That means no shortcuts, no inferior materials, and documenting our work every step of the way so homeowners can see the quality for themselves."

The company's reputation for reliability has also been reflected in independent consumer recognition. Aastro Roofing recently received the Roofer of the Year – Deerfield Beach 2026 award from the Consumer Ratings Institute. The award follows a 4.9-star overall rating from 361 customer reviews, reflecting consistent feedback from homeowners and business owners across the region.

Aastro Roofing offers residential and commercial roof repair, replacement, restoration, and maintenance, including shingle, tile, metal, and flat roofing systems, and provides free structural evaluations for property owners throughout Palm Beach and Broward Counties.

About Aastro Roofing Company Aastro Roofing Company is a third-generation, family-owned roofing contractor based in South Florida, serving Palm Beach and Broward Counties. The company specializes in residential and commercial roof repair, replacement, and maintenance, with factory certifications from leading manufacturers and an engineering-focused approach to hurricane wind mitigation.

Media Contact: Jason Wyatt Blair Owner, Aastro Roofing Company jblair@aastroroofing.com (561) 409-3280

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SOURCE Aastro Roofing Company

Hurricanes Helene and Milton affected swaths of Florida in 2024, including the Tampa Bay area. ©Al Diaz

After weeks of extreme heat and dry conditions, Florida is getting a reminder of its new reality: The weather can change overnight, and so can the economy built around it.

When Hurricane Milton struck Florida, our phones didn’t stop ringing. In a single day, we received more than 1,100 calls from homeowners needing emergency assistance. For seven consecutive weeks, we experienced something we’d never seen before: more scheduled appointments than incoming leads, around the clock to serve customers already in the pipeline.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that Hurricane Milton was estimated to have caused approximately $34.3 billion in damage, making it the 11th costliest hurricane in U.S. history.

It was an extraordinary period, but one that Florida’s home services industry is becoming increasingly familiar with. What’s surprising is what happened next.

After an extended period of extreme drought, business dropped off and forced difficult staffing decisions. Then the rain came this week. Our scheduled jobs have increased from roughly 20 per day during the slowdown to nearly 60 as homeowners uncover leaks and damage that may have remained hidden during the dry period.

This is Florida’s new storm economy: a cycle where demand is no longer driven by seasons, but by weather extremes, from hurricanes and heavy rain to extended dry periods.

The challenge is affecting many home service businesses. Roofing companies, tree service providers, restoration firms, window and door installers, generator contractors, landscapers, debris removal companies, and countless others are experiencing the same boom-and-bust cycle.

One year, you’re scrambling to hire qualified technicians, only to face difficult staffing decisions when demand inevitably cools. The next, you’re working to retain employees because the next major storm could arrive tomorrow, or six months from now.

This volatility creates challenges that many homeowners never see.

After a hurricane, contractors face labor shortages, material constraints, permitting delays and overwhelming customer demand all at once. Every company wants to respond immediately, but there are only so many experienced crews, so many suppliers and so many hours in a day. When demand suddenly spikes across an entire region, those pressures can drive up repair costs for homeowners already dealing with storm damage.

Then, when weather patterns shift again, demand can change just as quickly.

For business owners, it creates a difficult balancing act: maintain fully staffed crews during slower months or reduce capacity and risk being unprepared for the next storm.

Neither option is ideal.

At the same time, extended dry periods create another challenge for homeowners — and the return of heavy rain can expose problems hidden for months. Small leaks go unnoticed. Wind damage from previous storms can linger undetected. Flashing failures and lifted shingles may not become apparent until the next severe thunderstorm or hurricane exposes those weak points.

That delayed maintenance affects the entire home services industry. Homeowners often put off tree trimming, gutter cleaning, foundation repairs, drainage improvements, generator maintenance, and other preventive work during calm weather, only to discover costly vulnerabilities when the next major storm arrives.

Ironically, the absence of storms often gives homeowners the greatest false sense of security. By the time damage becomes visible, emergency repairs are usually more expensive and more disruptive than preventive maintenance would have been.

Florida’s businesses and homeowners are both adapting to a new reality.

For companies, that means building more flexible operations, investing in workforce retention and preparing for demand that arrives in waves instead of seasons.

For homeowners, it means viewing home maintenance as disaster preparedness rather than deferred maintenance. From roofs and gutters to trees, drainage systems, and generators, the best time to address vulnerabilities is long before the next storm appears on the forecast.

The storms will come again.

No one knows exactly when.

But one thing has become increasingly clear: Florida’s economy is becoming more weather-driven than ever before.

The businesses that survive won’t simply be the biggest or fastest. They’ll be the ones that adapt to Florida’s new reality: storms, droughts, and unpredictable swings in between.

Ryan Westfall is president of Westfall Roofing, which serves Tampa Bay and surrounding areas.

Helen Hayward

Fri, September 11, 2026 at 8:00 PM EDT

Stop arguing about premiums and pull the hazard map

I keep seeing buyers fixate on the monthly premium like it is a standalone bill, separate from the house. It is not. With climate risk getting modeled more granularly, the premium is basically the receipt for where the property sits on a map. So before you fall in love with a street, open the same map layers the industry is leaning on and do a five-minute sanity check. Start with FEMA's flood maps if you're anywhere near water, even if the listing agent swears the place has never flooded. Then add a wildfire layer from your state forestry department or a national dataset. If the neighborhood is in a wildland-urban interface zone, the insurer is going to notice, and they may price it hard, restrict coverage, or require mitigation before binding.

Here's the part that changes decisions: those maps don't just steer you away from the obvious riverfront. They punish the cute in-between spots, the ones that feel tucked into trees or backed up to open space. I've toured homes where the yard looked like a magazine spread, then I stepped behind the detached garage and realized the lot line melted straight into brush. That is a defensible space problem, not a landscaping preference.

When you tour, treat it like a site walk with an adjuster in your head. Look for embers-and-wind details: wood fencing that runs right up to the house, mulch piled against siding, a deck with storage underneath, vents without fine mesh. None of this is hard to change, but it is very easy to underestimate the scope when you're also budgeting for closing costs and a moving truck. If the risk layer is red and the exterior is flammable, you are negotiating more than price. You're negotiating whether the house can be insured on terms that let you sleep and satisfy a lender.

Your roof's age now behaves like a credit score

If you want one physical component that explains why climate change is showing up in insurance pricing, it's the roof. Not because roofs are glamorous, but because hail, wind, and wind-driven rain claims are where carriers get loud fast. And once a carrier decides a roof is too old for the area, they don't politely suggest you replace it someday. They limit coverage, hike the deductible, or decline the risk.

On showings, I do a roof check the same way every time, and it is not the cinematic drone moment. It's boring. I look for the stuff that quietly signals age and brittleness: granules collecting in gutters, curling at shingle edges, exposed nail heads on ridge caps, soft spots around pipe boots, and flashing that looks like it has been re-caulked three times. If there's an attic access, I stick my head up and look for dark staining on the underside of the decking and rusted nail tips. That tells you about ventilation and past moisture, which matters because insurers are increasingly wary of repeated small claims, not just catastrophic loss.

Then I ask for two documents that change the math of the offer: (1) the roof replacement invoice or permit record, and (2) any transferable roof warranty paperwork. If the seller can't produce either, you're guessing, and guesswork is expensive when an underwriter is using stricter guidelines in storm-heavy regions.

This is where homeowners are changing their real estate decisions in plain sight. People are passing on otherwise solid houses because the roof is 17 years old and the neighborhood is in a hail corridor, and they can already see the post-closing scramble: find a roofer, pick a shingle that meets wind rating, schedule around weather, and hope the insurer doesn't cancel mid-project. If you're negotiating, roof age is a leverage point, but only if you're specific. Ask for a credit toward a replacement, or ask the seller to complete a replacement with permits before closing. Vague requests like "help with insurance" go nowhere. A roof line item does.

Rebuild cost is the number that can break your deal

A lot of homeowners still talk about insurance like it is pegged to the sale price. In practice, what tends to drive the quote is the estimated rebuild cost, and climate volatility has made that number feel jumpier. After a major fire or hurricane, labor gets scarce, materials spike, and timelines stretch. Carriers know this, so the replacement cost estimate that sits behind your dwelling coverage can be higher than what a casual buyer expects, especially for older homes with odd rooflines, lots of glazing, or finishes that are harder to source.

When I'm evaluating a property, I run a simple check: does the house have features that make a rebuild slow or specialized? Things like slate or tile roofing, custom windows, attached decks with complex connections, a steep driveway that complicates staging, or a hillside foundation that needs engineers. None of those are deal-killers, but they can inflate the insured value and push premiums into a bracket that changes what you can comfortably carry.

This is also where financing and insurance start talking to each other in an annoying way. If the lender requires a certain level of hazard coverage, you may not have the option to underinsure just to get a lower bill. And if the insurer requires a higher wind or hail deductible, that is not an abstract percentage. That is a check you need to be able to write after a bad event.

The homeowner move I've seen more lately is choosing simpler-to-rebuild homes on purpose. Fewer complex roof intersections. More standard materials. A layout that trades one dramatic great room for something that can be repaired without specialty crews. It sounds unromantic, but it is a rational response to climate-driven claim behavior. Before you make an offer, ask your agent or insurance broker to quote with the address, then ask what assumptions they're using for replacement cost. If their rebuild figure seems way above what you expected, don't hand-wave it away. That gap is often the hidden reason a house that looked affordable on paper starts to feel tight once you add the insurance line to the monthly burn.