Storm-ready roofing

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how Unified Steel’s stone-coated roofing stands up to hurricanes, ice dams, snow and HOA demands.  

In 2025 the Guardian reported that “[a NASA study shows] extreme events are becoming more frequent, longer lasting and more severe, with last year’s figures reaching twice that of the 2003-2020 average.” With this rise of intense weather events, it has become more important than ever to build structures and roofs that can withstand the most extreme storm conditions. To learn more about how to do this, Karen Edwards hosted a new episode of Roofing Road Trips® featuring Mitch Heitsch from Westlake Royal Roofing Solutions. 

When it comes to handling inclement weather and high winds, Mitch has firsthand experience as a regional sales manager for Unified Steel in the Florida area. He said there are two primary factors to consider when designing a roof to withstand a storm – performance and aesthetics. He explained, “Here in Florida, we not only are getting hammered by hurricanes every single year, which falls into the performance factor, but we’re also a state that’s very heavily dictated by HOAs and the aesthetic aspect of that.” 

What Westlake has done with Unified Steel is find the balance between these two factors. Originally created in the 1960s, Unified Steel’s main product is their stone-coated metal roofing products. Mitch went into more detail, sharing, “Our products look just like other roofing products. Odds are you've driven by a stone coated metal roof and you've never known it. It's blended in really well, which is great from the aesthetic and the HOA side, and is metal, which is great from the performance side.”  

And Unified Steels’ stone coated metal roofing isn’t just a good option for homeowners dealing with increasingly severe wind events. It also performs well in the increasingly intense inter weather that has been hitting areas like the Midwest. Mitch explained, “In the Midwest snow accumulation and ice dams are big issues. And being a stone coated product, Unified Steel has a grittiness that can help avoid the dangerous snow avalanches... it also is really energy efficient and can help avoid dangerous dams that lead to leaks by moving that heat up and out of the home quickly.” 

Listen to the whole episode with Mitch to learn more about how Unified Steel combines performance with aesthetics.