I have a question I ask several manufacturers; why work with distributors in the first place? Why give them this leverage when you're large enough? Why don't you go directly to contractors?

Aggregating these products, which Carlisle does very well, would be difficult without distributors. Distributors provide two opportunities for manufacturers; they carry the credit from the roofing contractor. We don't and place they, they get the, they get the product to the roof. Now the exception to that is insulation. Polyisocyanurate insulation is the single biggest product line, as roofing manufacturers, and those insulation plants are spread around the country. And we, as the manufacturer, for the most part, take on getting the insulation to the job sites on our own. However, the billing still goes through the distributor and the contractor pays the distributor.