Elite Roof and Solar Chosen to Install Insurance Industry’s Higher Standard, Storm-Resilient Roof Across 27 Buildings at Sawmill Village in Burnsville, NC
ASHEVILLE, NC, UNITED STATES, August 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Elite Roof and Solar, the Carolina’s most award-winning roofing company, has completed a FORTIFIED Roof TM system installation at Sawmill Village, a new affordable housing community in Burnsville, NC. Elite Roof and Solar installed a complete GAF roofing system which was leveled up to the insurance industry’s Fortified standard across the community’s homes. The project consisted of installing Fortified Roofs on each of the twenty-six individual homes and one community center building.
The project reflects a growing focus on storm-resilient construction across North and South Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. For the future affordable housing community’s residents, a roof engineered to stand up to severe weather offers lasting protection and real peace of mind.
Fortified is a beyond-code roofing standard developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), a research organization funded by the insurance industry. Built on decades of research into how homes hold up in severe weather, the standard has become an important benchmark for insurers, and in many markets a Fortified designation can help property owners qualify for insurance discounts, grants, or mitigation credits. Once viewed mainly as a coastal safeguard, Fortified strengthened its inland requirements in 2025 to reflect the more severe storms now reaching further from the coast.
Meeting the Fortified standard takes more than quality materials. It requires specific, carefully executed installation methods, and Elite built three core requirements into every roof at Sawmill Village. Each roof was fastened with ring-shank nails in a specific pattern that can nearly double a roof’s resistance to wind uplift, sealed the deck with a secondary water barrier that IBHS testing shows can reduce water intrusion by more than 95 percent if the shingles are ever compromised, and reinforced the roof edges, the area most vulnerable to high wind. Each stage was inspected by a Fortified Evaluator and documented before the next layer went on.
The roofing systems were installed using products from GAF, the largest roofing manufacturer in North America. In early 2025, GAF formed a first-of-its-kind alliance with IBHS to expand access to Fortified roofing, and the manufacturer points to GAF Master Elite contractors and President’s Club 3-Star winners, to carry out this work. Elite Roof and Solar holds Master Elite certification and is one of the few contractors in the country to achieve President’s Club 3-Star status.
“We were honored to be selected for a project like Sawmill Village,” said Mick Koster, Co-owner of Elite Roof and Solar. “This is a community designed to provide some of safest, most weather-resilient places to call home. Severe weather is becoming a bigger reality for homeowners across the Carolinas, and installing a roof to this standard is one of the best ways we can provide greater peace of mind for years to come. It’s an exacting and time-consuming installation, but our team took real pride in getting every detail right.”
The Sawmill Village project reflects Elite Roof and Solar’s commitment to quality craftsmanship and to serving homeowners across the Carolinas as a trusted, knowledgeable partner, especially as the region prepares for a future with demanding weather.
About Elite Roof and Solar
The Elite Roof & Solar team is driven by a singular purpose – to put a smile on our neighbors’ faces by protecting their families and homes with a safe, beautiful, and innovative roof over their heads. We are the premier roof and solar company in the Carolinas driven to provide superior workmanship, innovative products, award-winning service, and an easy customer buying experience for both residential and commercial customers. We are a veteran owned and operated company with over 5,000+ customers having trusted us for their roofing needs since 2012. As a GAF 3-Star President’s Club Award winning roofer, we deliver exceptional roof repair and replacement service that fewer than 100 roofing contractors in the country can match. For more information, visit www.eliteroofandsolar.com.
Mick Koster
Elite Roof and Solar
+1 704-992-7474
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Fortified Roof Installation at Sawmill Village in Burnsville NC by Elite Roof and Solar
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