The saying goes that, compared with a heavyweight concrete tile roof, a Gerard roof takes the weight of two elephants off your home, and for the Meikle family of Nelson, that idea will soon become a reality of larger than life proportions. They’re about to embark on some real-life elephant spotting on an 11-day African adventure, after being drawn as winners of a special promotion highlighting the safety of Gerard, the worry-proof roof.
"Are you for real?"
The Meikles entered the Gerard promotion around the middle of last year and had forgotten all about it until they received a call from Gerard's Marketing Manager Dean Lee.
"When we got the phone call, we couldn't believe it," says Rochelle. I thought it was a hoax call. I kept saying, are you for real?
"My husband is an absolute fanatic about wildlife documentaries and is always watching the National Geographic channel."
"We're going to get a Gerard flag or sign and take it with us to Africa and hold it up when we're riding an elephant so we can take a photo and bring it back to show everyone. We're absolutely ecstatic about our roof."
"We're over the moon," says Rochelle Meikle "and when we told our kids, they just leapt up and down cheering and started dancing all over the place, they were that excited."
Style and safety
Rochelle and her husband Brad are no strangers to building. Their four-bedroom Nelson home is the fourth new house they've built over the years and they are especially happy with their choice of a Gerard Corona Shake roof.
"It was a personal decision based on the way we wanted the house to look. The builders were really happy about it too. They have a Gerard roof on their show home and they get so many comments, and so do we. Safety was a big consideration. After the Christchurch earthquakes and the extreme weather we get in New Zealand, you think about safety a lot more carefully."
"My sister-in-law and her husband in Christchurch are planning to build, and they're also looking at a Gerard roof because it can stand up to earthquakes."
Weighty decisions
Co-ordinated by Auckland-based boutique travel company World Journeys, in conjunction with South African Airways and luxury safari operators &Beyond, the $23,000 prize package features a 3-day safari in Kruger National Park plus trips to Cape Town and Victoria Falls.
Gerard Roofs General Manager Scott Duncan said the Christchurch earthquakes had made people more aware of the advantages of choosing a lightweight roofing material, and the promotion offering the chance to see real elephants in the wild was a good way to accentuate this.
"The difference between a Gerard lightweight steel tile roof and an equivalent concrete heavyweight tile roof equates roughly to the weight of two fully grown African Elephants," says Scott, "and we wanted to make that analogy realistic."
