Napinka renovation company expands building, workforce and services

A Napinka renovation company has expanded its workforce, services and physical operations just two years after opening its doors.

C.F.L. Renovations, owned by Colin and Faye Leforte, has expanded its existing building and grown its workforce from two people when the company started to six employees.

Colin told the Sun the company also added roofing and basement foundation work to its range of services, allowing it to take on more projects in Napinka and communities throughout southwestern Manitoba.

“We have already seen strong demand for our roofing services, particularly for older, two-storey farmhouses,” he said in an interview.

“There aren’t many companies that like doing the old two-storey farmhouses … and we have the equipment and scaffolding and everything to do them down in this area.”

Colin said the new service has already generated considerable demand, particularly because the company is equipped to work on older, large farmhouses that can be difficult to access.

He said the height and steepness of some of the older farmhouses can discourage contractors from taking on the work, creating an opportunity for C.F.L. Renovations.

Basement foundation work is another relatively new service for the company.

Faye said the business has completed a growing number of foundation projects and has had success helping homeowners deal with water entering their basements.

“We’ve been doing a lot of basement foundation work,” she said. “That’s fairly new to what we’ve been doing, and we’ve had really good luck with keeping water out of people’s basements.”

The expansion of services, however, created a new challenge for the company: finding enough space to store equipment, materials and supplies.

Before the addition was completed, C.F.L. Renovations was operating out of three different buildings to store its equipment and materials, Faye said.

“We expanded our existing building to bring those operations together under one roof,” she said. “The additional space has allowed us to also accommodate additional employees and carry out work such as painting off-site.”

For Colin, the change has also improved efficiency.

“It has definitely made our turnaround times much easier because we have everything stored in one building now instead of three,” he said.

The company’s foundation work has also allowed it to take on projects beyond Napinka.

During the most recent flooding in Brandon, C.F.L. Renovations travelled about an hour and 20 minutes to repair a customer’s building in the Wheat City.

Colin said the repair was successful and the building did not experience another leak afterward.

Much of that regional reach has been built through word of mouth.

Rather than relying heavily on advertising to attract customers, the company has grown largely through recommendations from people who have used its services, Faye said.

Colin estimates that customer referrals and repeat clients account for the overwhelming majority of the company’s business.

“Probably 99 per cent of our business has been based on customer referrals and repeat clients,” he said.

That reliance on referrals, he said, has also helped the company establish its reputation in a small community where trust can be particularly important when homeowners are choosing a contractor.

Colin said one of the challenges facing businesses operating in smaller communities is that residents can be hesitant to hire a company they do not know.

“In smaller communities, a lot of people are fearful to hire new people because they don’t know who they are,” he said.

Uncertainty can sometimes stem from previous experiences people have had with contractors.

“Communication, I find, with people down here is a big thing,” he said.

Faye said the Lefortes have heard similar concerns from customers about experiences they had with other contractors, although she does not believe communication has been a problem for their own company.

Building relationships with customers has consequently become an important part of the company’s growth, she said.

Colin said the company is interested in continuing to create employment opportunities for people in the area.

“We are hiring a couple of new people here,” he said. “We have a youth employee who has come on and worked with us for the summer here now, before he goes back to school. So we’re trying to create employment for new people down here.”

The Lefortes are not ruling out further growth, although they say the pace and direction of future expansion will depend on economic conditions.

Colin said the company is currently considering new ideas and techniques that could eventually become part of its services.

“Hopefully, we’ll have to see how the economy is treating everybody at this point,” he said. “We’re looking at different and new ideas right at the moment.”

Among those ideas are new building techniques and maintenance approaches that could benefit homeowners, Colin said.

The company also wants to grow its design department.

For Faye, that growth could involve making greater use of technology to improve and expedite the design process.

“We’d like to grow our design department too,” she said.

For potential customers, the Lefortes said they remain open to discussing projects regardless of their size or location within the region.

“We welcome phone calls and emails, and if anybody needs services done, we’re more than happy to go out and take a look and give quotes,” Faye said. “We provide free quotes for customers considering renovation work.”

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