By Sean Delaney
Joe DiBratto started in roofing in 1987, working with Dufferin roofing in the Emery area. He estimated for the odd company and then took the dive and registered his own in 1993.
“Long time ago,” he said.
In 1999 he incorporated and Applewood was official. Roofers typically focus on the residential end of the industry and from 1993 to 1999 he did the same, but he had a background in industrial and commercial that he would use. Larger work was available for those who could handle larger jobs, and in ’99 he put his past skills in motion and built the business with industrial and commercial contracts.
“We went and got serious, went to bigger stuff.”
His personal challenge now is to maintain a productive level of work, but also to limit the business and ensure it doesn’t reach too grandiose a summit. 
“My personal challenge is keeping it at certain level, I don’t want it to go too big.”
Business can be easy to find. As DiBratto jokes, “if your roof leaks, who you gonna call?”
But the schedule can be difficult to manage.
“When an industrial building has a leaky roof, they don’t want to get into a line,” he said.
The larger contracts can also have larger headaches and expectations but Applewood comes with experience, just like DiBratto and his partner Giulio Babici.
The partners are members of the Ontario Industrial Roofing Contractors Association and Canadian Roofing Contractors’ Association, with DiBratto a member of the OIRCA’s 50th anniversary committee.
“We’re the type of company where what’s important is being serviceable and responsible. With those two items you move ahead.”
On the job their number one focus is safety, second is good work, and third is production
“Here you can’t do three without two and one.”
Applewood Roofing & Sheet Metal came to Emery Village in 2009 and credits the accesibility and friendly business community as the largest advantages to locating in the area.