By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

With summer nearing it’s end and the warmer weather starting to cool off, local businesses Kangas Construction and Blue Waves Rentals are finishing out this year’s season and will be transitioning to fall and winter services.

Kangas Construction began in 1996 when Ken and Lyle Kangas decided to start the roofing company. Now in it’s 29th year, Ken and his three other employees are still hard at work delivering quality results to homeowners across the Otter Tail Lakes Area.

“We specialize in asphalt roofing,” said Ken’s son, Elliot. “We mainly tear off and put on new roofs. We also do repairs, so if it’s leaking, we can do that too. We do new roofs, old roofs, we do free inspections and free bids as well.”

Along with asphalt, limited tin roofs work can also be requested, based on roof shape and style. Kangas Construction works heavily throughout the warmer months, prior to the first snowfall within about a 30-45 minute radius of Ottertail.

While summer is the busiest season for them, the Kangas crew also works throughout the winter shoveling off and clearing roofs of the often heavy loads of snow that Minnesota winters can bring. They don’t usually do as much repair or replacement work during that time, but they have done so in the past.

“That’s what we do in the winter, we shovel off roofs,” said Elliot. “The last few years were the first two in 25 years that my dad said he didn’t shovel any. We’ve done a couple roofs in the winter too, but we have had to shovel off snow before in order to tear them off. Those newer roofs are easier because you don’t have to tear the old one off.”

Along with a warmer seasonal timeline, the Kangas Construction crew does their best work in the mornings to race against the heat from the sun.

“We like to get up early,” said Elliot, “we probably get up around five or six o’clock and then we’re done around noon, or sometime before that even. You can’t really work in the heat because you’ll scuff up the shingles.”

Elliot has been doing roof work with his dad since 7th grade and has nearly 10 years of experience in the industry. He enjoys working with his dad and uncle up on the roof and said that it can be very entertaining and funny at times. He plans to take over the business one day and looks forward to spending the next decade alongside his dad, learning from the best.

“We’re family owned and local,” said Ken Kangas, “We’re the kind of people that you can sit down and have a beer with, we’re family.”

Customers new and old can reach out to Ken at (218) 639-3186 to find out more about inspections, bids, and services.

Another business owned and operated by the Kangas family is Blue Waves Rentals, a fleet of rentable pontoons, which Ken, alongside his sons Slade and Elliot, began this year.

“We just started this year,” said Elliot. “We’ve had about 20 rentals so far and they’ve all gone pretty well. All the customers have returned them nice and we like doing it.”

With two twenty-foot pontoons as well as their popular twenty-two foot pontoon, the small fleet of pontoons gives locals and weekend tourists their choice of how to spend a summer weekend or even a couple weeks.

“They can go to our website and book on there,” said Elliot. “They can pick from three of our pontoons, then we deliver to the boat ramp or if they want, we’ll even deliver it to their dock in the water, so they don’t have to mess with the boat ramp or anything. We deliver up to 70 miles away.

Elliot does the majority of the drop-offs and pick-ups, so he enjoys getting to meet all the different customers, many of whom come from out of the area to enjoy the lakes during the summer.

“It’s pretty crazy to see how far people come up here to see the lakes,” he said. “We’re looking forward to next year, to hopefully see return customers and new customers!”

Information for pontoon rentals, including photos, pontoon details, and pricing can be found on their website, bluewavesrentals.com.