The process of flat roof repair should always begin with answering three questions:

1. What type of flat-roof is on your building?
2. What specific problem are you looking to address?
3. What other factors (price, downtime, etc) need to be taken into account?

Firstly, determine what material is currently being used on your roof.  On a commercial flat roof, you’ll usually have built-up, modified bitumen, EPDM, TPO, PVC, or Sprayed in Place Polyurethane Foam.  Each of these materials comes with it’s own laundry list of potential problems, from alligatoring on dried out built up roofs, to seam ruptures on an improperly installed single-ply or modified bitumen roof.

Leaks can be caused by the natural breakdown of the roof over time, improper installation, damage caused by an outside force such as high wind or hail or even vandalism.  Whatever the cause these issues will not go away and will cause additional damage to the roof insulation, roof deck, and to the interior of the building.  Most commercial building owners pay their roof little mind until leaks begin to affect other parts of the structure, and this can be extremely costly, if it’s not dealt with quickly.

When looking into flat roof repair, there are also a number of potential problem areas of which building owners should be aware.  The last thing that anyone wants is to drop thousands of dollars on a roof that leaks or goes out of warranty within a year of installation.  If you plan on using any sort of coating, you need to know if your roof has ponding water, because most coatings will break down or peal up in these areas.  The obvious way to check this is whether or not there are actual shallow pools retained on your roof’s surface.  The other is to check for low-lying areas and stains where was has collected and dried up, indicating places where ponding water has been present.  Once these have been located, you’ve eliminated a number of options already.

Now, the third question pertaining to flat roof repair is what do you actually want to get out of your flat roof repair?  Obviously, if you have a leak, you want something that is going to stop those leaks immediately and prevent further water penetration.  Other considerations are:  Would you prefer to coat directly over the existing roof, saving on the cost of haul-off and disposal of roof replacement waste?  Do you have pooling water surrounding your HVAC System?  Can you afford facility downtime?

Most people don’t want to invest in a product that is going to fail, and tearing off and replacing the area will halt operations for days.  But doing nothing will cause untold damage to your building.

NovaTuff is a fluid-applied epoxy system that creates a waterproof membrane over the existing roof.  Unlike most coatings, our epoxy will not dissipate in ponding water, and, though we only recommend it for emergency situations, our formula will cure underwater unlike acrylics.  In other words, NovaTuff can even be applied in the rain in the event of a leak.  Installation is non-invasive, and the most intrusive part of the entire process is powerwashing the problem area of the roof to create a clean surface for application.  That means no facility downtime.

Not to mention that our system bonds better to many flat roof materials than they do to themselves.  Plus, you can do your part in protecting the environment and save some money, because there is usually no tear-off or disposal involved.  Traditional problem areas, such as flashing and seams can simply be coated over with a base-coat and fabric, followed by a top coat.  These can then be coated over with our roofing system, which will readily bond with itself and remain, as always, a seamless and waterproof membrane.

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In January 2013, Virginia-based Lauren Manufacturing’s building caught fire during a standard patch to the building’s roof.

The fire occurred on Tuesday, January 29, when a crew attempted to patch a large leak over the factory’s large rubber extruder, and a spark from the machinery used to heat the asphalt dropped through the hole and caught fire to the insulation, spreading horizontally across the metal deck.  Eye witnesses stated that black billows of smoke were seen coming from the roof of the building.

Firefighters were able to squelch the blaze, but only after removing a portion of the building’s metal deck.

Initially, Lauren had cancelled the first shift to allow crews to patch the leak, but they were forced cancel the second as well while the fire still blazed.

Now, the above story is one of the worst possible scenarios to image for how a standard patch could go horribly wrong.  But these kinds of stories do happen, and they result in a loss of time and money for both the contractor and the building owner, regardless of the severity.

Outdated techniques like asphalt roofing are an accident waiting to happen.  It’s surprising that more fires haven’t been started from heating tar on top of a building to boiling and spreading it on over the roof.  Simple human errors (or even freak accidents) can lead to damages that have to be paid for and can bring a work schedule to a grinding, indefinite halt.

Tearing off the roof and just starting with a substance less accident prone is one solution, but that’s extremely expensive and requires days to weeks of facility downtime, depending on the size of the roof.

So, in lieu of wasting time and money, building owners and contractors can take advantage of our fluid-applied roof system to alleviate the risk and liability associated with older roofing methods, without the building owner incurring the massive expense of tear-off and disposal.  Since NovaTuff requires no heating or special equipment to install, there’s no risk of fire, lowering an installer’s liability.

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One of the most important factors in reducing the life cycle cost of any commercial roof is maintaining a proactive roof maintenance schedule.

As any building owner or facility manager is keenly aware, problems with the roof are often almost unnoticeable until the cost of repair has spiked from leaks or rust that have spread to other parts of the structure.  Moreover, the recent boom in construction activity in both commercial and residential sectors has lead to material price inflation that will outpace the general rate of inflation, according to Reed Construction Data’s January report.  Soaring energy costs, coupled with these factors, makes a proactive roof maintenance program more critical than ever, but where do you begin?

In making the case against reactive rather than proactive roof maintenance, a simple price comparison helps to establish firm financial incentives to put together a strategy as soon as possible.  According to the January 2009 edition of Roofing Contractor, building owners and maintenance managers who react to roofing problems (leaks, rust, etc) as they occur spend an average of $0.25 per square foot annually, compared with only $0.14 per square foot spent annually by those with a proactive roof maintenance plan.  The same study found that proactive roof maintenance could almost double the life cycle length of a roof.  That means decreased life cycle cost and overall reduction of expenses.

Generally speaking, it is unwise to handle commercial roof maintenance in-house. Instead, shop around for companies that specialize in proactive roof maintenance in your area, but you shouldn’t always choose the company with the lowest bid.  Recent technological developments (powerful analytical tools such as infrared scanning and membrane testing) have given companies that utilize them the ability to pinpoint potential leaks or breakdown with far greater accuracy than simple visual inspection.  However, these services come at a premium, but these techniques will help extend the life of your commercial roof and lower life cycle cost.

Generally speaking, it is unwise to handle commercial roof maintenance in-house.

Now, there is always the chance that your roof will be too far gone for repair, and a commercial roofer provider will need to analyze your roof to see if re-roofing or repair is the better option.  Weathering and degeneration will take their toll over any commercial roof’s life cycle, but it’s your roofing provider’s job to determine how much more, if any, that life-cycle can be extended.  However, this is also a point at which building owners and facility managers should be leery.  Choosing a roof provider that specializes only in replacement rather than restoration, replacement and repair equally increases the chance that you will get a biased opinion and expend resources on a roof that could have been restored or repaired.

When choosing a provider to carry out your proactive roof maintenance plan, experience is paramount.  Surprisingly, weathering is not the leading cause of roof damage; that distinction belongs to human error.  Roughly 40 percent of all roof damage is caused by damage from poorly trained maintenance crews or improper initial installation of the roof system.  That means that you should choose a provider that trains technicians well and has reputation of consistently excellent service.  That also means choosing a company that has been around for long enough to establish a reputation and a record.  According to the US Census, nearly 40 percent of roofing companies were started within 3 years of 2005 by that year’s census, and 41 percent of roofing companies had gone out of business within that same three-year period.  The industry is always in flux, and there are fly-by-night companies that have little industry experience.

One option when choosing a roof maintenance provider is to choose a company that manufactures and installs their own products.  There are several advantages to this approach:

1. The manufacturer will have far greater knowledge of their product.
2. They will always have the right materials at hand.
3. The manufacturer will be aware of any product failure early on, because they are on-site.
4. Labor and materials are warrantied under the same company, which means no blame-games between two different policies or litigation.
5. Manufacturers can tailor application specs to your specific needs, allowing far fewer chances for human error.

This should give you a good place to start.  Follow NovaTuff Coatings for up-to-date information on emerging roofing techniques and honest advice on getting the most out of your roof’s life-cycle.  If you have any questions, feel free to sound off in the comments section or contact us.

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