THE ARGUMENT FOR GOOD ROOF MAINTENANCE
Greg Hlavaty, along with Hal Leland, discuss the importance of a roof maintenance program.
This article is derived from a podcast of the same name. By reformatting this as an article you could miss the fun of the conversation. Please read and enjoy in its original conversational form.
GH – Well, first I’m going to say that this is maybe the most important building owner podcast that we’ve done. Following just some of these previous podcasts, these basic guidelines for roof maintenance may apply to every episode. Podcast subjects like fixing my foam roof, fixing my metal roof, BUR, etc., most of those challenges can be avoided with proper attention. Eventually everything wears out, but you can dramatically extend the life of a roof with some good roof maintenance. This doesn’t come from the roofing side. You can go to a BOMA, (Building Owner Management Association), or IFMA (international Facilities Management Association), seminar and they’ll tell you the worst problem with maintaining a building is the roof because nobody ever inspects it.
With buildings you see the walls, you see the windows. They’re fixing the landscaping. They’re power washing the windows, they’re painting the walls. They’re doing everything to make that building look decent. But nobody wants to get up onto that roof, and that’s probably the most important weather barrier that they have on the building.
Roof maintenance, first is just observing your roof. Check for debris. The drains may be plugged. If a drain plugs up and it doesn’t drain fast, then the water sits on the roof. It can sit on there for days, sometimes weeks. That’s probably the worst of all things.
This is a simple thing that a building owner can have a maintenance person take care of. Some of it’s a little bit more elaborate. It’s probably smart to let a roofing contractor go up there and do the maintenance. It’s always good to have a roofing contractor do it because they know what to look for. It’s not going to be free, but it is going to be cheap compared to the alternative.
When you have other trades that go up there and work on your roof, HVAC, painters, electricians, they may they leave some damage, plus it’s not their responsibility to report or recognize a problem.
HL – It’s out of sight, out of mind. You just never look at the roof. And our whole thing is annual roof maintenance, whether you put one of our assemblies on or not, when you have a roof, it’s just like any part of your building. You see your carpet, you need to clean it, right? The rooftop, you don’t see it. You don’t look at it. It’s got gutters, it’s got leaves in the gutters. It’s backing up water. Every year you need to be up on that roof, just looking at it. You do that and you can double the lifespan of your roof alone.
GH – The other thing that happens is your landscaping matures and what used to be small trees that were maybe two or three feet from the top of the building that you placed around to make your landscaping around the facility or maybe the owner of the property all around has trees. Well, those get bigger and bigger every year, and as they get bigger, they get taller. As they get taller when the wind blows or their branches overhang the roof. What might not have been a problem the first five years. The second five years are shedding leaves and branches and squirrel nests. I mean, we have some amazing pictures of palm trees growing out of drain sumps. I mean two or three foot tall palm trees growing out of drain sumps. Ivy growing up and down the parapet walls on the inside, just amazing.
HL – It takes about two years for a palm tree, a fan palm in California, to grow three feet tall. So in two years you can have a three foot tree on top of your roof. It’s not in your roof, it’s coming right out of a drain. Plus, the roots, that’s a grass family. The roots are incredible, and it is stopping all water from draining off the roof.
GH – That’s the main thing, don’t be afraid to either get up or have somebody get up on your roof. If you hire someone the money you spend will do two things. It’ll prolong the life of that roof and keep your warranty in good standing. If you have a warranty on your roof Western Colloid, like many building roofing manufacturers, require some maintenance to a roof to keep that warranty active. You can’t just put a roof on and not touch it for 20 years. If you have a 20 year warranty you can’t expect it to perform without inspection and maintenance. Just like with a car with a warranty if you don’t change the oil, and then you have a problem with it after three years, the warranty will not be in effect.
You have some liability and responsibility on your side and whether you have a warranty or not, look at it as your own warranty. You can get up there, you can catch things when they’re early. Sometimes it’s one gallon of mastic to fix a small split.
HL – Most commercial buildings have a maintenance person that they’ve hired on staff, or a someone that flows between buildings. That should be one of persons responsibilities every year to go and look at that roof. That’s just another note for a building owner.
GH – You can do it any time of year, but I always recommend, if you’re going to do it once a year, do it in the fall before the winter sets in. That is when you catch the most issues.
There are so many things like the pipes that direct water from air conditioning units that dump condensation onto the roof. Well, that’s like raining every day. Don’t think just because it’s dry in the summer that you won’t have problems. If you had an air conditioning unit working and you don’t have a drainpipe running to the drain that’s like it’s raining every day and it’ll wear that section out.
Should you take advantage of a contractor’s maintenance package? Absolutely. And we recommend it even when they’ve put on one of our systems. They will work with a building owner, maybe the first couple of years it’s going to be in good shape but start a program where the contractor will be up there every year. The contractor will give you a report and anything they catch can be taken care of quickly. If there’s something more major, something, an air conditioning has been installed or something’s been removed and it takes more work, then there might be some additional charges. But absolutely a yearly maintenance package is ideal way to go for cost.
