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It’s All About Performance: Efficiency in Commercial Roofing

If treated correctly, your roof could last anywhere from twenty to fifty years. Simply lasting is not a measure of roofing success, however—instead, you’ll want to look at lifetime costs. Picking the right commercial roofing materials up front, treating them properly, and investing in the correct infrastructure and maintenance programs will make your roof more efficient and more likely to last its full lifetime without incurring significant costs. Defining and Creating an Efficient Roof As far as the efficiency of your commercial roof is concerned, there are three main considerations you should take into account. First, you want it to have a low up-front cost Second, you want it to have a low energy cost Third, you want it to have a low maintenance cost In other words, a good roof will be relatively inexpensive up front and relatively easy to maintain. In addition, it will provide a good seal for your building envelope, prevented cooled or heated air from escaping. What does this roof ...
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How to Prepare for Thermal Expansion

Winter is approaching across the Northern Hemisphere, which means it’s time to prepare for thermal expansion—and its more dangerous cousin, thermal shock.  Thermal expansion is an inherent property of matter. When materials get cold, the molecules that comprise them slow down their vibration and contraction. At the scale observable to the human eye, this presents itself as shrinkage. When materials warm up, they gain energy and expand. When materials are exposed to repeated cycles of expansion and contraction, they tend to lose their flexibility and accrue damage over time—and this damage could occur to the materials in your roof. There are several factors that make thermal expansion more of a risk around this time of year: We’re moving from a period of general warmth to a period of general cold. The materials that comprise your roof will shrink, which makes it possible for gaps to open up between membranes, flashings, and penetrations—promoting leaks. If your roof has existing wat...
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Retail Rooftop Supports: Prep for the Busy Season

This year, as in years past, retail sales are expected to be literally through the roof. Not only do retail sales tend to spike between October 31st and December 25th, this year’s spike is expected to be up to 5 percent larger than in 2018. All told, consumers are projected to spend up to $1.1 trillion during this year’s holiday season. Why do you – a facility manager – care about retail roofing during this year’s holiday season? Here are some good reasons:       Let’s say that your single department store takes up an entire building, or at least an entire wing of a building. A roof leak or – much worse – a roofing collapse may put a large portion of the building, or even the entire building, out of commission. The store will have decreased floor space to sell items, and shoppers may be put off by the appearance of a disheveled building.       Let’s say instead that your facility is a mall where your tenants rent storefronts. Leaks and other roof damage wil...
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How to Install Rooftop Supports on a Sloped Roof

Not all roofs are created the same – or even with the same pitch. When we talk about commercial roof slope, we usually talk about a completely flat roof. With that said, not every commercial roof is flat. Sloped commercial roofs are common in several parts of the country, either for decorative or weather-related reasons. On the one hand, it’s as important to protect a sloped commercial roof as it is to protect a flat commercial roof. On the other hand, the pitch of a sloped commercial roof can make it difficult to design rooftop supports, walkways, and other features designed to improve the safety and longevity of your roof. How do you compensate for roof slope when designing rooftop supports? Commercial Roofs: Flat vs. Sloped  Why would someone choose a flat commercial roof over a sloped roof in the first place? Although flat residential and commercial roofs are the default in regions such as the West Coast, you still tend to see flat-roofed commercial buildings even areas like th...
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Ensuring the Best Performance for Commercial Roofs

How old is your roof right now? Given that a commercial roof may have anywhere from a 20-year lifespan to a 50-year lifespan, it’s likely that you didn’t inherit your commercial roof when it was new. What’s more, no matter how badly your roof was treated before you started working, the success of your job depends on making your newly inherited roof last as long as possible. Fortunately, resourceful facility managers can make a huge difference in the longevity and performance of a commercial roof. If you’re punctual about roof maintenance, inspection, and record-keeping, you can restore an older roof to its former glory and even keep it in perfect condition long after its projected lifespan has run out. Learn how to develop a strategic roof asset management plan that will help make scheduling and budgeting for maintenance easier and lead to better decisions. Understanding Your Roof Upon receiving control of your roof, you immediately need to know a number of things about it. It starts w...
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Resilient and Reliable: Creating Sustainable, High-Performing Roofs

Creating sustainable roofing has always been a great way to prove your merits as an eco-conscious organization, but there’s far more to it than that. With traditional asphalt roofs lasting a mere 20 years or so, eco-friendly roofs are about more than just doing your part for the environment—they’ll save you money in the long run as well. From green roofs to solar panels, here’s how sustainability makes a great investment for your next commercial roof. The Grass is Greener on your Green Roof A green roof—which is to say a roof on which vegetation is deliberately encouraged to grow—is a complicated yet beautiful addition to any commercial roof. Whereas a traditional roof may have two or three layers, green roofs have up to seven: membrane, roof repellant, insulation, drainage, filtering, soil, and the plants themselves. While the aesthetic result is often worth it—especially in urban office buildings in which the roof is actually visible to the surroundings—there are more benefits to a g...
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Creating Climate-Resilient Roofing Designs for Commercial Buildings

The climate is indisputably changing. We notice it in things like hotter summers, more intense storms, and longer hurricane seasons. What we notice, your roof notices too. Depending on the location of your building, you’ll find that extreme weather will impact the design of your roof – and what’s more, extreme weather is likely to keep on getting more extreme. This means that in order to maximize the lifespan of your roof, you don’t just need to build: you need to overbuild, anticipating the ways in which climate will change in order to meet a moving target. How do you create resilient roofing in the wake of a changing climate? Climate Concerns Make Resilient Roofing into a Challenge Although winters may be getting milder overall, a warming planet leads to more moisture in the atmosphere – so when snow happens, you’ll see more intense blizzards. This has obvious implications for roofing – but some of the implications are less clear. For example, you might see occasional heavy blizzards...
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