Things to Know about Preventive Maintenance for Commercial Roofs

Commercial roofs can endure a lot, but even so, they need to be maintained to help them survive periods of excessive rain, snow or harsh sunshine, to save them from getting damaged by high heat or extreme cold and to enable them to stand up to harsh storms. Here are some things that you should know about preventive roof maintenance.

Kansas City commercial roofer - JR & CO

Scheduling Maintenance Visits

Ideally, your roof should be visited by a Kansas City commercial roofer who specializes in the type of roof that you have twice a year, once in spring to clean the roof from the debris left behind by the winter and to detect any fault that needs to be remedied and once again in fall, to clean all the summer debris from the roof surface and to prepare it for the upcoming winter by fixing any fault.

Tasks that Your Maintenance Sessions Should Involve

Cleaning, inspection and repair – these are the three steps of any roof maintenance session.

Cleaning is an essential step because breezes, winds, even seemingly unmoving air keeps carrying dust, dirt, smaller and larger pieces of debris, part of which end up on your roof surface and the critters that might visit your roof also leave behind debris in the form of feathers, nut shells and droppings. All this dirt can harm your roof – whenever it rains, the debris on your roof absorbs the moisture and keeps it in for long after the rain, exposing the roof surface to excessive moisture and weakening the roofing material underneath.

The other essential roof maintenance activity is roof and gutter inspection. Airborne debris can also accumulate inside the gutter pipes, causing clogs and gutter sagging, therefore extending the cleaning process to the drainage system is also essential. The topmost defense layer on your building is as strong as its weakest point, therefore detecting weak points and addressing them in a timely manner is essential for the health and the safe operation of your roof. The task might seem simple and easy – after all, it involves only looking at the roof –, but it should be performed by a professional roofer because it takes a trained eye and experience to detect even the smallest issue.

Cleaning and inspection should always be followed by the repair of problems detected during the previous phases – that is the only way to ensure that your roof is strong at all time.

Occasional Maintenance

Extreme storms and heavy precipitation have been increasing in frequency for years. To make sure that your roof stays strong even among such harsh weather conditions, it is a good idea to perform a quick cleaning and inspection after every major storm and to remove snow when the white blanket seems too thick – that way, you can relieve your roof and help it stay healthy.

Applying Roof Coatings

Depending on the type of weather that you need protection from, you can further strengthen your roof with coatings to improve its resistance to water, UV radiation or excessive heat. The coatings need to be reapplied periodically, usually every 3-5 years.

About the author: Salvador Frazier