Give your roof a routine physical

By Emma Peterson. 

Even if we're not ill, we attend yearly physicals to catch any issues early. This principle of proactive care rather than reactive can also be applied to roofs. 

Maintenance is a part of life, from making sure your car oil gets changed every 5,000 miles to trimming your beard and going to the doctor. In the roofing industry, maintenance is key to keeping a building structurally sound and its occupants safe and secure. But traditionally, maintenance requires either the disruption of the roof’s surface or is just a reactive treatment to issues that have begun to crop up, options that aren’t always convenient. However, there is another option growing in popularity — Infrared imaging.  

In an interview with The Coffee Shops, Mark Powell, who trains with a focus on roofing diagnostics for Weatherproofing Technologies Incorporated (WTI) (a subsidiary of Tremco), he shared how to use infrared imaging as a routine “physical” for your roof. It’s like if you go to the doctor with a family history of medical problems, you just want to keep a closer eye on things. 

Infared imaging detects temperature difference in materials. This is an effective way to assess the state of a roof, as when materials absorb extra moisture, they appear differently on the infrared image than when they are still watertight. This is a proactive, more efficient way to detect discrepancies before they become issues, rather than waiting for water to start leaking into the building’s interior. 

Mark explained a bit about how the costs for these scans compares to the costs of reactive maintenance, “There is a case study that was done where a company paid $3,500 for a scan. It came up with seven grand of repairs that needed to be made. They didn't have the seven grand so they tried to wait three years to gather that money. But because it wasn’t repaired, water was penetrating. Three years later they did another scan, another $3,500, and the cost of repairs went up to $37,000.” While these scans are an investment, they are far cheaper than waiting for catastrophic issues to occur and then having to scramble for solutions.  

So, how often should you be budgeting for a roof to have a physical? The key to determining how often to have one of these roof physicals is how critical the use of the building is. Mark explained, “If it's an empty warehouse, two to three years is fine. But if it's over an emergency room or an operating room or a computer center, any moisture into that system is unacceptable.” In those scenarios you want to be checking up on the roof more often.