The most obvious chore in fall is to wait until all the leaves are down then clear them from your roof and drainage system. Clogged drains and gutters can cause water to back up and enter your building and in some cases can cause structural failure.

While you’re up there, it’s a great time to look around for punctures, open seams, and flashing joints that need attention. Also, get a good overview of your roof and its general condition.

If you’re doing this yourself, remember to take appropriate fall protection measures and learn the proper remedies for any problems you find and fix. For instance, roof cement is not compatible with most elastomeric or thermoplastic roof membranes and mixing the two could make matters worse. You can easily void a warranty trying to repair your roof incorrectly.

Bringing in an experienced, insured roofing contractor for these chores can be the best thing. It also helps to develop a track record with a contractor you can be comfortable working with when major roof repair or replacement time comes. Call if we can help, but remember, fall comes to everyone at the same time, so get signed up early!

Do I really need to have regular roof inspections?

There are lots of reasons not to neglect your commercial or industrial roof until water leaks into your building.  Some of the most important benefits include:

1. Clearing debris – Drainage on a low-sloped roof is critical.  Clogged drains or gutters can cause water to back up and pour in or even overload the structure.

2. Discovering & repairing damage – Even a moderate wind can cause a vent cap or other debris to tumble across a roof and perforate the membrane. Bullets falling from shots fired into the air (especially New Years and July 4th) can puncture your roof. Timely discovery and repair of leaks like these can prevent a lot of damage.

3. Maintenance planning – You can sometimes extend the life of your roof by coating or re-sealing it before it completely wears out. Regular inspections can help you plan this kind of pro-active approach to getting the most out of your roof.

Even if your roof has a manufacturer’s warranty, there is a lot that can go wrong that won’t be covered by the warranty and is the owner’s responsibility to correct.  Having a knowledgeable inspector examine your roof regularly can return real savings.  Call or email if we can help set up a plan for your building.

Actually, in Kentucky and Indiana, it should give you major cause for concern if a roofer claims to be licensed – there is no licensing of roofing contractors in either state.   Anyone who can afford a pickup truck and a ladder can claim to be a roofing contractor, so it’s caveat emptor – buyer beware!

While the different entities have been wrestling with issues of state or county licensing, the Kentucky Roofing Contractors Association (KRCA) has stepped up to the plate and developed the KRCA Certified Contractors Program. This gives consumers an objective way to know if a contractor meets some strict minimum standards.

A KRCA Certified Contractor is certified to be insured and bonded, agrees to the KRCA Code of Ethics, and participates in continuing education. You can view the Code of Ethics and more details about Certified Contractors at www.krca.org.

It’s also a good idea to:
1. Check with the BBB:
http://louisville.bbb.org/find-business-reviews/

2. Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Office:
http://ag.ky.gov/civil/consumerprotection/

3. Obtain references from people you know

Commonwealth Roofing has been a KRCA Certified Contractor since the program was started over 10 years ago.  If we can help solve your roofing problems, provide a roof inspection or maintenance your roof, call or email. But whomever you choose, insisting on a Certified Contractor should be your starting point.

Have you ever had a roofing contractor or general contractor work on your building or home and wondered if he or she was properly insured? You should be interested in finding out but how can you know for sure?

If you ask him, he can tell you he’s insured, and he might even show you proof of insurance on his truck. But you need to verify that he has two very important types of business insurance or you could be held liable if something goes wrong:

1)    General liability – in case workers damage property or cause injury, and
2)    Workers compensation – in case workers are injured or killed.

So how about if the contractor shows you his own certificate of insurance? That’s still not foolproof. He could have taken out the policies just to get the certificate and then cancelled them. You’re still at risk.

The answer is to make a simple request: “Have your insurance agent send me your certificate of insurance.” Once the agent sends you the certificate, the agent has the responsibility to notify you if the contractor’s coverage lapses.

Every responsible contractor does this as a regular course of business, so if your contractor doesn’t know what you’re asking for, you probably don’t want them on your property.  Call or email if we can help.

Like math . . . . not calculus – math. . . just entering some numbers and see what comes out the other end. Like seeing how your current roof compares to replacing it with a white membrane defined by fun information like how much $$$ you can save on energy and how much insulation you DON’T have to add.

It’s really easy to do without professional help. Arm yourself with your electricity and/or heating fuel costs, the efficiency ratings for your heating and cooling equipment if you have them (if you don’t have them, no worries just use the averages provided) and head to this web site:

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/facts/CoolCalcEnergy.html.

It’s the Department of Energy’s Cool Roof Calculator. It will show you, in metrics you can understand and apply without being a roof guru, all that information I promised above.

I can see that glazed look on your face now. What, you say, do I do with this wonderful, simply acquired information? Essentially the info comes in quite handy when calculating life-cycle costing for roof replacement. Most people, not you of course but most people, are myopic when it comes to a capital expense like the roof I’m never going to see. The number one thing they consider is initial installation costs and not life-cycle costs. This may cause them, you know those people, to choose an inferior product which may have the life span of a roofing gnat. Then they get to put on another roof in 10 or 12 years and make the same mistakes.

Now here’s really good news. If you let someone help you, (hint, hint, nod nod, wink wink) you can get both. A cost-effective initial installation cost and great a life-cycle profile. But, don’t try this at home – I’m a professional.

For more great info from the Flat Roof Guys Blog, check out:   http://limitedsystems.net/blog/

Savvy facility & property managers know the importance of preventative maintenance (PM) for their buildings’ roofs.  No one really wants to hear they need a new roof, so pay attention to it in advance – have a semi-annual or seasonal preventative maintenance program in place. It costs so little yet can save so much!

Besides obvious things like clearing debris out of drains and gutters, PM can also reveal roof problems that can be corrected in time to prevent major damage to your building and its contents.

We regularly find and repair cuts, tears, cigarette burns and bullet holes (yes, bullet holes – what goes up must come down!). Flashing issues, vent pipes, open seams, membrane shrinkage, and deterioration from the sun’s ultra-violet rays are some other roofing problems that need to be monitored and corrected.

It’s so important to tend to these issues quickly because timing can make a huge difference in the damage they cause and the costs to repair them.  Call us at Commonwealth Roofing and we’ll give you a no-cost, no-obligation assessment of your roof’s condition and set a plan for getting the most value out of it.

Most anything concerned with saving energy or preserving the environment gets referred to as “green” today.  In commercial roofing, it can refer to heat-reflective roofs, photo-voltaics, roof-mounted wind generators, or vegetative roofs (flat roofs with gardens growing on them – literally “green” roofs).

While all of these can be beneficial to the planet, some are more cost-effective than others.  For instance, a heat-reflective white roof can save a lot in a building’s summer cooling bills yet cost no more than a black roof.

On the other hand, while a vegetative garden roof can do a lot to conserve energy & control storm water, it can cost 8 to 12 times as much as a conventional roof.  We advise taking all aspects of a roof project into consideration for a solution that makes sense both environmentally & economically.

A KRCA Certified Contractor like Commonwealth Roofing can help you understand what matters most about “being green” & decide on the best value for your situation.  Call or email us for more info.

Roofing has become more than just a lid on a building.  It has become an active asset – even generating payback.  The rooftop is now a place that provides “value-added” benefits like energy savings, energy generation & environmental enhancement.  For a roof system to be considered truly high-performance, it should offer superior sustainability.  Sustainability not only rests with a product but includes sustainable actions & processes that are utilized throughout the production cycle & facilities.

We hope you can make the show, drop by Booth #602 – that’s us.  We have several tickets to give away, please contact us if you would like just one ticket or many tickets.

Other vendors you will find at this  show include:  

•    New Technologies - High-tech developments like GPS measuring, satellite imaging, and web-based data management help us bring you higher levels of service and value than ever before.

•   Certified Contractors – While there is no licensing of roofing contractors, the Kentucky Roofing Contractors Association has now instituted the KRCA Certification Program. This verifies that Certified Contractors are insured, bonded, ethical, and participate in continuing education.

Our goal at Commonwealth Roofing is to help you get the most out of your existing roof, and then provide the best-value solution when replacement time comes. Call or email to find out how we can help.

But there’s something we can do about it: changing to a ‘cool roof.’ The Department of Energy just did this in our Washington, DC headquarters. It was time to replace our roof anyway, so for no extra cost we went to a ‘cool’ white material. And we’re hoping others follow this lead. A cooler roof means lower energy bills –up to 10-15% lower – when it’s warm out because your air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard. Saving energy means lower greenhouse gas emissions because we don’t need to burn as much fossil fuel. And less heat absorbed by building rooftops means cooler communities in the summer. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab estimate that if just over three quarters of our nation’s commercial buildings were updated with cool roofs, the U.S. would save enough energy on air-conditioning to reduce CO2 emissions by about 6 million metric tons each year. That’s like taking more than a million cars off the road.

Places like Bermuda and the Aegean island of Santorini got this concept long ago. Nearly every rooftop is white. These folks figured out that it’s more comfortable to use a cool roof in a hot climate than to use a dark roof and blast the AC. So if you or someone you know is planning some work on the roof of your building or home, check out whether cool roofing is a good option for your climate zone.

Go to www.roofcalc.com to calculate how much money you might save.

The cleanest source of energy is the energy you don’t use.

We’ve realized that in the Federal government and have gotten started on making sensible changes to save the taxpayers money. We’re looking forward to businesses and householders joining us in saving money by saving energy – and then let’s all shout about it from the rooftops. Cool ones, that is.

Here’s a video of Secretary Chu giving his thoughts on our new cool roof:

The White House BlogPublished on Date December 14th, 2010 by The White House Blog
Posted in Category Building, Category Efficiency, Category Videos
Article by Cathy Zoi, Acting Under Secretary of the Department of Energy.

Article appearing courtesy White House Blog: Energy & Environment.
photo: Idaho National Laboratory.