Leading Causes Of Commercial Roof
Damage In Bergen County, NJ

Poor Installation Practices

When choosing your commercial roofing company for a roof replacement, ensuring they are highly qualified and follow all the best practices is essential. If not, you could be in for a world of trouble in just a few short years.

Flat roofing is not as simple as just rolling out some material and calling it a day. The contractors must understand the intricacies of the roofing system, structural decking, insulation, rooftop units, and penetrations to ensure your roof is watertight by the time they are finished with the installation.

Being highly selective when choosing your North Jersey roofing contractor is critical to getting the best work completed. At the same time, you should never attempt to do any commercial roofing work yourself, as it is significantly more complex than residential roofing.

Lack Of Maintenance

You perform daily maintenance on the interior of your building to ensure it looks its best. This practice keeps appearances nice, fixtures working correctly, and the environment safe for customers and employees.

While your roof is not something you look at daily, it also needs routine maintenance. This includes regularly scheduled roof inspections. During these inspections, your contractor may identify problems that need immediate attention before they become something much more severe.

However, if you don’t complete regular commercial roof repair and maintenance, you’ll face deterioration, leaks, and potential failure much sooner than expected. In addition, you’ll be subject to voiding your warranty by not keeping up with the required roof repair needs.

Faulty Flashing

Flashing is a material installed on curbs, walls, and other roof penetrations, and roofing contractors must account for the expansion and contraction that the elements cause when they complete the installation. If the flashing begins to leak, more often than not, it’s due to the contractor failing to take these considerations into account.

For cases where this happens, you’ll need to contact a reliable commercial roof repair and maintenance company that can solve the problem efficiently and effectively to stop your leaks. Generally, you will not need a full roof replacement to remedy the situation.

In some rare cases where there is significant damage that leads to many leaks with excessive trapped moisture or structural damage, the need for roof replacement may be unavoidable. You’ll need to consult with a roofing contractor to see if your roof is in a condition where a roof coating is an optimal solution to the problem.

Winter Weather

We face a lot of harsh winter weather here in North Jersey. With the heavy snow accumulation we see, you may experience problems, such as ice dams on your commercial roof. When you have ice dams, the water cannot correctly escape the roof, causing it to back up underneath the roofing materials. This ultimately leads to leaks inside your business.

The freeze-thaw cycle can also lead to the expansion and contraction of your roofing material. Over time, this will cause deterioration of your roofing material, leading to cracks, splits, and a compromised roofing membrane.

To help alleviate this, you’ll need to consult with your roofing contractor at the time of your installation to choose a material that’s as weather-resistant as possible to our climate.

Poor Drainage

Another reason you should only allow a professional commercial roofing contractor to complete your roofing work is that proper drainage must be achieved. An installation doesn’t stop when the material is applied to the roofing structure. The drainage must be carved out to allow an adequate flow of rainwater away from the roof.

This process ensures rainwater will not pool, preventing severe leaks. Choosing the right contractor will go a long way toward guaranteeing you have the proper drainage system installed for your roof. If you have problems with drainage after your installation, contact a reliable company to complete repairs as soon as possible.