Commercial Roofing
A roof item on a board agenda comes with a deadline attached, because the work has to finish before the first bell in August and the money has to be approved months earlier. A school district in Edinburg, TX that manages many roofs across many buildings faces a planning problem that a single-building owner never meets. The district needs a ranked list, a budget by year, a scope that can be bid and a way to show the board why one roof moves ahead of another.
I begin with the survey. We number every roof area on every school, photograph each one, take moisture readings where a leak has been reported, and write the findings in one format. The facilities director can then sort by condition, by what sits below and by how much of the summer window each repair will use.
Every school has a mix of roofs: classroom wings, a gym, a cafeteria, a library, covered walks and mechanical rooms. We treat each as its own area with a number, an approximate age if the district has records, a membrane type and a condition note. The walk follows the same route on every campus, so findings compare cleanly.
The survey becomes the working file for a roof capital plan, which lays out a multi-year schedule of work by school and by roof. When a board member asks why a certain gym roof is next, the photographs answer.
A teacher reports a stain over a desk, the custodian logs it as room 112, and the work order goes to a roofer as a leak in the north wing. The water entered somewhere else. It moved through insulation, followed a duct or a conduit chase and surfaced at the first ceiling joint it found, often a full classroom away.
We close that gap by reading the work order history beside the roof plan. Repeated tickets in neighboring rooms usually point to one detail upstream, such as a drain, a curb or a wall tie-in, and a single repair there can retire several tickets. A district that tracks tickets by roof area, not just by room, finds its worst roofs from the data it already has.
Summer break is the working season, and it overlaps the Valley's hottest months. May through October is the Valley's heat-safety season, so crews work early, materials are staged out of the sun and adhesives and sealants are chosen for hot application. A plan that starts the day the buses stop gives the district the most working days.
If one summer cannot finish a roof, the job continues by section, and each section is dried in before the crew leaves it. Larger projects may start in spring with preparation and finish before students return. A commercial roof replacement scoped in phases lets the district complete the worst roofs first and spread the cost over several budget cycles, with a closeout file for each school.
Storm season runs June through October, which overlaps both the summer work window and the start of the school year. Hurricane Dolly's gusts did minor damage across the county, and in July 2020 Hurricane Hanna left wind and street flooding in Edinburg, with shingle loss reported on one roof. A district with many buildings can plan around that history by checking edges and drains at every campus before the first storm of the season.
After a tropical event, we check the edges of every roof, the covered walkways, rooftop equipment and the drains, because a blocked scupper can hold water on a roof that is otherwise sound. A district with many buildings benefits from a standing response plan: who calls, which schools are checked first and how the findings are recorded. Our hurricane damage repair record gives the district's insurer a dated set of photographs for each roof.
Repair answers a leak held to one detail with a sound membrane around it. Coating restoration answers a worn surface over dry insulation and tight seams, and it spreads cost over time. Replacement answers widespread moisture, leaks that keep returning or a failed membrane. The survey shows which category each roof belongs to, so the board is not choosing blind.
Cost moves with layers, wet insulation, equipment to be lifted, access around occupied buildings and the length of the work window. A replacement is scoped against the city's adopted 2018 building and energy codes. A school in Edinburg or another Valley city follows the same logic. A single gym or cafeteria roof follows the steps for school roofing, and a large higher-education complex follows the steps for college and university roofing.
Some work happens during the school year: emergency leak response, storm repairs and small projects. For those jobs we coordinate with the principal and the custodian, keep drop-off and bus lanes clear, fence the work area and avoid lifting materials over entrances at arrival and dismissal. Noise near testing is scheduled with the campus.
For larger projects, the district decides whether to work during the summer or in phases. Either way, the crew stages materials away from play areas, and the dry-in is completed each day. The district's purchasing office gets a written scope, schedule and closeout file, which supports bid review, inspection and warranty records. Cities and counties work under similar procurement rules, so public agencies follow much of the same sequence, and when a construction manager runs the project we coordinate with general contractors on staging, schedule and closeout.
A scope that names each roof area, the existing assembly, the new system, flashing and edge details, drainage, access and staging limits, plus the schedule window. Photographs and moisture findings support the scope so bidders price the same work. We can supply the survey data and notes the district's architect or engineer uses.
We send a crew for a temporary dry-in, working from the roof with the least interior disruption. The principal decides whether the room stays in use. We photograph the opening and the interior symptom, then recommend a permanent repair for the next planned window.
Sometimes. If the insulation is dry and the seams are tight, repairs and a coating can extend a roof. We confirm with readings and photographs, and we say plainly when a roof has reached the end of useful life. The decision rests on evidence, not age alone.
They have longer spans, taller walls and kitchen or mechanical exhaust. That means more transitions, more penetrations and different wind exposure at the edges. We inspect each as its own roof, and the report keeps them separate so the district can schedule them independently.
The scope, the photographs of the existing roof, moisture findings, material data, the closeout photographs and any warranty documents. We provide a closeout set for each school, so the next facilities director can see what was done and where it sits on the roof plan.