Commercial Roofing
Water on a showroom floor beside a new vehicle is a sales problem the minute a customer sees it, and a drip over the service advisor's desk is a different problem that appears at the same time. A dealership is three or four buildings in one: the glass showroom, the service drive and bays, the parts room and the office wing. On an auto dealership in Edinburg, TX, I begin at the junction between the tall showroom wall and the lower service roof, because a roof-to-wall transition that connects a high glass front to a long flat roof is where water most often finds a way in.
The roof also protects inventory. Vehicles parked under a canopy or inside a bay are worth more per square foot than almost any other contents a roof covers, so the cost of a leak comes from the finish on a car as much as from the ceiling.
On a dealership, the roof often covers very different interiors. Over a showroom, water may follow a steel beam to a light track or a ceiling panel. Over a service bay with high ceilings and exposed decking, it drips from a seam directly onto a lift or a vehicle. Over a parts room with racking, it runs down a column to the slab and reaches stored stock.
We trace backward from the interior symptom to the nearest roof detail: a rooftop unit curb, a vent, a drain, a parapet wall, a skylight or a canopy tie-in. Moisture readings or an infrared moisture survey then show how far the wet insulation extends beyond the visible stain. The result is a repair boundary that can protect a bay in one visit or point to a larger plan for a failing roof. The long flat roofs and tall front walls resemble big box retail roofing, and a dealership on a retail strip shares its drainage concerns with shopping center roofing.
The National Weather Service in Brownsville treats May through October as the Rio Grande Valley's heat-safety season. Long service-bay roofs and dark showroom roofs soak up that heat, and the temperature cycle works on seams, sealants and flashing laps. Rooftop units on dealerships often run all day, adding vibration and condensate to the load on each curb.
In spring 2012 large hail fell across the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission-Pharr metro area, though the National Weather Service describes large hail as non-routine for the Valley. Hail is the event dealerships dread because it hits roofs and inventory together, and a roof inspection after any hail report shows bruised membrane or dented metal that a car-lot cleanup could miss. Hurricane Dolly and Hurricane Hanna also reached Edinburg, so after a tropical event we check edges, flashings and drains. A hail damage repair record helps the carrier separate roof losses from vehicle losses.
We begin with the showroom wall and canopy tie-ins, then move to the service roof, the parts roof and the office wing. We photograph each from its access point and walk it in a set sequence so the next inspection can be compared directly.
A written commercial roof inspection shows photographs and moisture readings with a plan of the roofs. The group's property manager or dealer principal can then rank repairs by what sits below each roof: showroom, bay, parts room or office.
Usually it can. Roof work happens above the sales floor and the bays, and the main question is how to keep customers, vehicles and technicians safe below. We agree on staging areas with the general manager, keep the customer entry and test-drive route clear, and move vehicles from the areas under active work. Safety fencing and a covered walkway protect the customer entry, and loud tear-off over a showroom is scheduled for hours when sales traffic is lowest, and bay work is sequenced so a lift is not left under an open seam.
Dry-in is completed daily, and we can phase work by building section so the dealership never loses the whole property at once. For occupied buildings with a tight schedule, an occupied building reroof plan lists dates, work zones and contact people, and it is shared with department managers before the first day.
A repair is the right call when moisture is limited to one detail and the membrane around it is sound. A restoration coating can extend a roof with dry insulation and intact seams, and it also reflects heat from the service bays. When insulation is wet across a bay, when the same roof leaks at multiple points, or when a membrane is split, a replacement protects the building and the inventory below.
Cost moves with the layers to remove, the amount of wet insulation, the number of rooftop units to be lifted and reset, the height of the showroom wall and the days of access needed. Showroom walls add their own cost, because the parapet and glass-wall transition often needs lift access, new counterflashing and sealant work that a plain field repair does not. Permit review follows the 2018 building and energy codes the city has adopted, so a dealership replacement is scoped with insulation and fastening in mind from the first drawing. Dealerships in McAllen and across the Valley follow the same logic, and a commercial roof replacement can be phased by building section.
Protect the vehicle and the person first, then call us so we can set a temporary dry-in. We photograph the opening and the interior symptom the same day. That record shows when the water entered and from which roof detail, and it helps with the insurance conversation about the vehicle.
Hail leaves random, round bruises or dents scattered in the field, often with granule loss on coated membranes or paint chips on metal. Age shows as cracking, shrinkage and seam failure concentrated near edges and penetrations. We map both on the roof plan and photograph the spacing, which lets the carrier see the pattern.
In most cases the work is above the lane, with crews and lifts staged at one side. We coordinate with the service manager to keep traffic flowing in one direction, close only the lane directly under active work, and check the area for debris at the end of each day.
They add daylight, but each curb is a place where a seal can fail. If a curb is leaking and the light is useful, we rebuild the flashing. If the skylight is old and cracked, replacing it with insulated roof or a new unit with a fresh curb is the better path. The photo record helps the owner choose.
A typical visit covers the showroom, service, parts and office roofs in a single trip, with drone images where access is hard. We deliver the written report with photographs and moisture findings afterward, so the dealer principal sees the whole property in a single document, with each roof ranked by the revenue area below it and each repair listed with a rough order of urgency.