Commercial Roofing
A strip center has one roof and a dozen tenants, so a leak over the nail salon is also a conversation with the landlord, the restaurant two doors down and the insurance adjuster, all asking whose roof it is. A shopping center roof in Edinburg, TX is long, low and shared, with a front parapet, a rear service side and rooftop units that individual tenants may have added. Road work that TxDOT lists across the city also changes how deliveries and lifts reach a center, so access is part of the first conversation.
We start by laying the roof over the lease map: which suite is under which section, which tenant owns which unit and where stains have appeared. Each leak is followed upslope from the stain, and the photographs are filed against a suite number.
Strip centers share a design: long roofs divided by firewalls, a front parapet with a canopy or sign band, and a service side with rooftop units and exhaust. The leaks repeat at the same details. Tenant units sit on curbs that were flashed by whoever installed them. Restaurant exhaust discharges grease. Signage brackets pass through parapets. Firewalls and parapets create roof-to-wall transitions that move.
We check the front parapet and canopy attachments first, since storefront water damage is the most visible. Then we check curbs, firewall flashings, drains and scuppers, and the seams near them. A canopy bracket that was fastened through the wall opens a path behind the flashing, and a clogged scupper at the rear fills the roof with water. Rebuilding a boot or curb through penetration flashing repair holds longer than a bead of sealant, and edge metal and coping work restores the parapet cap.
In a typical center, water that passes the membrane enters the insulation and runs along the deck until it finds a joint, a fastener or a penetration. It drips into the ceiling space above the suite, wets tiles and insulation there and may run along the demising wall into the next suite. Tenants report the stain where it appears, not where it entered.
The first step is to gather reports: suite, date, weather and what the tenant saw. Then the stains go onto the roof drawing and we walk the line upslope, reading moisture with a meter or an infrared camera to find the edge of the wet insulation. On a multi-tenant roof, that extent matters for responsibility and cost. A repair that stops at a firewall protects the suites on the other side, and a scan before a repair identifies whether a wider area is wet. An infrared moisture survey gives the landlord a measured picture to share with tenants.
Centers built at different times carry different roofs. An original building may have a built-up or modified bitumen roof, an addition may have a single-ply membrane and a pad site may have a metal roof. Each is repaired differently, and we confirm the system from samples and records instead of appearances, because an overlay can conceal the roof beneath it.
The assembly below the membrane matters: insulation type, thickness, cover board and deck. A TPO roof welded over a mechanically attached base behaves differently from a fully adhered one, and a repair that works on one fails on the other. We list each layer we can verify and mark the layers we are assuming. The record also lists tenant-installed equipment and the age of each curb, so repairs can be scoped fairly among tenants and the landlord.
We begin at the roof access and photograph the whole roof, then work along the front, the rear and the firewalls. Each finding goes on the drawing with a suite number.
The record separates landlord items from tenant items where the lease makes that distinction, and it ranks work by what is leaking and what sits below. A preventive maintenance visit before the storm season clears drains and re-secures loose items, which costs less than the repairs it prevents.
Sun and heat across the Valley's May-to-October warm season age membranes and sealants and drive the daily movement that works on seams, flashings and canopy fasteners. Rooftop units run hard through those months.
Tropical season spans June into October, with Dolly's gusts in the county and Hanna's July 2020 wind and flooding in Edinburg. For a retail center, the storm check starts at the front: parapet caps, canopy attachments, signs and anything that can become airborne. Then we check flashings, equipment and drains. A wind damage repair record documents what moved, which supports the landlord's insurance claim and the tenant's business-interruption conversation.
Repairs follow the damaged membrane and the wet insulation, and they stop at a firewall only when the readings show dry material beyond it. If the readings show moisture in several suites' worth of roof, the question changes from repair to restoration or replacement.
If repairs keep recurring, the landlord weighs more patches against a coating restoration or a replacement. A phased replacement opens one section at a time, usually working over the least busy suites first, with each section dried in before the crew leaves. Price follows layers, wet insulation, tenant equipment lifts, access and the timing of tenant lease events. Permit review sits with the city, which applies its adopted 2018 codes, and any sign or canopy change tied to the roof work is reviewed alongside.
A shopping center has customers parking at the front and deliveries at the rear. We map both with the property manager, fence the work area and place lifts and staging where they do not block fire lanes, storefronts or accessible parking. Noisy steps are scheduled for hours when the affected suites are least busy, and restaurant tenants are asked about their rush periods and exhaust.
A section opens only when it can be dried in the same day, and covers sit on the roof for a sudden shower. Tenants get notices ahead of time and the manager gets the times, so a store owner who hears a lift motor knows whether it is the plan or a surprise. A landlord with centers in McAllen, Pharr and Edinburg can read one file format across them, and the largest store in a center follows big-box retail roofing while pad-site kitchens follow restaurant roofing.
The lease answers that. What we supply is a record that ties each defect to a location, a suite and a cause, so everyone reads the same facts.
Usually. We work in sections, time noisy steps for quiet hours and keep storefront and fire lanes clear.
Each fastener passes through the wall flashing. If the sealant fails, water follows the bracket behind the flashing.
Parapet caps, canopy attachments, signs, loose equipment panels and drains, so nothing becomes airborne or clogs.
The city's building department reviews it under the adopted 2018 codes, and a landlord can hand tenants one scope that already addresses insulation and edge details.