Commercial Roofing
Sun-baked asphalt tells on itself. A hump the size of a dinner plate where a blister rose, bare black patches where gravel has slid toward the drain, a hairline crack running the length of a roof joint: on a gravel-surfaced flat roof, damage like this is rarely only skin deep. Under that surface sit several layers of felt and asphalt, and water that finds one flaw tends to travel.
Built-up roofing, shortened to BUR, stacks alternating plies of asphalt and fabric and caps them with stone or a mineral-surfaced sheet. In Edinburg, TX, where flat roofs cook for months and then take tropical rain, that layered build has outlasted many thinner products. We install it, repair it and say when a worn one has run its course.
The bottom is a base sheet or insulation. On it, felts or ply sheets are mopped down in hot asphalt, or bonded with cold adhesive, one after another until the specified count is reached. The result is a stack of waterproofing with no single seam running through every layer, so a flaw in the top ply still faces the plies beneath it.
Redundancy is the selling point, and it is also why trouble is hard to see. Water enters at one flaw, slides between plies and surfaces somewhere unrelated. Walking the roof, scanning with an infrared camera and pulling a few cores gives a moisture map, and that map is a better guide to the repair than any stain on a ceiling.
Valley roofs spend the heat-safety season, May to October, under sustained heat and solar exposure. Asphalt responds in stages. It softens and creeps, then oxidizes and hardens, and the surface crazes into small angular cracks that look like reptile hide. A flood coat in that condition no longer grips the gravel, and uncovered asphalt ages faster than covered.
Heat also makes blisters. Air or moisture trapped between plies swells in the afternoon sun, lifting a bubble that can crack and open. We map them, probe for moisture and sort them into leave-alone, cut-out and symptom-of-wider-wetness. South and west exposures usually show the worst of it, and repairs often start with a new flood coat and fresh gravel where the surface has stripped.
Dolly's 50-to-70-mph gusts reached populated Hidalgo County, Edinburg among it, and the weather service's advice for tropical wind is to inspect edges, flashings and rooftop equipment. Gravel on a roof gives wind something to throw: loose stone can fly off the surface and strike glass and vehicles, and the bare patches left behind age quickly. Edge metal, gravel stops and parapet height keep stone on the roof, and a loose edge lets wind start underneath.
After a wind event we walk the perimeter, check edge metal and stops, and look for stone piled at the edges or in drains. Where stone has moved, it is raked back and embedded in new flood coat. A wind damage repair record notes each location with photographs, which helps if a later claim needs to show what the storm changed.
Street flooding came with Hanna's July 2020 wind in Edinburg, and the weather service asks the Valley to stay flood-ready year-round. A BUR holds water well, which cuts both ways: with a blocked outlet, the roof carries a pond until someone clears it. Stone migrates into drain bowls and forms a dam, and a drain whose gravel stop has fallen away clogs easily.
We test every outlet, the fall toward it and the gravel around it. Where ponding persists, a drain reset, a tapered section or a new outlet may be needed, and a drain and scupper review prices each choice. The report records how long water stays after a storm, because a roof that empties within a day behaves nothing like one that stays wet for a week.
Edges and walls come next. Flashing at parapets, curbs and penetrations is a separate stack of materials built into the roof, and it cracks and pulls away long before the field plies wear out. We press along base flashings for hollow spots, check the top terminations and sealant, and look at cant strips, where a sharp turn from flat roof to wall puts the most strain on the felts. A flashing renewal is priced alongside the field repair so the owner sees both. Where a parapet cap is open or its sealant has dried, the cap is reset first, since water that runs down the wall face lands on the same felts the repair is meant to protect.
An aging BUR leaves an owner three options: keep patching with flood coats, restore the surface with a reflective acrylic coating, another coating or a cap sheet, or tear everything off and start over. Wet insulation decides which are open, since restoring over soaked board only seals the moisture in.
So we measure before recommending. Moisture comes from the scan and cores, ply count from the cores, slope from a level and deck condition from a walk. Mostly dry roofs with local damage suit repair, and roofs with scattered wet pockets can take a recover once those pockets are removed. When most of the insulation is soaked, the sound move is to take the roof off. Putting a new layer over a dry BUR requires a structure that carries the weight and a code that allows another layer, and the City of Edinburg lists the 2018 International Building Code among its adopted codes. Disposal of old stone and asphalt is priced as its own line.
The city of Alamo describes commercial and industrial districts in its business information, and the county project list includes Tower Road widening between US 83 and SH 107. A mixed property base like that can include warehouses, shops and industrial space, but no building's roof type can be assumed from its district. Each one starts with a walk that records the layers, the surface, the drains and past repairs.
For owners in the Tower Road corridor in Alamo, Edinburg and Weslaco, the layers and the structure get assessed before we suggest BUR, modified bitumen or a single-ply. How well the roof suits the building's use counts for more than the label on the system.
The ply count, the surface type, how exposed the roof is and how well it is kept all play in. A walk, a moisture scan and cores say more about one roof than any average.
It shades the asphalt from sun and takes hail impact. After storms it needs checking, because stone that has drifted leaves bare spots where the asphalt wears fast.
Sometimes. The old roof must test dry, the deck must be sound and the structure must carry the added layer. Wet sections come out first.
Hot asphalt smells strong. The kettle is placed downwind of air intakes, intakes are covered, and tenants get dates for the strongest days.
The thick top layer of asphalt that gravel is pressed into. It waterproofs the surface and keeps the stone from moving.