No commercial property owners have ever complained about having idle time on their hands. You have a lot to get done, never enough time, and never enough resources. So for keeping on top of roof maintenance, consider these five steps to building a better roof maintenance inspection checklist.
Checklist Champion
You can be the hero of your commercial property with a roof maintenance checklist that accommodates all the details and all the stakeholders’ needs. For a minimal investment of time and a few supplies, you can create a checklist that works year after year to save your organization money. Your facilities crews will like it, too, because the checklist shows you thought about their concerns.
In brief, your roof maintenance inspection checklist should incorporate people, places, and things:
- People — The checklist helps with tracking third parties, in-house workers, and anyone going onto the roof
- Places — Use the checklist to focus on typical problem areas and to remind your crews to examine the inside of the deck, if accessible
- Things — Never forget a camera, tape measure, flashlight, notepad, and pencil again when you put those and other items on the checklist
Who Goes There?
Your roof maintenance checklist should include a place to record the comings and goings of anyone venturing onto the roof. The log should say who went out onto your facility’s roof, the reason they walked the roof, and where they were on the roof.
This applies to third party vendors, your own facilities crew, or (in the case of green roofs especially) other employees who went onto the rooftop to lunch, catch some rays, or seek solitude. Every high heel, every brogan, every worker’s boot is a potential source of puncture and water infiltration.
A roof log that is incorporated into a maintenance checklist helps save valuable time when determining leak origins. You can uncover why an area is worn and in need of repair, or why ponding is occurring where foot traffic is high.
Inspection Perfection
A roof maintenance checklist allows your in-house crew to perform intermittent inspections exceedingly well. The checklist can break your roof down geographically, for example, with your crew assigning a value to each section:
- Good — No visible problems, damage or deterioration; no action required
- Fair — Incipient problems; review this area often and monitor its degradation
- Bad — Immediate action needed due to serious damage, water infiltration, or safety concern
How you document each section is also easy to remember when you incorporate a methodology in the roof maintenance inspection checklist:
- Equipment — Carry a camera, copy of building plans, notepad and pencil, tape measure, and flashlight onto the roof during inspection and maintenance; the checklist can have all these items listed
- Evidence — Your facilities crew is the first line of defense, so they are not necessarily completing the repair; allow them to document it with photographs, measurements of the area involved, and annotations on a copy of the building plans
One item that can make the work easier: a drone camera to take pictures of the entire roof. Store these safely on a computer at your facility for quick reference.
Interior View
If possible, check out the roof from inside your building. This gives a chance to examine the roof deck itself:
- Evidence of leaks, such as water stains, ruined insulation, rotted deck timbers, or visible dripping
- If the underside of the steel or wood sheathing is visible, is it rusty or corroded?
- Do interior walls anywhere in the building, reveal stains, mold, or dark spots?
- Is the deck properly ventilated?
- Is light showing through from above, anywhere under the roof?
Safety Considerations
Your roof maintenance checklist must include fall arrest harnesses, roof edge designations, and personal protection equipment (PPE).
Avoid sending a facilities crew onto a steep-slope roof, as a sloped roof can be slippery, moss-covered, or otherwise dangerous to walk upon.
Exterior View
Your roof maintenance checklist will not be complete without considering the exterior. Inspect all this:
- Downspouts, interior drains, and scuppers — check for blockage, leaks, breaks, or missing parts
- Visible damage
- Debris that can tear membrane or snag in flashing
- Roof penetrations — inspect flashing, chimneys, sanitary stacks, vents, and electrical conduit
- Metal of all kinds — Flashing, drip edge, curbing, fascia, decking; does anything show signs of corrosion or rust?
Your roof maintenance inspection checklist may be long, but by using it, the life span of your commercial roof will be long, as well. With so much on your plate, let PSI Roofing relieve you of some of the headaches and chores. Contact us today for prompt, reliable roof maintenance. We can handle any size commercial roof, of any composition. Make us the first item on your roof maintenance checklist, and leave the rest of the list to us!
