After studying roofing failures for over 50 years, roofing expert Carl Cash concluded that 80% of all premature roof failure is caused by one of two things: improper design or poor workmanship. So, what does that mean for you?
Proper Design
A good roofing design will not have the one-size-fits-all approach; proper design will be tailored to your building’s needs. This means adequate research about the building’s usage, along with history and future needs, will be incorporated into the design. Of the 80% of premature roofing failures Carl Cash identified, about 50% are due to improper design. For example, if a building is a small convenience store, the roof’s design must incorporate a system that can handle the large amounts of air movement due to the daily foot traffic. If a building is being used as an office building, the design must incorporate the heavy amounts of heating and cooling that occur throughout the entire year. Before creating the design, the contractor should ask questions like:
- Do you heat and cool this building?
- Are there high moisture areas? Where are they located?
- Are there any unique characteristics or processes inside your facility that we need to help try to manage through the roof?
- What temp do you keep your thermostat at on an average day?
- What is the foot traffic like? How often is someone up on the roof?
These types of questions are necessary to establish the one or many uses of the building. It provides the necessary information needed to determine the proper roof system. The calculations are then used to help design the optimal roof that will help you cut down energy costs and make your roof last longer.
Superior Workmanship
While 50% of the roofing failures Carl Cash noted were due to design, the remaining 30% were due to poor workmanship. Superior workmanship in the roofing industry requires extensive knowledge and skill. As a company that installs over 8 million square feet of roofing per year, Bloom Roofing is dedicated to designing, planning, and installing the optimal roof for every building. The most obvious sign of quality workmanship will be the track record of the contractor. Quality focused roofing contractors will ask questions like the ones listed above before designing the roofing system.
Superior contractors will demonstrate their understanding of the latest roofing technology and materials while balancing their understanding of quality roofing principles. In his book, Roofing Failures, Carl Cash gives us some food for thought on workmanship:
“Materials don’t fail, they obey physical laws, we don’t use them right.”
Even the highest quality product will deteriorate with time and weather; what we can control is the quality of workmanship that applies the material. An experienced, quality roofer will apply the right material for the right building in a correct and precise manner, helping your roof achieve efficiency and a longer lifespan.
