Industry studies have found that the average life of a low slope roof system is approximately 16 years. This is well below the anticipated 20-year roof life expectancy. The reasons for these premature failures are normally due to poor installation, design or material failure, but also to the lack of a proactive maintenance program required by most, if not all, warranties.
Proactive Roof Maintenance
By performing a regular proactive roof maintenance program on a well designed and installed roof system, owners can achieve 25 to 30 years of service life from their roofs. Through life cycle costing, savings of 50% or greater can be realized.
Example
For example, Roof Maintenance Systems has a client in North Carolina for whom we developed reroofing specifications in 1979 for a roof that had prematurely failed. The roof had to be removed down to the structural steel deck and due to the critical nature of the production facility, interior protection had to be installed to prevent interruption of their operations. After the project was completed, an annual pro-active maintenance program was implemented.
Annual inspections were performed, a list of maintenance items, some of which were covered under the warranty, were provided and the repairs were performed by their local roofing contractor. This has been an ongoing program and in 2014, the first phase of reroofing will take place. In essence, 35 years of service life were achieved through the process of on-going inspections and maintenance repairs. Based on industry studies as noted above, this roof would have been replaced twice over the lifespan of this roof system.
