For this project, we were contracted by a Tallahassee-based roofing and solar company to complete a commercial roof inspection. The property owner wanted to have solar panels installed, but they needed to first get a roof inspection done to make sure that there were no underlying moisture issues with the roof. Because this was an older roof, the property owner was considering installing a second roof structure on top of the original one. To get the 20-30 year manufacturer warranty, the property owner was required to have a moisture inspection done to make sure that there was not any moisture in the existing roof.
Once the weather cleared up following about 3 weeks of rain due to tropical storms and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico, we were able to conduct this roof inspection. We were tasked with identifying areas of suspected moisture on the roof using infrared and RGB imaging. Based on our findings, we could then make recommendations on where physical testing should be done to validate our observations.
Following our inspection, we had the necessary data to determine the areas of suspected moisture on the roof. We calculated that there were 12,881 square feet of suspected moisture on the 127,065 square foot roof. When the roofing company conducted physical tests of the areas of suspected moisture we identified, they found that our observations were correct.
The property owner will need to replace the 12,881 square feet of moisture damaged-roof if they want to get the best warranty option. Then, they’ll be able to place a new roof on top of the original one. Financially, there needed to be less than 25% of moisture damage to make it worth it to replace the moisture-damaged areas and place a new roof over the existing one. Since we only identified about 10% moisture damage, it is worth it for the property owner to replace those parts of the roof.
