Take care of your roof with consistent inspections

AAR Expert Will Lorenz says proactive maintenance is key for commercial roof performance.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Will Lorenz of General Coatings Manufacturing Corp. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Alex Tolle: Hello, I'm Alex Tolle with AskARoofer.com, and I'm very excited to have Will Lorenz here today talking about our December Ask a Roofer Expert question. How are you, Will?

Will Lorenz: I am excellent. Merry Christmas, happy holidays to everybody.

Alex Tolle: Yes, thank you, you too. So today we're talking about commercial roofs. How often should commercial roofs be inspected, and what are the key maintenance tasks to ensuring long-term performance?

Will Lorenz: Well, I think there are two parts to that. And I would say the first part is the owner and whether or not they have a maintenance team getting up on the roof. Because I think if you have your own maintenance team, they should get up once a quarter themselves just to look at things, clean out drains, things like that. But as far as a roof or doing an inspection on, let's say, a warranted project or the client project, once a year or twice a year is usually the best strategy.

If it's a large client of yours and they have multiple buildings, I say that you take care of your client and get there as many times as you can to give them the assurance that you're the right roofer for them for their next project. So it's not only an opportunity to keep the roof clean and functional, but also to sell that next job, which I think is very important.

The other aspect is really just looking at the roof itself. There are a lot of trees and other things that might put debris up on the roof, or there have been high winds or there have been significant torrential rains over a period of time, or you're down in Florida, and you have a hurricane event or a hail event. These are all good signs that you should get up on the roof and go see your client, because some of those other damages may occur. Use that as an opportunity for you to get an additional sale there for fixing hail damage or for wind uplift challenges that might have occurred.

So, I think you should look at it proactively and opportunistically, but I do think you should establish a base program with your customer so that you do get paid to get up on the roof, and they can get the assurance that you're looking out for them and taking care of the roof.

Alex Tolle: Yeah, absolutely. And that seems to be the most important thing with a commercial roof is just maintenance, making sure you're keeping an eye on it, taking good care of it and you're going to get the most out of it.

Will Lorenz: Exactly. If you have a dialogue with your client, you'll find that maybe they're doing some upgrades with ACs or other things, and they really need you to go and seal up the roof of those things. Otherwise, you'll get somebody else doing the work, and they'll do a subpar job and cause potential problems for everybody. So, being in control of your customer and partnering with them is the best strategy.

Alex Tolle: Well, thank you so much. As always, and we'll see you in 2026.

Will Lorenz: Absolutely. Happy New Year.

Alex Tolle: Thank you.