The leaves are turning, you’re still picking up stray candy wrappers from trick-or-treaters, and travel plans for Thanksgiving are underway. This can only mean one thing: Fall is in full swing, and winter is right around the corner. For facility managers and building owners in northern regions, this means it’s time to start prepping your buildings for the cold and snow. One of the most important aspects of this preparation is ensuring your rooftop is ready to handle the imminent winter weather. Without further ado, here are seven tips to keep in mind during preparation.
Winter Is Coming! 7 Tips to Prepare Your Commercial Rooftop
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance
Mobile apps help make life and everyday tasks more convenient - there's no question about that. But apps are also increasingly assisting on-the-go professionals. That's right, tasks that were once only able to be accomplished at the office computer can now often be carried out remotely from anywhere. Specifically, contractors are one group of professionals that have largely benefited from this technology. As contractors are often on-the-go or at job sites, it's been traditionally difficult for them to stay in touch with the office and update project progress. That's not the case anymore thanks to mobile technology and an ever-increasing amount of apps that are available for download.
Topics: Roofing Maintenance
Many of us remember the big building boom that occurred in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. What this boom means to us now is that today these roofs are reaching the end of their useful life and need to be replaced. With every roof replaced, more and more waste winds up in the landfill—or does it? There has actually been a push in recent years to recycle roofing materials. This comes as part of a larger green strategy that many firms are embracing. Recycling any material possible is certainly a good thing; after all, anything that can be kept out of the landfills and turned into something usable will help our earth stay greener and may even save money.
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance
In May of this year, Roofing Magazine published, and hosted on their site, an “On My Mind” piece from our director of Sales, Marion McKnight. The article was intended to help bring to light potential risks associated with skylights so that building owners, asset management professionals, and anyone else involved in the purchasing decision for such a product could make a more informed decision. Unfortunately, there were some who did not appreciate our commentary and felt it was an attack on the use of skylights in general. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Besides my involvement with PHP Systems/Design, I am also the owner of a skylight manufacturing company, VTech Skylights, so, naturally, I would not encourage something to be written that would discourage the use of skylights.
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance, Roof Safety
No matter if your building is brand new, or 100 years old, the roof is one of the most important structural elements. After all, the roof will not only protect the building from rain, snow and hail; it can also either help keep your building hotter or cooler during extreme temperatures. However, if you want to keep this important structure doing its job, you need to consider roof inspection regularly. But how often is needed? Let us discuss.
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance
It’s a moment every maintenance professional dreads – a building occupant calls to report a leak, and it’s up to you to investigate and to identify the source. You probably have your fingers crossed that it’s anything other than a torn roof membrane. But how do you find out? And, if it is, what do you do about it?
Topics: Roofing Maintenance
The Two-Part Secret to Minimizing Energy Loss on Your Commercial Rooftop
Most of us who grew up in warmer climates can remember hearing shouts of, “Close the door! You’re letting all of the air conditioning out.” Our parents were all too aware of the effect those open doors had on their heating and cooling bills. Multiply that by about a hundred times, and it becomes clear why energy efficiency is so important for commercial buildings. But it’s not just open doors; it’s roof maintenance, too. The majority of energy loss by commercial buildings—both winter and summer—happens via the roof.
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance
Warning: 6 Risks You Should Know Before Putting Skylights on Your Roof
Skylights are popular for a reason. They add an extra dash of beauty to any commercial building, and they’re a great source of free lighting. But there are also drawbacks, and, if you’re not aware of them, the costs can end up being far greater than the benefits. Whether you already have a skylight or are considering adding one to the design of a new roof, make sure you’re prepared to deal with the downsides:
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance
2015 has ended and you know what that means: lots of resolutions for how you’ll live a better, healthier, kinder, neater, and more punctual life in 2016. Many of those resolutions will be long forgotten by the time the first spring flowers make their presence known, but there are some you really should keep: like the ones about ramping up your roof maintenance and care.
Topics: Roofing Management, Roofing Maintenance
Rooftops are dangerous places and various organizations have done their part to raise awareness and eliminate preventable deaths, and OSHA is no exception. In fact, there are over one thousand OSHA regulations addressing fall safety. That’s more than anyone can keep track of, and even OSHA knows that. That’s the motivation behind the agency’s fall prevention campaign: Not giving companies permission to ignore or violate regulations, but boiling it all down to easy-to-understand, easy-to-implement, common sense guidelines on rooftop safety.
Topics: Roofing Maintenance, Roof Safety