For commercial property owners
Roofing is a capital item you deal with once a decade per building, which means you are negotiating from a standing start against a contractor who does this daily — and the bids in front of you are not comparable.
Request a roof surveyA portfolio roof survey before any bid, with a repair-or-replace call per roof
Specification stated plainly, so bids can actually be compared
Maintenance programmes that defer replacement rather than only reporting on it
One vendor agreement across commercial assets and manufactured housing communities
You are negotiating from a standing start
A commercial roof is a capital decision you make roughly once a decade per building. The contractor across the table makes it daily.
That asymmetry is the actual problem with commercial roofing procurement, and it shows up as three bids that differ by a large multiple with no way to tell which one is right.
Why competing bids are not comparable
They are almost never comparable, because they usually describe different roofs.
| Membrane thickness | 45, 60 or 80 mil. A real difference in how the roof ages, and a real difference in price. |
|---|---|
| Attachment method | Mechanically attached, fully adhered or ballasted — a wind-uplift and deck decision, not a preference |
| Insulation | R-value and whether a tapered system is included to correct drainage |
| Tear-off | Included or not, and how many existing layers are assumed |
| Detailing | What happens at every curb, drain, penetration and termination — where roofs actually fail |
Two honest bids on the same building can differ substantially if they specify differently. The question to ask is not "what is your price per square." It is "what did you specify, and why that." A contractor who cannot answer the second question in specifics is quoting a number rather than a roof.
Our position on each of these is stated openly on the TPO and metal and recoat pages, including installed cost ranges.
Survey before you bid
Bidding every roof in a portfolio as though all of them need replacing is easy to arrange and expensive to buy.
Survey
Every roof: condition, remaining service life, and a repair-or-replace call with photographs.
Triage
Which roofs need work this year, which can be maintained, and which can wait — with the reasoning for each.
Programme
The work that must happen, phased across the budget cycle, with maintenance covering the rest.
A survey saying three of fourteen roofs need work this year is worth more than fourteen replacement bids. It is also the smaller first invoice for us, which is the reason to trust the recommendation.
What maintenance is for
A maintenance programme is not about the visit. It is about keeping roofs in service and off the replacement list.
A blocked drain creating ponding, a lifted termination, an open seam: each is a small repair on the day and a larger one once water has reached the insulation. And on buildings with rooftop equipment, a large share of the damage is not weather at all: it is technicians walking the membrane and cutting through it to run conduit.
See maintenance programs.
One vendor across both asset types
Most owners who come to us for commercial roofing also own manufactured housing communities, or the reverse.
One agreement, one vendor file, one invoicing stream, one reporting standard, across both. Running a separate vendor file for the clubhouse roof and the community renovation is administrative overhead that buys nothing — see national accounts.
Common questions
Other owner types
- REITs & institutional operatorsYou are answerable to a board and to public reporting, so the question is never whether a vendor can do the work — it is whether their documentation survives an audit and whether their numbers roll up.
- Private-equity park ownersYou are executing a value-add thesis against a hold period and an exit date, so the binding constraint is not cost per unit — it is how many units you can actually turn per quarter and whether the spend shows up in the rent roll before the model needs it to.
- Property management companiesYou are accountable to an owner for work you do not perform, with a vendor file that is slow to open and a contractor who answers a different phone in every market.
- Independent park ownersYou own one or two communities, you are the asset manager and the property manager, and a national contractor sounds like somebody who will not return your call and will price you like an enterprise.
- Community managersThe crew working your community reflects on you every day — and a crew that leaves debris, blocks a resident's drive or argues with a tenant creates a week of work for you that has nothing to do with construction.
- Acquisition & due-diligence teamsYou are underwriting renovation cost from a walk, a rent roll and an assumption — and the assumption is where deals get repriced after closing.