Restoration starts with inspection: Knowing when a roof is a good candidate

CCS Influencer Johnny Walker says that successful roof restoration begins with a thorough evaluation of the roof’s condition, maintenance history, moisture levels and the building owner’s goals to determine whether restoration is truly the right solution.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Johnny Walker of ICP APOC. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Emma: Hi everyone, I'm Emma Richardson. I'm here with CoatingsCoffeeShop.com and our Coatings Influencer Johnny Walker of ICP APOC. Johnny, how are you?

Johnny Walker: I'm good. Emma, how are you today?

Emma: I'm doing just fine, thank you. Well our topic for August is knowing when restoration is the right option for a roof. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to share?

Johnny Walker: Man, lots of thoughts. You know, restorations are great, but they're not meant for every roof. So you you need to start with evaluation, knowing the roof condition, the age of the roof, moisture content in the system, and also understanding what the building owner's looking for. What's their long term, short term goals on this? You know, sometimes they're just looking to sell the building and maybe they're going to be tearing the building down. So knowing what their objective is is important, but then also knowing the roof condition. Is there moisture in the roof? What's the makeup of the roof? Can we have what systems on it now and can we properly bond to it? Is there a lot of ponding water? So all of those types of things are going to come into determining if this is a viable option for that particular roof.

Emma: Awesome. Thank you so much. That's a great answer. And what would you say people are looking for when they do a roof inspection that might flag it for being good or bad?

Johnny Walker: Yeah, so one of the biggest flags is when we block these roofs and they're just horribly maintained. Every roof system, I don't care what it is, needs to be inspected twice a year. After every major storm, somebody should be looking at that, cleaning drains, removing debris and doing minor repair and touch up. Doesn't matter whether that's a modified built-up roof, a single ply roof or a metal roof. They have to maintain those roofs. Poorly maintained roofs are going to have more internal problems. They have leaks that have occurred. You could have potentially more wet insulation in there. So the big red flag for us is on day one we're going to walk that roof, look at the maintenance, we're going to walk on the inside. How many active leaks do they have? Those types of things are going to give us a real idea of what the internal structure of the roof is.

Emma: Awesome. Thank you so much, Johnny. And we will catch you next month for September.

Johnny Walker: Sounds great, Emma. Thanks for having me on.