Refurbish or Replace? How to Decide on an Industrial Roof
The three honest questions that determine whether your industrial roof needs refurbishment, overcladding or full replacement.
When an industrial roof starts leaking, the first question owners ask is usually the wrong one: “how much to fix it?” The better question is “what does this roof actually need?”, because the honest answer ranges from a few days of targeted treatment to a full replacement, and the cost difference is enormous.
Here are the three questions that decide it.
1. Is the structure sound?
This is the dividing line. If the purlins, frame and sheets are structurally sound and only the weatherproofing has degraded, you are almost always in refurbishment or coating territory. If the structure itself is failing, or sheets are widely perforated, replacement moves into view.
A proper survey answers this. Surface rust on the laps is treatable; perforation through the sheet is not.
2. How much downtime can you tolerate?
A full strip-and-replace usually means opening the building up to the weather and pausing operations beneath. If your site cannot stop, a distribution centre, a continuous production line, overcladding often wins, because a new roof goes on over the old one with the building still running underneath.
3. Is there asbestos?
An asbestos-cement roof changes the maths. Sometimes encapsulating a sound asbestos roof beneath an overcladding system is safer and cheaper than removal. Sometimes the roof is degraded enough that full removal and replacement is the right call. Either way, it needs an individual assessment, never a guess.
The honest answer
A good roofing contractor should be willing to talk you out of the bigger job when the smaller one will do, and tell you when a cheap coating would just be hiding a roof that needs replacing. If you want that kind of straight assessment of your roof, get in touch and we will survey it.