Who we serve · Property management & commercial real estate
For property management.
A roof is the most expensive thing on the building and the least observed. It is also the one asset whose condition you are asked to forecast without ever having seen it.
02 · What is at stake
Condition, CapEx, and a record that survives the handover.
Roof asset management runs on one input most portfolios do not have. Current condition, measured the same way on every building. Without it, capital planning falls back on install dates and warranty expiry. That is a guess by age, not evidence. And the roof that fails first is rarely the oldest one.
03 · The assembly
Five layers of a roof, and what each one costs you late.
The plate is a schematic section, stamped as one. It carries no dimension and no wet-area figure. The annotations name parts of an assembly, not findings on any particular building.
- WET INSULATION
- PARAPET
- METAL DECK
- PONDING
- PENETRATION
01 / 05 Low-slope roof assembly
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01
Where the money already went
Water does not stay where the leak appears.
Saturated insulation travels along the deck flutes and under the membrane. The wet area is almost always larger than the stain that reported it. An infrared survey flown to ASTM C1153 outlines the probable extent across the whole roof at once. The survey ranks the candidates. Cores confirm them.
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02
What the budget is built on instead
Install date is not condition, and the oldest roof rarely fails first.
Without current condition measured the same way on every building, capital planning falls back on age and warranty expiry. That is a guess by age, not evidence. A ranked portfolio view built on measured condition changes what happens at budget time. You defend the sequence instead of merely justifying it.
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03
When a recover becomes a tear-off
The decision gets more expensive while it is being deferred.
A recover is only available while the assembly under the membrane is sound. Wet insulation left in place keeps working on the deck. Past a certain point the cheaper option is off the table. So the recover-versus-replace call is worth making on evidence, before the evidence makes it for you.
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04
Proving a repair held
Preventive maintenance is impossible to defend without a before.
Ponding, drains, seams and flashings are where the money is spent and where nobody can show what changed. Last cycle and this one are flown over the same ground the same way. A repair that held and one that did not are both visible in the document, not argued from memory.
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05
What a claim file is missing
The condition beforehand is the part nobody captured.
Claim files get assembled after the event, out of photographs taken from a ladder days later. A dated pre-loss baseline on every building falls out of the cycle as a by-product. Post-event capture is produced at the direction of the policyholder, their adjuster or their contractor.
04 · From guesswork to measurement
The three ways roofs cost more than they should.
How it goes is what the segment reports living with. On a program is what changes when the roofs are documented on a cycle.
How it goes
On a program
- Roofs announce themselves through leaks. The first news of a failing assembly is a tenant call about a ceiling tile. By then water has been in the insulation long enough to travel.
- Retained moisture located and outlined before it reaches a tenant. A scaled plan with the wet area totaled and flagged for verification.
- CapEx is built on guesswork: roof age, warranty expiry and whichever building complained loudest. That is the only data available for every property at once.
- A ranked portfolio view built on measured condition. The sequence you defend at budget time is the sequence the evidence supports.
- Claim files get assembled after the fact, from photographs taken off a ladder days later by whoever was available. Nothing shows the roof’s condition beforehand.
- A dated pre-loss baseline on every building, as a by-product of the cycle. Post-event capture produced at the direction of the policyholder, their adjuster or their contractor.
- Preventive maintenance happens where somebody remembers, and its effect is impossible to demonstrate when the budget is questioned.
- Last cycle and this one flown over the same ground the same way. A repair that held and one that did not are both visible in the document.
05 · What you receive
What lands in your hands.
- 01 Condition report per building Findings numbered on a scaled roof plan and rated for urgency. Estimated wet area totaled; conditions and settings logged. PDF + DXF
- 02 Ranked portfolio summary Every roof in one table: condition, wet area, and the change since the last cycle. Ordered so the capital conversation starts at the top. PDF + CSV
- 03 Year-on-year comparison This cycle registered against the last over the same ground. Growth in a wet area is measured, not remembered. PDF + GeoTIFF
- 04 Repeatable capture record Route, altitude, overlap and camera settings for every building, so any future cycle covers the same ground the same way. PDF + KMZ
- 05 Capital-plan rows One per building and roof section, in your plan’s fields. XLSX
What the record is for, and who it outlasts
The record outlasts the people who commissioned it. Route, altitude, overlap and settings ship with every deliverable. A portfolio that changes hands, or a manager who does, hands over a comparable baseline, not a folder of photographs.
Specimen · item 02
Ranked portfolio summary, in the shape it arrives.
The format is the part you can judge before you commission anything. Every value in it is illustrative, which is why the sheet says so on its own face.
Sample deliverable
| Building | Wet area | Condition | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLDG-A | 4.2% | Monitor | +0.6 |
| BLDG-B | 11.8% | Act | +3.1 |
| BLDG-C | 0.9% | Hold | 0.0 |
Questions we are asked
Notes.
Q1 We already get roof inspections from our roofing contractor. What is different?
Two things. The first is independence. We do not repair roofs or bid repairs. The report is written by someone with nothing riding on what it recommends. The second is comparability. Every building is flown at the same altitude, overlap and settings, and those settings ship in the deliverable. This cycle and the next are the same measurement, not two opinions. Most portfolios keep their contractor and add the documentation; the two are not competing.
Q2 How does this feed our capital plan?
The portfolio summary is a table: each roof, its condition, its estimated wet area, and the change since last cycle. Ordered worst to least. That is the input a CapEx forecast and a preventive-maintenance schedule are built from. We supply the measured condition; your team and your contractor put costs and sequencing against it.
Q3 Can you document a roof for an insurance claim?
We produce the documentation at the direction of the policyholder, their adjuster or their contractor. Dated, geotagged imagery of the full surface, and a radiometric thermal pass indicating retained moisture, numbered on a scaled plan. Reading that record for the claim, pricing the work and dealing with the carrier are your adjuster’s and contractor’s jobs. They are the licensed and qualified parties. We do not value claims or advise on coverage.
Q4 Do you need roof access or a tenant notification?
Not for the flight itself, which is one of the practical reasons this suits occupied buildings. No roof hatch, no escort, no tenant disruption, and nobody walking a wet membrane. We do need written authorization from the owner or the managing agent before each flight. We will tell you where a flight needs to be scheduled around airspace.
Q5 What about roofs the infrared method will not read well?
Anything under pavers, stone ballast or gravel buries the thermal signal, and so do a protected membrane over extruded polystyrene and lightweight concrete or gypsum decks. We will say so before the job, not after. Those roofs still get the visible condition pass, which documents seams, flashings, penetrations, drains and ponding. We will be straight with you about which half of the method your building supports.
Q6 How many buildings before a program is worth it?
Around the point where roof spending is argued at portfolio level rather than building by building. Below that, a one-time inspection answers the question in front of you. The program earns its place when you need to rank roofs against each other and defend the order.
07 · Where this goes next
- Roofing Condition documentation and ASTM C1153 infrared moisture survey — the method, the standard and the deliverable set.
- The portfolio roof program The recurring cycle: every roof assessed the same way, ranked, and fed into capital planning.
- Is your roof insulation wet? The single-building decision page, for when a recover-versus-replace call is due on one roof.
- Post-storm damage documentation Event-driven capture: the roof documented while the evidence is still on it.
- Insurance claim documentation Condition documentation for a claim file, at the direction of the policyholder, their adjuster or their contractor.
- Electrical & industrial thermal inspection The electrical side of the same building — switchgear, panelboards and transformers, documented to NFPA 70B.
- Irrigation districts and canal companies Locating conveyance loss along a reach, and proving a repair held.
- General contractors, owners and lenders Draw support, and work recorded before it is covered.
- Facility and plant management Electrical thermography against NFPA 70B, and the roof over the plant.
- Food, dairy and agricultural processing Electrical under load, planned around your food-safety program and production.
Next step · The first cycle
Start with the roofs you already worry about.
A short call counts the buildings, sizes the total roof area, and fixes the cycle. It settles what the portfolio summary has to carry.
We reply within one business day.