Church & worship facility roofing in Houston

Most church properties grew in stages: a sanctuary, then a fellowship hall, classrooms, a gym or family life center. Each was built when the congregation could afford it and roofed with whatever was usual at the time. The result is several roofs of different ages on one campus, often a mix of low-slope membrane and metal.

The trouble spots are where those buildings meet. A newer, lower roof butting into the wall of an older building. Counterflashing along that wall that was sealed once and never again. A higher roof shedding its water onto a lower one. Skylights, and the base of a steeple or bell tower, add flashing that nobody climbs up to look at. Where the wall itself needs attention, we flash the roof to the wall and cut in scuppers, but brick and mortar repair is not our work.

The low-slope roofs on a campus, often over classroom wings and fellowship halls, tend to be modified bitumen, built-up or TPO. On those, the trouble sits at drains that hold water, at the base of walls, and at the curbs under the units that cool the rooms below.

We walk every building on the campus and look at each roof on its own. The people approving the money can then see which building needs it and which does not. Sometimes the answer is repairs on one or two buildings rather than a new roof for all of them.

Metal fellowship halls and gyms fail at fasteners, laps and panel ends. Panels rusted through in one area can be replaced in that area. A metal roof rusted on the surface across the panels but still solid is a candidate for metal roof coating instead.

A church is busy all week: services, midweek evenings, weddings and funerals booked at short notice, choir practice, and often a preschool, daycare or school on the same campus.

We schedule the work around services. Give us the calendar before anything is booked, including the events that cannot move. Repairs are small jobs. On bigger work we open only as much roof as we can close the same day. Nothing is left open overnight, so no part of the roof sits open going into a Sunday. If a wedding or a funeral gets booked after the work is scheduled, tell us the day you know.

Where there is a preschool or daycare, tell us where the children play and how they come and go. We keep staging and the work area away from them. Shutting down or covering units and air intakes near the work is the church's responsibility. Tell us where they are, especially over occupied classrooms, and have that planned before work starts.

Much of the work on an older campus is ordinary commercial roof repair: seams, flashing, curbs and panels fixed where they failed. A standard repair generally runs $1,500 to $3,500.