If you own a commercial building in Southern Ontario, you’re used to preparing your facility for winter. Snow removal service, clearing and salting walkways, reprogramming lighting and thermostats, you’ve thought of everything. Or have you?
Maybe you’ve overlooked a certain part of your building because you can’t easily see it. If you haven’t guessed already, this post is about your roof, and what can happen if you don’t include it in your building winterization plan.
The Hazards that Winter Brings to Your Roof
Snow
Commercial buildings, with their flat roofs, experience a unique risk from snow accumulation. As delicate snowflakes tumble gently to the ground, it’s hard to perceive the accumulated weight from intense snowfall. Here’s some quick but terrifying math for you: if you have a 10,000-square-foot facility, 12 inches of snow accumulation can equate to ten tons of extra weight on your roof! That’s a troubling amount of stress on the most well-maintained of roofs, but if you’ve overlooked the upkeep on your roof for a few years?
Catastrophe. No exaggeration. The perfect example of this is the Lambton Mall in Sarnia, Ontario in 2000. Even almost a quarter century later, this serves as the ultimate cautionary tale for maintaining and winter-proofing your roof, not to mention having a snow removal plan. More on that later!
Ice
Southern Ontario is one of those lucky regions to experience the occasional ice storm throughout its customarily unpredictable winters. This type of weather can age any roof rapidly. Rapid melting and refreezing allows water to penetrate roof strata and damage every level as it goes. In addition, once a persistent sheet of ice forms on your roof, it becomes extremely treacherous to perform any maintenance or emergency repairs.
Wind
Alongside every winter weather system, chill winds are unpredictable and harsh. During a snowstorm, intense winter winds can create snow drifts on your roof, leading to concentrated points of added weight and stress. Any loose or damaged portions of the roof can be blown off, causing leaks and sending debris into the air and creating hazards for employees and customers alike.
Serious Winter Risks Means Serious Winter Planning
Roof Repairs
Maybe your commercial roof has been due for repairs for a couple of years, and since you haven’t experienced any issues, you haven’t felt that sense of urgency. Given that it only takes one intense winter storm to severely exploit any roof deficiencies, now’s the time to feel a proper sense of urgency! It’s not too late, if only barely, to complete those roof repairs you’ve been putting off. Get it done now, before there’s a sheet of ice or a foot of snow on top of the roof.
Snow Removal Plan
To the uninitiated it may seem comical, planning to shovel snow off your roof. It’s not like anyone drives or walks up there, right? After considering our frightful math equation above, alongside the awful case of Lambton Mall, you’re probably ready to plan for clearing the snow off your roof now. In addition to relieving undue stress on your roof, it makes maintenance and emergency repair tasks far more manageable.
Roof Coatings
If you have yet to consider a coating application for your roof, this should serve as an incentive to do so! A properly applied roof coating provides a layer of waterproofing that will protect your roof against snow melt and refreezing, or ice penetration. As a bonus, roof coatings will add years to the life of your roof, delaying the need for costly replacement.
What’s in Your Roof Winterization Plan?
If this has been a wakeup call, and you’re realizing you haven’t included your roof in your winter preparation plan, don’t panic! Getting back on track only takes one step: Contact Stybek right away. We have an expert team that will assemble a roof winterization plan quickly and execute it flawlessly, while also setting you up for a far easier time in future winters. Winters in Southern Ontario will never be entirely stress free, but we’re happy to help alleviate the worries you have to face during the snowy and icy months.