TPO Roofing
Heat-welded, reflective single-ply for low-slope roofs — and a straight answer on when TPO is the wrong pick.
Learn moreCommercial Roofing
A leak on a commercial building is rarely a roofing problem alone. It is a tenant problem, an inventory problem, sometimes a liability problem, and the pressure is to make the stain stop as fast as possible. That pressure produces a lot of bad repairs: a bead of sealant on the nearest seam, a patch over the spot below the drip, another trip out when it rains again. We work differently. We find the entry point first, photograph it, and then fix that detail properly.
Most of the low-slope roofs we repair in Orlando are still fundamentally sound. The membrane has years left in it and one detail has let go — a seam that was never fully welded, a pitch pan that dried out and cracked, a curb flashing that pulled away as the unit vibrated, a drain bowl that lost its clamping ring. Fixing that detail costs a fraction of what people fear when they see water on the floor, which is why we walk the whole roof before anyone talks about replacement.
Where leaks start on a Central Florida flat roof
On a low-slope roof, the open field of the membrane almost never leaks. Failures cluster at the details: seams, terminations, penetrations and drainage. Field seams fail when the original weld was cold or contaminated and the sun has had a few summers to work the lap open. Pitch pans dry out, shrink and crack around conduit and gas lines. HVAC curbs move with the unit and pull the flashing down. Drains and scuppers clog with debris from the afternoon storms and water backs up over the flashing height.
Ponding is the multiplier. Water that stands for more than two days after rain is sitting on every one of those weak points, and under Orlando sun that water heats, cools and expands the membrane around it daily. A pond over a marginal seam becomes a leak; a pond over a good seam shortens its life anyway.
How we diagnose without guessing
- Interior walk first: where the water shows, how long it has been showing, and what it correlates with (heavy rain, wind direction, the HVAC cycle)
- Roof walk with the interior plan in hand, tracing upslope and along the deck flutes from the stain
- Probe every seam and termination in the suspect area; check pitch-pan fill, curb flashing height, drain clamping rings
- Moisture survey where the membrane looks fine but the leak persists
- Photographs of each finding, numbered against a roof plan
The moisture survey matters more than most buyers expect. A single-ply or mod-bit membrane can look intact while the insulation beneath it is saturated across a wide area from a leak that ran for months. Wet insulation loses its R-value, corrodes fasteners and rots a wood deck. Finding it changes the conversation from repairing the seam to cutting out and replacing the wet section — and it is far better to know that before the repair than after.
Repair, restoration or replacement
Once we know what is wrong, there are three honest answers and we will tell you which one you are looking at. A localized failure on a sound membrane with dry insulation is a repair: cut out, replace, re-weld or re-flash the detail, done. A membrane that is aging across the whole roof but still dry underneath is a candidate for a fluid-applied coating, which resets the surface without a tear-off. Widespread wet insulation, a deck that has started to fail, or a roof that has been repaired at the same detail three times is a replacement conversation, and patching it again is spending money on a roof that has already decided.
You get that reasoning in writing with the photographs behind it, so a board, an owner or a regional facilities lead can follow the logic without having been on the roof.
Working on an occupied building
Most commercial repairs happen while the building is in use, and that shapes how we work. Hot-air welders and torches are staged away from roof intakes so nothing gets pulled into the HVAC. Materials come up on a schedule that keeps loading docks and fire lanes clear. Interior access, if we need it to trace a leak, is arranged with the tenant rather than sprung on them. If the failing detail is under an operating unit we coordinate a shutdown window with your mechanical contractor instead of flashing around it and hoping.
For restaurants, clinics and schools, timing matters as much as the repair itself, and we will work early, late or on a closed day where the site allows it. The scope tells you which days and hours the roof will have people on it, so there are no surprises for tenants.
What a repair scope looks like
Every repair we quote comes as a written scope with line items: the detail being repaired, the method, the materials, and what is excluded. If we found a second problem while diagnosing the first, it is listed separately with its own photographs so you can decide whether to bundle it. After the work you receive the before and after photographs of every location, which most property managers drop straight into the building file or forward to ownership.
If you have an active leak right now with water coming in, use the emergency leak response page and call (407) 871-6159 — that gets a dry-in ahead of the diagnostic. If the roof has been leaking on and off for a while and you want it solved rather than tarped, this page is the right place to start.
More commercial roofing services
Roof Replacement
The whole decision, laid out: when a flat roof is done, tear-off vs re-cover, phasing, staging, permits, close-out.
Learn more
Metal Roofing
Standing seam and panel systems for churches, schools and commercial buildings — retrofit or new, engineered for wind.
Learn more
Roof Coatings
Fluid-applied silicone or acrylic over a sound membrane — a restoration, not a replacement, and only when the survey says so.
Learn more
Modified Bitumen
Multi-ply asphalt roofing for foot-traffic roofs — tough, repairable, and not the right fit everywhere.
Learn more
PVC Roofing
Welded single-ply that shrugs off grease and chemicals — the right call for kitchens and processing roofs.
Learn moreCommon questions
Because the entry point depends on conditions. A seam or flashing that is marginal may only take on water when wind drives rain against it from one direction, or when a downpour outpaces the drains and water rises above a flashing height it would normally never reach. Noting which storms produce the leak is genuinely useful diagnostic information — tell us, and we will start at the details that fit that pattern.
We can repair the detail that is leaking, but the pond will keep working on it. Persistent ponding is a drainage problem: a clogged or undersized drain, a scupper set too high, a low spot where the insulation has compressed. A durable fix usually pairs the membrane repair with a drainage correction, such as adding a drain, tapered insulation to build slope, or clearing and re-flashing the existing drains.
Sometimes it is obvious: the roof feels soft underfoot, or the membrane blisters where trapped moisture turns to vapor in the afternoon heat. When it is not obvious we run a moisture survey and confirm suspect areas with core samples, then photograph the cores. The result is a map of wet and dry areas that decides how much of the roof needs to be cut out rather than patched.
It is usually a small crew for a short time, but there is noise, some roof traffic and occasionally a need to enter the space below to check the ceiling. We tell you the schedule up front, keep exits and loading areas clear, and avoid running equipment near rooftop air intakes. For sensitive tenants we schedule around their hours where the building allows it.
Yes, and each is repaired with its own method. Single-ply membranes are heat-welded with matching material, so we need to identify the membrane before we bring the patch. Modified bitumen is repaired with compatible cap sheet, torch or cold-applied depending on the roof. Using the wrong patch material on any of them is a common reason a previous repair failed.
More than the repair, almost always. Water in the insulation spreads sideways under the membrane, so a leak that shows as one stain can be wetting a much larger area. Wet insulation loses its insulating value, so the building costs more to cool. Fasteners corrode, the deck starts to deteriorate, and what would have been a seam repair becomes a section replacement. The interior damage and tenant complaints come on top.