Commercial Roofing in Rohnert Park, CA

Two properties in Rohnert Park share a city and almost nothing else a roofer cares about. Graton Resort & Casino opened on November 5, 2013; its gaming floor covers 135,000 square feet, and the hotel rises six stories with 200 rooms. Sonoma State University occupies 269 acres and includes the Green Music Center and the Schulz Information Center, which runs 215,000 square feet. One is a hospitality property with guests beneath the roof. The other is a campus, where the roofs belong to many separate buildings.

We handle inspection, repair, recovery, coating and replacement of low-slope and metal roofs for commercial owners in Rohnert Park, along US 101 in the Santa Rosa, CA area, and the first thing we settle is which of those two problems a building really has.

Height changes the job before the membrane does. A roof on a six-story hotel is a long way from the ground, so material, tools and people all have to get up there, and wind is stronger at the top than at street level. That affects how we stage a repair, how we secure loose material and how we time the work around gusts.

Hotels also tend to pack mechanical equipment onto their roofs: heating and cooling units, kitchen exhaust, laundry vents and rooftop plumbing stacks. Each of them has a curb or a flashing, and each is a leak path into a finished room. We walk every penetration, check the equipment curbs and supports, and look for stains in the top-floor ceilings, which often show a problem before the roof does. Verdict: the hotel roof is a detail job, not a square-footage one, and a hotel roof deserves a detail-level plan.

Acreage is not a roof count, and 269 acres tells us how much ground Sonoma State covers, not how many roofs sit on it. A campus of any age tends to collect roofs from different budgets and different crews, and they rarely wear out together. The Schulz Information Center is a big building by floor area, and floor area says nothing about what is on top, so we find out the old-fashioned way, with a ladder and a record.

What goes wrong first is usually at the joints: where an addition meets an older wing, where a wall turns up into a roof, where a drain was added later and ties in imperfectly. A college or university roof lasts longer when someone is looking at those places every year, and the visit is much cheaper than the interior repair after a failure.

A hotel does not close for a roof, and a university does not stop teaching. We plan occupied building reroofing in small sections that are dried in every day, with material staged where guests, students and deliveries are not. Loud or heavy work goes to the hours with the fewest people beneath it.

Getting there matters too. The Rohnert Park Expressway is a key route between Commerce Boulevard and US 101, and the SMART station here has been operating since August 25, 2017. We plan truck routes, hoisting and delivery times around that traffic, so trucks arrive when there is room for them. For the roof itself, a large low-slope area over dry insulation often suits a TPO membrane, and sections that fail the moisture scan are cut out and replaced instead of covered.

A few expensive habits are easy to avoid:

• Replacing a whole campus roof program in one year when only two buildings are failing.
• Coating a hotel roof before scanning for wet insulation.
• Sealant on a curb that needs reflashing.
• Waiting for a guest complaint or a classroom leak to start the conversation.

Spend instead on a written plan that ranks every roof and a routine that keeps drains open. That plan fits a hospitality owner with one property or a university with many, and the same approach applies along the SMART line in Cotati and Petaluma.

A Rohnert Park project benefits from a building-by-building plan when a property has several wings or uses. Identify which areas share a roof assembly, which have separate drains, and where tenants or equipment limit access. A photo from one roof section should not be used to estimate the condition of an adjacent structure. Mark inspection limits and return visits on the same plan so managers can compare actual findings and schedule repairs around occupancy.

Commercial Roofing Questions

How do we get material and crews onto a six-story hotel roof without disturbing guests?

Plan the lift route, the staging area and the work hours with the property manager before the first truck arrives. Material goes up early in the day, away from entrances and guest areas, and the crew stays clear of balconies and guest windows. Work happens in small sections that are sealed every evening, so no rain can reach rooms overnight.

A campus has many roofs of different ages. Where do we start?

Start with a condition survey of all of them and rank by consequence and condition, not by size. A small roof over a server room outranks a large roof over a storage building. Fix what is leaking, maintain what has life left, and schedule replacements across several budget years so no single year carries all of it.

Does a hotel roof need a different maintenance routine from an office?

Usually it does, because the equipment is different and the cost of a leak is higher. Kitchen and laundry exhaust, rooftop plumbing and heating and cooling units all need checking, and drains should be cleared twice a year. Keep a log, so you can tell a chronic problem from a one-off.

What can a moisture scan tell us that a walk cannot?

It shows wet insulation under a membrane that looks perfectly dry on top. That matters before any coating or recover, since either one seals water in. The scan also marks the boundary of the wet area, which lets us cut out only what has to go. Scanning is worth it on any roof you are about to spend real money on.

How should we think about wind on a tall building here?

Treat the edges and corners as the first places to inspect, because wind pressure is highest there and increases with height. Check coping, edge metal and the termination of wall flashings every fall. A loose edge on an upper roof is a small repair now and a torn-off membrane after the next strong wind.