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How Roof Maintenance Can Work For You
(reprinted with permission)

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Welcome to RSI Magazine’s Commercial Roofing Solutions pocket guide on roof maintenance-a reference designed to help you get more life out of your current roofing system.

The goal of this guide is to prove that roof maintenance pays. An “out of sight, out of mind” attitude toward roofing systems is dangerous. It’s also poor asset management. Too many owners and managers have been burned by premature roof failure. When water starts entering the building, hard assets, corporate profits-and reputations-start taking a beating.

The pain may be real, but it still isn’t easy convincing yourself, or others, that budgeting for roof maintenance makes sense.

That’s where our Commercial Roofing Solutions guide comes in. Through life-cycle cost analyses, case histories, testimonials, and expert opinions, we’ve made a case for roof maintenance. And you don’t have to be a roofing expert or CPA to understand it all.

The contractor is key

If you are a building owner or facilities manager, then you’ve probably been given this guide as part of a bid proposal or sales package by one of RSI’s 12,000 commercial roofing contractor readers.

RSI’s circulation represents the elite of the commercial roof contracting market. This is important in an industry where some cont5ractors are forced to close their doors before the roof systems they install reach the end of their service lives. RSI’s readers have been in business an average of 25 years-many far longer. Most are second, third or fourth generation, family owned and operated businesses and members of the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA), or a state or regional group. RSI’s circulation qualifications are rigorous, so if you’ve been handed this guide by one of our readers, he or she is someone you can trust.

Likewise, the editorial contributors to this guide have spent nearly all of their professional lives writing, reporting and working in the commercial roofing industry. Our editorial staff has no agendas or axes to grind; we tell it like it is.

This entire project was bankrolled by GAF Materials Corporation, America’s largest roofing manufacturer. GAF’s corporate philosophy is unique in the roofing industry: to build trust through education. Their ultimate goal is to become a “world-class” company in what has always been a commodity industry. This guide is their brainchild, but the information contained herein is as generic as possible.

The CARE logo appears on the cover of this publication and on each editorial page. CARE is an educational organization funded by GAF. The truth is we had to twist the company’s proverbial arm to give it any sort of credit for this undertaking. It’s an attitude we like, and it’s allowed us to keep the technical information as objective as possible.

The industry is changing

One area that has always been neglected by roofing contractors, and the industry in general, is roof maintenance. According to RSI’s surveys, only 28% of installers offered owners a roof maintenance program in 1995. Today, almost 75% offer these services.

With bottom-line profitability so important, corporate executives who are looking long-term can squeeze more money out of the roofs over their heads. Facility managers can look like heroes instead of profit-spenders. Roof maintenance pays. Read on, and let us prove it to you.