What to Expect During a Roof Repair Visit
Most people who reside in the vicinity of Deer Creek Valley Church have never had a contractor explain what occurs during a roof repair. We are going to remedy that.
David always begins by getting on the roof. That is the very first thing we do before saying a word. That is the inspection process: checking membrane condition, checking flashings around penetrations, and looking for ponding. As a roof repair company near Deer Creek Valley Church in Mason City, we've learned ponding is what will kill your roof on flat roofs throughout that area. If it ponds for a few days after a rain, no one sees it except the bubbling on your ceiling when the next person walks into that room.
As a standard policy, we take pictures so you can see what we see.
Here is a little-known fact: half the roof repairs we perform around Deer Creek Valley Church are actually small problems. It could have been a lifted metal roof seam. It could have been a pinhole in a TPO membrane. It could have been a flashing that came loose from a parapet. Those are much easier to fix, but let those slide through one Mason City winter and it will become a much larger and more expensive problem involving interior damage, rotting roof deck, and lots of money.
During a roof repair visit, for a business building on the streets around Deer Creek Valley Church, what you can expect is this:
- A complete roof inspection with photographic documentation of every problem area
- A check of all drainage areas, scuppers, and gutters for blockage
- A check of membrane or metal panel condition on all seams and edges
- Honest discussion regarding the difference between what needs to be fixed today, and what can be allowed to wait
The last item is important. We have seen a lot of building owners down the street from South Federal who were told they need a new roof but it was a ten-foot section of bad roof coating. We do not do that. If a roof repair will fix the problem, that is the solution.
For residential flat roofs or metal roofs in the Deer Creek Valley Church area, you should expect the same process, but smaller in scale. It is not any less thorough. We still take all the photos. But you should expect the visit to be much shorter, because the roof is much smaller in size. We do not work with asphalt shingles; if a home has shingles, we tell you that first.
One of the things that amazes people, after we find the problem, is how fast we can do roof repairs. A patch job, or a re-sealed flashing is an hours-long job, not days-long. We carry common materials in the truck, so if the job is an easy fix, often we can perform the repair during the same visit.
At the same time, sometimes a repair is not the solution. We tell you if that is the case, too. It is never fun hearing you need a new roof when you are just a few feet away from the church. We will not sugarcoat it for you. If the substrate has failed or the membrane failure has taken place over a large area, a simple roof repair will not fix it. You will be wasting money. David would rather lose a small job then have to watch you waste money on a temporary fix. If you want a second opinion on any of this, it helps to know these tips for hiring roofing contractors before you sign off on anything.
Once the repair is complete, we explain the job we did and show you photos before and after. We discuss with you what you need to watch for. All year round, the buildings surrounding Deer Creek Valley Church are exposed to freeze-thaw cycles, which place immense strain on every flat roof seam and joint. Being able to spot the warning signs in the intervals between appointments will save you a bundle.
Directions from Deer Creek Valley Church to A1 Roofing Services
Chances are if you're at Deer Creek Valley Church you're not going to A1 Roofing Services. We'll come out to you. If however you're interested in stopping by our office at 608 12th St NE to go over details about your roof repair project, it's a very easy trip.
- Head east from Deer Creek Valley Church toward the main road and turn north.
- Pick up US-65 heading into Mason City proper.
- Follow US-65 as it becomes Federal Avenue through town.
- Turn east onto 12th Street NE.
- Our office is at 608 12th Street NE.
It should only take you ten minutes under normal traffic. If you're leaving during morning rush hour when folks are driving in to work, add 2-3 minutes, nothing significant.
And most of the time, David is in that area before even thinking of making that trip. We're in that part of the county regularly, checking on flat roof jobs and doing storm damage inspections on commercial buildings scattered along the rural stretches south of town. The church sits in an area where we've pulled off those back roads more times than we can count to look at metal roofing panels that took a beating from straight-line winds.
If you live in close proximity to Deer Creek Valley Church and are interested in having us stop in your area to check things out, that's the easier solution. We're able to perform your inspection at no cost to you. Call and let us know where you're situated from the church, and we'll likely get out to your property the same day or first thing the next morning. Save yourself the trouble of driving up to Mason City and taking your lunch hour out of your schedule.
Still, if you like the idea of being able to look at our place, we get that. The Mason City location isn't anything fancy. Just a working office space full of material samples and pictures of our projects in Cerro Gordo County. David sits down at the desk with you and explains what a typical roof repair would look like for you. While not many roofers will inform you of the above, a ten minute conversation with the guy in charge of your roof repair project will save you much more than looking it up on a website.
Due to the nature of this area, sometimes cell service can be a little weak. If you're trying to give us a call from Deer Creek Valley Church and it doesn't work, try driving up the road and heading toward town for a mile or two. Or send us a text with your address. Either way, give us a call, we'll set things up.
One thing to be aware of. The roads between Deer Creek Valley Church and Mason City can sometimes flood due to heavy spring rains. We've driven through that stretch in April when the ditches were full and water was creeping across the blacktop. We still came out. Because flat roof leak repairs and storm damage assessments will not wait for the weather to clear up, neither do we. If anything, those wet areas are a reminder why roof repairs can be so critical. And then it's going to find a way.
The Deer Creek Valley Church Neighborhood
The Deer Creek Valley Church itself is located on the rural edge of Mason City, southwest of town. It is in a more spread out neighborhood. Lots are a bit bigger. You'll see pole buildings, older farmhouse homes, new metal sided homes, commercial buildings.
We are frequently out in this area, and it's very common that these roof problems are the most prevalent near the Deer Creek Valley Church: flat roofs on agricultural and commercial buildings that have been worn out from harsh northern Iowa weather, older metal residential or commercial buildings which have corroded through on the roof seams, commercial buildings on routes to Clear Lake which are in need of membrane roofs, and low-slope roofs like those on machine sheds and outbuildings which have problems with ponding water.
Many roofers don't tell you about it, but flat roofs on Mason City buildings out here near Deer Creek Valley Church fail in a completely different way than they do in the city. The wind exposure, for one. Once you head west from Deer Creek Valley Church and get to the trees and out into the wind, there is nothing to break a west wind. This wind pressure is enough to peel up the corners of the membrane roof, pull out a loose fastener or two, and drive wind driven rain under your flashings.
Plus, when you get the freeze-thaw cycle out this way, standing water on a flat roof out by the church doesn't really sit there, it freezes up, expands, and cracks a membrane or coating on a commercial building. You may have three places to come in by March that weren't there in October.
David installs a lot of TPO and EPDM roofing on commercial buildings in this area. Many older structures near the church have built up roofing that may be from decades before. Moisture becomes trapped between the layers. In the past we've torn down the roofs off of some of these buildings on the routes out of town south of Mason City and found out that the building is holding a lot of insulation that has been water logged and rotted over the course of years, and nobody ever noticed because there was only a small ceiling stain.
We don't want to see what happens when that isn't taken care of.
As for the flat roofs on residential homes near the church we handle flat roof repairs and standing seam metal roofs. We don't handle residential shingles. If you have a flat roof on a low slope porch on your home or an addition, that's where we will come in. There are a lot of homes in the area with attached garages and lean to additions which have a flat roof or low slope roof, and it's those areas that are most likely to develop a leak.
As far as the roof repairs we do near Deer Creek Valley Church, the majority come in from storm damage. This part of town is very prone to getting caught in the hail that passes through the county of Cerro Gordo in the summer. The open terrain means that there isn't much that breaks the path of a hailstorm coming into the city, and we perform hail damage storm inspections on commercial flat roofs in this area. Some years we are out to repair hail damage on some properties more than once in a season.
Finally, the ground settles over time on Mason City outbuildings and you may get an uneven settlement of your building foundation and the line of your roof will adjust slightly. In a flat roof situation the roof line might change, and create a low spot where water ponds up on a flat roof. This is a flat roof's worst enemy. If you have a Mason City flat commercial roof close to the Deer Creek Valley Church, and you haven't had a free roof inspection on it in recent years, you are really just guessing on what is going on in your roof. We'd rather show you than have you discover a leak on your ceiling this coming March.
