Roofing Contractor Serving Rural North Iowa Businesses in North Mason City Rural Corridor

What Rural North Iowa Commercial Building Owners Do to Manage Roof Wear and Tear

Rural commercial roofing services are often only requested once the building needs roof repair. A ceiling tile in an office dips and droops, or rainwater leaks into a warehouse through a flat roof or low-slope membrane and forms a puddle on the floor. As a roofing contractor serving rural North Iowa businesses in the North Mason City Rural Corridor, we see it constantly: by the time a property owner calls for a repair, the damage has likely been building on that roof for months.

We have seen what happens when commercial building owners ignore the warning signs.

Rural North Iowa, especially near the North Mason City Rural Corridor, is filled with agricultural buildings, metal machine shops and warehouses that suffer roof damages from the elements every single year. Iowa snow loads sit on top of the flat roofs of commercial buildings out there in the rural corridor all winter long. The winter freeze and spring thaw cycle creates cracks in membrane seams. Those seams had looked perfectly fine back in October, and then the spring rain came and water started pooling in flat roof areas that were already poorly drained.

Business owners in the rural corridor north of Mason City do things differently with their commercial roofs. Here are five things smart business owners do to their roofs in the rural corridor have longer roof lifespans:

• They have a free commercial roof inspection scheduled before the snow comes and again after the spring thaw has completed in the cornfields north of town
• They monitor flat roofs to look for ponding water, especially older metal buildings near grain elevator operations north of Birch Drive
• They call a roofing contractor to fix small membrane tears before the building needs a complete flat roof replacement
• They look into roofing coatings options to extend the life of an older metal building or commercial flat roof for years longer

Most commercial roofing contractors in North Iowa won't tell you that a large portion of our commercial flat roof work we do in the rural corridor of North Mason City is the result of neglected flashing and failed seams. It is rarely dramatic storm damage to the roof. It is just normal roof wear and tear that nobody took the time to check on. Our rural commercial buildings sit out in the cornfields with no trees to protect them and no neighboring structures to break the wind that is blowing off the field. Roof systems with TPO and EPDM roofs have edges that are under tension from constant wind blowing over them. This is a different situation for commercial buildings in a city like Mason City, with buildings close together that break the wind flow.

And rural commercial agricultural buildings have their own unique problems. The metal roof on a pole barn, equipment shed, and machine shop gets damaged from hail on a regular basis every single year in Iowa. While standing seam metal roofing is generally the type of metal roof on a building in an agricultural area, the standing seam screws and flashings and metal trim on the edge still take a lot of wear and tear. David has walked across enough metal buildings along Highway 65 north of Mason City to understand where the weak spots are.

Commercial building waterproofing is another common service our roofing company offers to businesses in the North Mason City rural corridor. Most of the old commercial flat roofs you see in this region have been built with minimal or poor roof drainage. They accumulate standing water. Then, the roof water freezes. The rubber membrane and metal flat roof crack.

So you call us in February, when it's 10 below, for an emergency repair. That is nobody's idea of fun. You waterproof in the fall and you are set.

But you know the real problem is that getting to some of these buildings is not that easy. If they are a quarter mile down the road and you need to get a lot of heavy equipment down a gravel driveway and over soft mud, that, and we plan for that, and which ones need to be staged and which ones we are going to be able to pull right up to, because we do a lot of roofing for businesses in this area, and if you can be shut down for a week while someone gets the truck down the road and you cannot, there is nothing but a headache for the owner, right?

So we will say, "Hey, get your storm damage checked as soon as you can. It is an insurance claim, that time is not going to wait," because you cannot always see it, particularly with a commercial roof.

Directions from North Mason City Rural Corridor to A1 Roofing Services

Most of the calls I get our services for commercial roofing contractors in this area is a business that is driving past our building on 12th Street NE and not even realizing it, so if you are out on the corridor, it is very simple to get to us. And we are also probably already in the direction of a number of the commercial buildings down there anyway.

So here is directions, if you need directions from the corridor into our office.

1. Head south on 65 until you get to the downtown area, and you will get some open farmland, some open spaces, and you can tell that that is what makes the corridor.
2. Go into East 4th Street NE. You will start seeing more houses once you get to Monroe.
3. East 4th Street NE for 1/2 a mile. Go South on East 12th Street NE.
4. Our address is 608 East 12th Street NE, and you will see our trucks. We are hard to miss.

But, it takes 10 minutes and 10 minutes to get to us, or 12 with the light at Federal Avenue. We do not have any crazy highway merges. We do not have any complicated directions.

So really, you probably will not need to come to us anyway. Because we run down that area regularly, and it is an open field with a flat roof that you are not going to have protection against any straight-line winds or any hail that is going to happen. It is a flat roof over a big open lot. David has stood atop metal buildings out in that area countless times. Having observed the aftermath of a single storm season when an ag building's TPO membrane went unaddressed, we are aware that the damage will not reveal itself until there is already water sitting inside the wall cavity. When you request a complimentary roof assessment, we will drive out to you. We will load up our crew at our 12th Street NE shop, head north, take Highway 65 straight out and be at your location within 10 minutes, without any trip charge or excuses. In this part of the county, many of the buildings are pole structures, metal-sided commercial buildings or occasionally flat-roofed retail or office buildings, which is why you really need to hire a roofing company that knows the ins and outs of low slope and metal roofing. You do NOT want to hire a shingle contractor for a metal standing seam roof or a commercial flat roof because that is what we only do, and if you happen to be a business owner who has properties in the corridor and some near town, that is even better because we can do a multiple property inspection on one trip at one time. We have had business owners that have a building close to the bridge across the Winnebago River, and then another building out in the corridor that they wanted to get looked at. Whether you choose to come in by 608 12th St NE or we come out to your property in the corridor, we prefer you let us check it out. As far as the north corridor of Mason City is concerned, there is a significant difference between it and downtown Mason City. Buildings out in that area, specifically where County Road B20 goes out, are far more exposed than those near town. There is nothing stopping the wind, and there are no tree canopies blocking the impact of hail. It is all flat farmland until it hits buildings in the corridor. That affects roofing differently, and many contractors are not going to tell you this, but buildings out in the corridor take far more weather damage in five years than buildings near downtown in 10. It has happened again and again. The seams in metal panels are loosening sooner than normal. The membranes on flat roofs are degrading from UV damage sooner due to lack of relief from the sun. Plus, the winter freeze thaw cycle up here tears roofs apart unless it has been properly put together!

The kinds of buildings in the north corridor are different from the rest of Mason City, too. There is a lot of:

• agricultural outbuildings & machine sheds with older metal roofs
• small commercial businesses like feed & seed or farm equipment
• grain storage with flat or low slope roofs
• rural residences with metal or flat roof systems

Each building type presents different problems. A standing seam metal roof on a machine shed acts different in high winds compared to a flat roof commercial building. And David knows because he has seen both kinds, as they have both failed.

Wind is the big thing. And the north corridor takes the full wind punch coming down from Minnesota without anything to stop it. We do a lot of storm damage roof repair on buildings here. Sometimes the wind will actually strip panels of the roof even though it may not appear that way from the ground. You need to get up there to see what is going on, and our crews follow OSHA fall protection standards when inspecting steep or exposed rooflines on these rural buildings. That is why we promote our free roof inspections for buildings in the north corridor area particularly when they have been hit by a spring storm.

But it is not all wind damage. Standing water is an enemy for flat roofs in the north corridor area. The land is pretty flat and drainage around buildings is sometimes bad. That is how you end up with ponding water sitting on a flat commercial roof. And it is not pretty if the ponding water is not fixed. The roof membrane will be damaged and the water will work it is way through the roof is seams and you end up with a leak you could have easily fixed with a flat roof coating if you had it checked out in time.

But the north corridor area also sees a lot of hail damage. With open ground there are no trees or buildings to slow a hail stone down as it is making for a farm roof. So after a hail storm, hail storm inspection is a good idea, no matter how you look at it. Especially for commercial buildings or businesses. We can also help you if you need to file roof storm damage insurance claims.

The buildings in the north corridor are working hard. They contain large expensive equipment, store product and keep business going. You do not want to find out your roof is a problem when there is a business emergency and you need the inside of the building to dry out from your roof is leaking. Because a business can lose way more money than just paying the bill for a roof leak repair.

Another big thing we see on the north corridor farms is older metal roofs on ag buildings that have been patched up multiple times. At some point the patching just will not hold anymore and you might want to seriously consider a total metal roof replacement or roof system replacement because it is cheaper and less hassle to replace the roof instead of patching it and have it come off in the winter. We will tell you what the plan of action is for your situation.