TPO Roofing around Lehi
Heat-welded white membrane for commercial low-slope.
TPO Roofing for Lehi homes and buildings
TPO sheets mechanically fastened or adhered, seams hot-air welded and probed.
Lehi has grown fast, which means a great many roofs went on within a few years of each other and are now aging out together. Ventilation and nailing pattern are the two things we check first on these.
A welded seam is a continuous sheet. A taped seam is a future leak.
What matters on TPO roofing
Drainage before material
The first question on any low-slope roof is where the water goes. Ponding is what kills membranes, and a roof that holds water for days after a storm will fail early regardless of which sheet is on it. We look at the slope, the drains and the terminations before we talk about material.
Seams and terminations
Field failures on commercial roofs are rare. Failures at seams, curbs, drains and the parapet edge are common. A hot-air welded seam that has been probed is a continuous sheet. Anything taped or glued and unverified is a scheduled leak.
How the system goes together
A welded seam versus a glued one
On a single-ply roof, the seams are the whole roof. Heat welding fuses the two sheets into one piece of plastic, and a properly welded seam is stronger than the sheet either side of it. An adhesive seam relies on a bond that ages at a different rate than the membrane does.
How a seam gets proven
A probe run along the edge of every weld while the crew is still on the roof. If the probe catches, the seam gets rewelded then and there, not written down for later.
Cold days need slower welds
The machine settings change with the air temperature or the weld runs cold and looks fine.
Low-slope transitions over a porch
The spot that gives homeowners here the most trouble is where a nearly flat porch or addition roof meets a pitched main roof. Shingles need slope to work and a porch often does not have it, so the correct answer is a membrane on the low part carried up under the shingles above, with the transition detailed so nothing depends on a lap.
Shingles on a flat porch will leak
Not immediately, and not in every storm. But water sits on that plane after every event and shingles were never designed to hold water still.
What we check
- Field condition and granule loss
- Valleys, ridges and every transition
- Penetrations and their flashing
- Gutter and fascia condition
What the job looks like
Get on the roof
We walk it rather than look from the drive, check the decking underfoot, the flashings and the ventilation, and photograph what we find before any number is discussed.
Show you what we saw
The photographs come back to you with a plain read of what the roof needs and, just as often, what it does not need yet.
Crew on site
The crews we hire work under Hancock’s direction, staged so landscaping and the drive are protected, working the detail in the order it is supposed to go on rather than the order that is quickest.
Leave it clean
Site cleared at the end of every day, a magnet run over the whole yard for nails at the finish, and the roof walked with you before we go.
Ice dams start at the eave
The mechanism is simple and it ruins ceilings. Heat escaping the living space warms the deck, snow above melts, the water runs down to the cold overhang past the heated wall line and freezes there. The ridge of ice that builds up backs meltwater under the shingles.
The fix is not a heat cable
Cables buy a season. Sealing the attic bypasses, getting insulation depth right at the top plate, balancing intake and exhaust, and running ice-and-water shield well past the interior wall line is what actually stops it.
The wet spring snow problem
Late season storms carry more water per inch than anything that falls midwinter. That heavy stuff clings to a roof instead of sliding, pushes on gutters, and refreezes at night into a solid mass on the overhang. It is also the load most likely to find a framing weakness.
After a heavy spring storm
Walk the drip line and look for bent gutter hangers and separated seams. Then look at the ceilings inside along exterior walls.
What we check on the deck
Spongy sheathing between rafters, especially over the eave where the ice sat.
Where roofs go wrong
The shortcut we see most
A membrane laid over wet insulation because tearing off would have cost a day. The roof looks finished, the moisture stays underneath, and the sheet fails early from below.
What good looks like instead
Moisture surveyed, wet sections cut out and replaced, drainage corrected, then the membrane installed and its seams probed.
Signs worth a look
- Ponding water still standing two days after rain
- Seams that have lifted or opened at an edge
- Blisters or ridging across the field
- Interior staining near drains, curbs or the parapet
What to expect
Scheduling around your operation
Most commercial work can be staged so the disruptive part happens when the building is quiet. Tear-off noise, crane or hoist time and material deliveries all get planned against your hours rather than ours.
What the roof survey covers
Before specifying anything we survey the existing assembly: slope and drainage, moisture in the insulation, the condition of seams and terminations, and how the roof is being used. A roof somebody walks on weekly needs a different answer from one nobody touches.
Documentation
Commercial and public work runs on records. We photograph the existing condition, the work in progress and the finished assembly, so there is a file rather than a recollection.
Getting to Lehi
On a booked replacement the calendar does most of the work. On the day something fails at a Lehi house, stopping the water comes first and the real repair follows.
That proximity is most of what matters when weather moves through. Lehi sits in Utah County, and we are on roofs across it regularly enough to know how the housing there was built.
Questions we get asked
Not the question you had? Call the shop and ask a person. We would rather talk it through than have you guess from a website.
(801) 382-8898Do you actually work in Lehi?
Regularly. Lehi is ordinary working territory for us, not an outlying job we take when it is quiet.
How fast can you get to Lehi after a storm?
As fast as we can get there. Stopping the water comes first and the permanent repair follows once the weather opens a window.
How do I know when a roof is getting close?
Granules collecting in the gutters, tabs lifting or curling at the edges, shingles that look bare in patches, and daylight or staining in the attic. Any of those is worth a look.
Will you tell me if I do not need a new roof?
Yes. Plenty of what we look at turns out to be a repair, and we say so. A roof with years left in it gets left alone, and you get the photographs either way.
How long does a roof replacement take?
Most houses in this valley are a one to two day job once the crew is on site. Steeper pitches, multiple layers to strip and complicated roofs with a lot of valleys take longer, and we tell you which yours is before we start.
Where Lehi sits on our map
We cover Lehi on the regular route rather than treating it as a trip.