Commercial
Commercial low-slope roofing
Flat roofs, TPO membrane and rubber for shops and small commercial buildings, where the work lives in the seams, the drains and the parapet edge.
Chapter 01
The failures start at the seams, the drains and the parapet edge
A flat or low-slope roof does not shed water the way a pitched shingle roof does. It has to move water off a nearly level surface through three things holding: the seams staying welded and sealed, the drains staying clear, and the parapet edge and coping keeping water from working in behind them.
Any one of those three failing is where a flat roof actually starts leaking, almost never a hole in the middle of the field the way people tend to picture it. Flat roofs on shops and small commercial buildings get checked at exactly those points.
A white TPO membrane roof with welded seams, parapet coping and a roof drain in the foreground.
TPO and rubber, and where each one fits
TPO membrane is a white single-ply sheet, heat-welded at the seams rather than glued or taped, which is what gives it a continuous field with no lap lines working loose over time. Rubber membrane is the older single-ply option, seamed differently, and still a solid choice on the right building.
Calvin & Son installs and services both TPO roofing and rubber roofing. Which one fits comes down to the specific roof in front of us rather than a single default answer handed out before anyone has looked at it.
Chapter 03
A flat roof is a different trade, and that changes the schedule
A crew tearing off a house roof and a crew working a flat commercial roof are doing different work, with different materials, different fastening and a different safety setup, even under the same license. Commercial roofing gets treated as its own job rather than a bigger version of a residential one.
A shop or small commercial building usually has people working under that roof during the day, so scheduling gets worked around the business rather than the other way around. That is as true for a planned re-roof as it is for the emergency service available when a leak shows up during business hours.
Calvin & Son — Licensed in Oklahoma, License #80000737. BBB accredited, A+ rated. Call (918) 458-1023.