There are quite a few warehouses and large commercial buildings on the south side of Jacksonville, FL. After roughly 3 weeks straight of rain in Florida from the series of tropical storms and hurricanes that struck the Gulf of Mexico, we were finally able to schedule this project for completion. This property is located in JAX airspace, meaning we had to get FAA authorization to operate.
We were contracted by a commercial roofing company and solar company based out of Tallahassee, FL. The property owner was looking to install solar panels on the roof but needed to ensure they had a sound roof structure in place before doing so. When you have an older roof and am considering roof repair or replacement options, one of the most affordable remedies is to install a second roof structure over the existing one. In order to get the 20-30 year warranties manufacturers, a moisture inspection has to be performed to ensure the roof is dry before installing the second roof. Our job was to perform a thermal roof inspection observing where we suspected the roof to be wet or dry and recommend locations on the structure to perform further physical testing to validate those observations.
After completing our field infrared and RGB imaging, we were able to clearly identify where on the roof we suspected moisture. Af
ter the roofing company went up on the roof to perform moisture meter testing, moisture probe testing and core samples, they were able to confirm the areas I suspected to be wet were reality. I calculate 12,881 sq’ of moisture observed and the roofs total size was 127,065 sq’. In order to get the best warranty available, 12,881 sq’ of wet roofing will have to be removed and replaced before the new roof structure can be installed on top. The financial threshold for this roof installation to be worth it was less than 15% of the roof needing to be replaced and we landed at about 10.1%.