Located just on the southwest corner of I635 and 75 in Dallas is another building we received a call regarding property damage after that wind storm hit Dallas in Early June of 2019. As soon as I showed up to the property, I knew instant what had happened to the building as I have seen this before. The rocks from the roof of the neighboring building became airborne and were launched into the building we surveyed. The north facing curtain wall had about 50% of its windows blown out and experienced substantial damage to the roof.
We were called in by the engineering group contracted by the insurance carrier to inspect the condition of the roof and identify where moisture was present. The southwest side of the building was pretty well torn open and had been temporarily repaired. The engineer wanted to know how much of the roof got wet from that opening cause by the storm to determine how the insurance company would process the claim.
Our findings indicated that the roof did contain a large amount of moisture within the structure. The engineer then went on the roof to perform moisture tests and core samples to confirm what the infrared survey was showing. After reviewing the results of the locations tested on the roof, we concluded that the roof ended up being about 27% wet from water getting in from that opening and traveling throughout the roof.
This came at no surprise to me. When you walk a roof that has experienced storm damage, you can usually tell pretty quickly the structural integrity of the roof. This roof would move as you took a step, which is definitely not normal for a tar and gravel roof. Observing the ceilings in the building there were active leaks around the penthouse, further confirming our suspicion to the roofs condition.
Our involvement in this project allowed the engineer to operate more efficiently in diagnosing the roof and understand exactly how much of the roof is damaged. They were able to use the visual provided from the thermal images to test areas that were wet and dry and then calculate how much moisture was present from those observations. The insurance company did their due diligence to take care of the property owner and follow the right protocol to assess the roofs condition and determine how they would be moving forward with processing the claim.
To learn more about how drones are benefiting the roofing and insurance industries, give us a call at (214) 842-6000 today!