Raindrops On Your Head And In Your Office

If you’ve lived and worked in Puget Sound, chances are you’ve seen or felt a roof leak

The telltale signs of a leaky roof, stained ceiling tiles, are no laughing matter.

By the time water reaches your ceiling tiles, it has penetrated the outer, “waterproof” layer of your roof, soaked through the underlying plywood substrate, saturated your insulation, pooled up on top of your ceiling, and finally, eventually soaked through the tiles enough to form these pretty little brown circles.
 
What you may not know is that just swapping in a fresh tile does nothing to solve the underlying problem. Situations like these require careful evaluation and repairs by a qualified roofing vendor to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
 
One important note about roof leaks – frequently the place where the water enters your building isn’t even close to where the stains show up. Water always travels the “path of least resistance” which means it can travel along your struts & beams, ceiling wires, conduit, etc., on its path to your ceiling tiles.
 
Sometimes, it’s not even the roof itself, but the flashing or gutters which aren’t working properly. Flashing is the metal “caps” that go on your building’s parapet walls forming a watertight cover over the roof/wall joint. Over time, the screws that hold the flashing on tight can become loose, leaving small holes that allow water to penetrate the barrier. Gutters too can be a major problem. If they fill up with leaves, moss or pine needles, the water no longer travels down the down-spouts but again, takes the “path of least resistance” which can actually lead back inside your building!
 
These sorts of problems can often be avoided, or at least the damage mitigated by performing regular preventative maintenance on your roofs and gutters. Roof maintenance can be as simple as annual inspections – catching problems before they show up on your ceiling tiles. Gutter maintenance is even easier, and is one of Bradley Scott’s top recommendations for all building owners – commercial or residential. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as they say!
 
So to summarize, roof leaks, regardless of where they start, can turn into a major problem if not addressed quickly and properly. Having an attentive property manager to jump on issues like these promptly can save you time and money – yet another way we at Bradley Scott can help improve your investment property’s bottom line.

Cameron Wilson is the Director of Brokerage Services & Business Development at Bradley Scott Commercial.