The old adage says: time is money. Nowhere is that more accurate than if you’re a business owner or a facility manager. So when your commercial roof needs work you want the best solution, and you want it to be fast. Roof coating has some advantages compared to roof replacement — and vice versa — but which is quicker and easier for your business?

Check out our latest blog to learn how long roof coating and roof replacement takes and find the roofing solution that’s best for you.

How Long Does Roof Replacement Take vs. Roof Restoration?

On average, roof restoration is two to three times faster than roof replacement.

Roof restoration is the process of fixing damage on a roof while installing a coating to extend its lifespan — essentially, roof restoration gives you the advantages of a new roof at a fraction of the price. On the other hand, roof replacement is the process of building a completely new roof after tearing off the old one. However, sometimes roof replacement is the only solution for a roof that’s extremely old, has been water damaged, or has suffered from poor maintenance.

Figuring out how long roof replacement takes is a matter of the size of the roof in question as well as several other factors. On average, we say that we can tear off and reinstall 4,000 square feet of commercial roof per day.

Some factors that can make commercial roof replacement take more or less time:

• Type of roofing — Single-layer EPDM or TPO roofs are quicker, while bitumen roofs take much longer. Learn more about which roof type has the best lifespan.
• HVAC units and other equipment — Having your HVAC units on the roof could slow the replacement process down since roofing crews have to work carefully around them.
• Complicated flashing and drainage — The more complicated your flashing and drainage systems are, the longer it will take to replace the roof.

Why Does Roof Replacement Take Longer?

Roof replacement takes longer because, essentially, it is two jobs rather than one. Our crews need to both run demolition on your old roof AND build your brand-new roof.

Here are the 3 main reasons roof replacement takes longer:

1. More labor is required — The process of demolishing a roof is more involved than applying any of the different stages of our roof restoration system.
2. Temporary waterproofing — Even though we are removing the roof, we can’t leave your building without protection from the elements, so we install temporary waterproofing each day. For every day we perform a roof replacement, our crews spend 2 hours adding or removing temporary waterproofing.
3. Larger equipment is required — The final reason that roof replacement requires a larger time investment is that complicated heavy machinery and large lifts are required for a tear-off and rebuild. Working with the ground level machinery takes a lot of time, but for restoration, we can pump or bring everything we need onto the roof with us. Not only is roof restoration approximately two or three times quicker than roof replacement it also directly saves money. Depending on your roof, our roof restoration system costs only half as much as a replacement.