Commercial Roof Inspection

Get a professional commercial roof inspection to detect leaks, assess membranes, and extend roof life. Trusted by property managers and facility teams.

Inspec’s commercial roof inspection services are designed to uncover roofing vulnerabilities before they turn into expensive repairs. Our team inspects membrane performance, drainage conditions, thermal integrity, and flashing details to help owners and facility managers extend the life of their roof assets.

What Is a Commercial Roof Inspection?

A commercial roof inspection is a comprehensive evaluation of a flat or low-slope roof to detect issues such as ponding water, blistering, surface wear, seam separation, and insulation failure. Our process combines infrared imaging, visual observation, and technical testing to ensure accuracy in every condition report.

Why Regular Roof Inspections Matter

Commercial roofing systems endure constant exposure to UV radiation, standing water, freeze-thaw cycles, and foot traffic. Without regular evaluations, small issues go unnoticed—leading to water intrusion, energy loss, and even structural risk. Scheduled inspections support capital planning and extend the roof’s functional life.

Our Commercial Roof Inspection Services Include:

Visual and diagnostic inspections of membrane, seams, insulation, and flashing
Infrared thermography to detect hidden moisture or insulation voids
Drainage and ponding assessments
Detailed photo reports with repair recommendations
Warranty condition assessments and documentation

Who We Serve

We work with commercial property owners, industrial facilities, municipal managers, and educational campuses across the Midwest. Whether managing a retail center or a complex campus, we deliver clarity and compliance.

Inspec also provides roof consulting services, and construction administration for re-roofing and restoration projects.

What a Commercial Roof Inspection Covers

An inspection follows the roof from the surface down to the deck, and from the open field of the roof out to its edges, where most leaks begin.

Membrane and surface: splits, blisters, ridges, surface wear, and damage from foot traffic, hail or wind.
Seams and laps: open or poorly welded seams on single-ply, built-up and modified bitumen roofs.
Flashings and edges: base flashings and counterflashings, parapet walls, copings, edge metal and expansion joints.
Penetrations and rooftop equipment: curbs, pipe boots, pitch pans, HVAC units and the supports that hold them.
Drainage: drains, scuppers, gutters and downspouts, and the places where water ponds after rain.
Insulation and trapped moisture: wet insulation found by a roof moisture survey and confirmed with cores.
Inside the building: ceiling stains, and deck corrosion or deterioration where the underside of the deck can be seen.
Records: roof age, the manufacturer's warranty, past repairs and the building's leak history.

How an Inspec Roof Inspection Works

Scope and records. We agree what the inspection has to answer (an active leak, a budget, a warranty, a purchase) and collect drawings, warranty papers and leak history before the visit.
Roof walk. A consultant walks the roof, examines the membrane, seams, flashings, penetrations and drainage, and photographs each condition where it is found.
Moisture survey, where it is needed. Infrared thermography, nuclear or capacitance meter readings taken on a grid, and roof cores show whether water has reached the insulation, and how far it has spread.
Report. The findings are written up with annotated photographs, wet areas are drawn on a roof plan, and repairs are ranked by priority, with repair or replacement recommendations.
Next steps. The report can go straight to roofing contractors for pricing, to your board, or into a capital budget. Inspec can also design the repair or replacement and observe the work as it is built.

What the Inspection Report Contains

Annotated photographs of each condition, located on the roof
Infrared and moisture findings, when a moisture survey was part of the scope
The condition of each roof area and an estimate of its remaining life
Repairs ranked by priority, from urgent to routine
Repair-or-replace recommendations and budget figures for capital planning
Warranty notes: conditions to raise with the manufacturer while the warranty is still in force

An Independent Inspection, Not a Sales Call

Inspec is an independent architectural and engineering consulting firm. We do not sell, install or repair roofs, so the inspection has no stake in the answer. A roofing contractor's free inspection is often the first step toward that contractor's proposal; ours ends with a report you can hand to any contractor for competitive pricing.

What Affects the Cost of a Commercial Roof Inspection

Each inspection is priced for the roof in question. The main factors are:

Roof area, and the number of separate roof sections or buildings
Access: roof hatches, ladders or lifts, and how much equipment sits on the roof
Whether a moisture survey and cores are needed, or a visual inspection answers the question
What the report is for: a single leak, a warranty claim, a purchase, or a capital plan for a whole portfolio

Call the nearest office with the roof's approximate size and age and what you need to know, and we will scope the inspection.

Commercial Roof Inspections in Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis

Inspec has inspected commercial roofs since 1973 from its offices in Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Every office offers the full range of roof services, and on larger or specialised assignments consultants from the other offices join the team. Roofs across the upper Midwest face the same enemies: freeze-thaw cycles that open seams and flashings, snow and ice that load the roof and block its drains, and long winters that keep wet insulation from drying out.

After the Inspection

Findings can be kept in BEMS, Inspec's building envelope management system, where owners report leaks, follow repairs and plan replacements across a portfolio. For a fuller review of a roof's remaining life, see our roof condition assessment; for a roof that has already failed, roof failure analysis. Our commercial roof leak study of 2,163 leaks in Chicago and Milwaukee portfolios shows what causes leaks and when leak rates climb.

Request a Commercial Roof Evaluation

If your roof is aging, leaking, or approaching a warranty milestone, schedule an inspection today. We’ll help you make informed decisions backed by experience, documentation, and expert analysis.

Get in touch with Inspec or explore more about our roof consulting services.

Visit NRCA.org to learn more about commercial roofing system standards.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should a commercial roof be inspected?

We recommend inspections twice per year—once in spring and once in fall—or after major storms.

Do you provide infrared roof inspections?

Yes. We use infrared scanning to detect trapped moisture and energy loss not visible to the eye.

What types of commercial roofs do you inspect?

We inspect EPDM, TPO, PVC, built-up roofing (BUR), mod bit, and metal systems on commercial properties.

Talk to us

Have a building we should look at?

Tell us about the building and what you are seeing. Our consultants work across Chicago, Milwaukee and Minneapolis.

Contact Inspec

From the technical library

Common questions

Does Inspec perform the repairs it recommends?

No. Inspec is a consulting engineering and architecture firm. We inspect, test, investigate, design and advise, but we do not install roofing or perform repair work. That separation means our recommendations are not shaped by an interest in selling the remedy. If work proceeds, we can prepare documents, review bids and observe the contractor's construction.

How much of the roof gets walked during an inspection?

That depends on the assignment and the roof. Leak investigations concentrate on the suspect area and its surroundings, while assessments intended for budgeting cover each roof area systematically. We will state the coverage in the report so you know exactly what was and was not observed, and where access was restricted.

Will an inspection find moisture trapped inside the roof assembly?

Visual inspection alone will not. Trapped moisture in insulation is identified using scanning methods such as infrared thermography, capacitance or nuclear meters, with test cuts to verify findings. We recommend these when visual evidence suggests wet insulation, and describe them further on our moisture detection and thermal imaging pages.

What should I have ready before the site visit?

Anything you have on the roof's history helps: original construction or re-roofing documents, warranty paperwork, past inspection or repair records, and a list of reported leak locations with dates. Roof access arrangements, hatch or ladder keys and any site safety requirements should also be confirmed before we arrive.

Can you inspect a roof that is still under a manufacturer's warranty?

Yes. An independent inspection is separate from any inspection the manufacturer performs, and owners often want both. We document current conditions and flag items that commonly fall outside warranty coverage, such as damage caused by other trades working on the roof, unaddressed maintenance, or alterations made after installation.

How do you work around tenants and rooftop equipment?

We coordinate roof access with building staff in advance so occupied space is disturbed as little as possible. Mechanical units stay running; we inspect around them and note anywhere equipment, screen walls or arrays prevent a full view of the roof surface beneath, so the limits of the inspection are clear in the report.

How is this different from a roof condition assessment?

An inspection documents what is observable on the roof at the time of the visit and explains the conditions found. A condition assessment goes further, weighing system history, remaining service life and repair-versus-replace economics to support multi-year capital planning. Many owners begin with an inspection and expand the scope once the findings are in hand.

Can we give your report to roofing contractors for pricing?

That is one of its purposes. Because we never bid the work ourselves, the report describes conditions and options without steering you toward a particular contractor. Sharing the same document with several bidders means the prices you receive address the same scope, which makes them genuinely comparable.