Commercial and agricultural metal roofing
A shop, a machine shed or a light-industrial building is a different problem from a house. Here is how we think about it — including the roofs we tell people not to give us.
Different building, different problem
Commercial and agricultural roofs are mostly large, simple planes at low slope — pole barns, shops, storage and light industrial. That inverts the residential problem. There is very little flashing and a great deal of panel, so what decides the outcome is slope, panel length and how the building moves.
On a house, the details are where roofs fail. On a 12,000 square foot shop, the details are few and the panel is everything.
Slope is the first question
A standard standing seam profile has a minimum pitch, and a lot of commercial roofs sit below it. For those we use a Vice Lock seam variant engineered for very low slope and near-flat work.
Installing a standard profile below its rated pitch is how you get a callback. It is worth asking any contractor — us included — what the minimum slope for their panel is, and then checking that number against the roof they just measured.
Long panels move
Commercial runs are long. A 60-foot steel panel changes length meaningfully across a temperature swing, so clip design and the location of the fixed point are engineering decisions rather than details.
This is where an exposed-fastener roof on a big building gets into trouble: hundreds of penetrations, every one of them a wear item, every one of them carrying wind load. On a house that is a maintenance schedule. On a large low-slope roof it is a slow leak looking for a place to start.
Agricultural buildings
Barns and machine sheds are the one place we regularly recommend exposed fastener without hesitation. Budget usually governs, the buildings are not climate-controlled, and periodic fastener maintenance is realistic on a working property — somebody is already up there.
Above a 4/12 pitch, with an owner who will keep after the washers, a screw-down roof on a barn is an honest choice and it costs a fraction of a concealed-fastener system.
What we do not do
Membrane roofing — TPO, EPDM, built-up. If your building genuinely needs a membrane system, we are the wrong call and we will say so rather than talk you into metal on a roof that should not have it.
We also do not take standalone repair work on commercial buildings. If a screw-down roof is losing washers across the whole field, that is a re-roof conversation and we can have it. If one curb is leaking, you want a service contractor, not us.
What to send us
The building's footprint and roof pitch, what is on it now and roughly when it went on, and photos of the eave, the ridge and any curb or penetration. That is usually enough to say whether the job is ours and which system fits it before anyone drives out.
Questions people ask
How low a slope can you go?
With the Vice Lock mechanically seamed variant, very low — into near-flat territory when the roof is designed for it. What we will not do is put a standard profile below its rated pitch because the building happens to have one.
Can you re-roof over the existing metal?
Sometimes, on a purlin-framed building, with a sub-framing system over the old panel. It depends on the condition of what is under it and on the building's load capacity. That is a look-at-it answer, not a website answer.
Do you do agricultural buildings outside your residential service area?
Ask. Larger commercial and agricultural jobs justify a longer drive than a single-family re-roof does, so the boundary is different for them.
