Commercial roofing - When to know to say no thanks.

So I'm a second gen roofer. My Dad taught me everything I need to know how to shingle, mod bit, and run a crew. We've done Mod. Bit jobs up to 150sq, and many commercial shingle roofs.

Over the last two years we've been doing 30sq and under TPO & some EPDM roofs. We've been hand welding, it's tedious but it works. My Dad has no knowledge on these roofs, as he didn't trust rubber back in the day and stayed primarily residential due to our good name.

This week I got called for a 350sq job, and possibly another 150 on the same building. It's a warehouse and the 150 is cold storage. It's very basic, nothing real complicated. Main thing is that it's over a steel deck which we have never roofed over. Not much below it that could get ruined if we have a few leaks during re-roof.

Cored it in several spots, most were the same. 2" of asphalt over insulation, then another layer of asphalt and insulation. 4" total in 3 spots and 6" in one spot. It looked to me that no tapered insulation was needed, but I figured I'll just say that any tapered is extra.

Anyhow, we would naturally buy a welding machine. We have our own boom truck, dump trucks, four wheeler w/ a dumpster on a trailer.

Do you guys have any advice on jumping in to a situation like this with somewhat limited experience? I'm very knowledgeable, I do my homework, but OJT is priceless. I know I'm tired of trying to convince every adjuster and homeowner that we are worth our charge.

Also, they are only getting three local bids. One of the other guys is similar to our company, very good residential reputation but not much in to the commercial end.

We get dry spells for sure. But being near the Mississippi river, we get popup storms in the summer. Being on one of the most remote islands in the world, I'd imagine your weather watching habits are at similar levels to mine...addict. As for most here I'm sure

I've definitely been out in the middle of the night to tarp in a felted roof due to the unexpected coming in hard.

It's a warehouse and the 150 is cold storage If it's refrigerated you'll have to check if you need a vapor barrier. From my experience whenever you tear off asphalt and go back with a single ply , the asphalt dust tends to contaminate the seams, which causes extra time in cleaning them to ensure a good welding quality.The best way to minimize that is to split the crew into a tear off crew , which tears off a large area at night .That way the reroofing crew is able to work in a fairly clean area plus able to use large sheets without having to make too many extra cuts that increase the amount of time consuming detail work. Or if you can afford to leave it open overnight , just tear off the whole thing first that way it'll require less labor to put the new roof on.

Oh I'm looking forward to that. A half a day of hand welding will cramp ya up pretty fierce.

Being one large area, there is going to be a lot of sealing up for the night. All my low slopes, I've been able to complete during nice weather. Good thing is that there is almost nothing inside to get damaged if it leaks a bit.

Good idea Alba, about tearing off the night before. I'm planning on using about eight guys total, so it might not adhere to that strict schedule. Not sure on FA or MA yet either. I usually FA, but I'm not finding much arguments against MA.