About us
About Commercial Roofing Houston
We roof commercial and industrial buildings across greater Houston and we do not do anything else. That is a deliberately narrow business and it is the reason this website has prices on it.
Commercial Roofing Houston has installed and maintained low-slope roofing on commercial and industrial buildings across Harris, Fort Bend, Montgomery and Chambers County since 2009. Warehouses, retail centres, offices, medical buildings, plants and multi-tenant property. No residential division and no shingle crews.
The company started because our founder spent eleven years estimating for one of the large national commercial roofing outfits and got tired of writing bids he could not explain to the person signing them. Line items that said "as required", warranties nobody read the exclusions on, and a draw schedule designed around the contractor's cash flow rather than the customer's risk. The whole point of this business is to be the version of that which a facilities manager can actually put in front of a capital committee.
From the owner
A note from Andre
I have been on Houston roofs since I was nineteen, which is longer than I would like to write down. Started sweeping gravel on built-up tear-offs off Telephone Road for a contractor who paid cash on Fridays and taught me more about detailing than any course would have. What made me want to run my own outfit was a job in about 2007 on a self-storage building where we tore off a perfectly serviceable roof because the salesman had sold a replacement without anybody scanning it, and I remember standing on dry insulation thinking somebody has just spent ninety thousand dollars for no reason.
So we scan first. It costs us jobs. Roughly a third of the buildings we get called out to on a replacement enquiry turn out to need a repair and a maintenance contract instead, and I would rather have that maintenance contract for twelve years than sell one roof somebody did not need. My wife thinks this is a strange way to run a sales operation. She is probably right and I am not changing it.
Andre, owner
Why commercial only
What makes a commercial roofer different from a roofer
Our lead estimator spent eleven years pricing commercial work for a national contractor before this company existed, which is where the published unit rates on this site come from: they are what he was never allowed to put in front of a customer.
The practical differences between commercial and residential roofing are larger than most building owners realise. Low-slope systems are welded, adhered or torched rather than nailed. The failure modes are seams, details and drainage rather than wind-lifted shingles. The work sits under an energy code that residential roofing largely escapes. Insurance treats commercial claims completely differently. And on an occupied or industrial building, the safety, access and scheduling requirements are a bigger part of the job than the roofing.
A company running both divisions will tell you it does commercial work. Ask it how many linear feet of hot-air weld it made last month.
On the national outfits
You will get bids from some of them and they are not bad companies. CentiMark, Simon Roofing and Tecta America all operate in Houston with real capability and real warranties, and Charter Roofing has been here since 1968 and knows this market as well as anybody. If you have a fifteen-building national portfolio, one of them is probably the right answer, because a single point of contact across states is worth something we cannot offer.
What we would say is this: on a single building or a local portfolio, ask who is actually performing the work, ask what the escalation route is when something goes wrong two years later, and compare that against a local company whose owner will come out himself. Different buildings want different answers and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
Things that are true and slightly awkward
- We are not the cheapest bid, usually. We are frequently the second cheapest and we will tell you where the gap went.
- We turn down work. Torch application on an occupied building, coatings over wet insulation, and anything where the owner wants a warranty we know the manufacturer will not honour.
- We are slow on quotations for large jobs, because we core and scan first, and that takes days rather than an afternoon with a measuring wheel and an aerial photograph.
- We do not knock on doors after storms.
Numbers
Services
Everything we do
Commercial roof repair, emergency leak response and dry-in, full roof replacement and re-roofing, TPO single-ply, PVC and EPDM membrane, modified bitumen in APP and SBS, built-up and gravel roofs, metal roofing and sheet metal fabrication, metal roof restoration, flat and low-slope roofing, tapered insulation and drainage design, silicone and acrylic roof coatings, storm and hail damage assessment, infrared moisture surveys, roof inspections and due diligence reports, preventative maintenance programmes, and industrial roofing on plants and distribution buildings.
We also do the small things that never justify their own page: pitch pan rebuilds, walkway pad installation, drain strainer replacement, roof hatch and smoke vent flashing, equipment curb extensions, expansion joint covers, gutter and downspout replacement, skylight and smoke hatch reflashing, and safety anchor installation.
Across Houston and every submarket we cover, from Bellaire and Stafford out to La Porte, Baytown, Tomball and The Woodlands.
Checking us out
Questions about us
Why do you not display a licence number?
Because Texas does not issue one to roofers. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation licenses electricians and HVAC contractors and does not license roofing at all, so anyone in this state can call themselves a roofer tomorrow morning. A few Texas cities require a local registration, notably Austin and San Antonio, and Houston does not. A roofing licence number on a Houston website is therefore either a licence for something else, an out-of-state credential, or invented. What we do carry is a certificate of liability and workers' compensation insurance, which your broker can verify directly with our carrier, and manufacturer certifications, which are the credentials that actually let a contractor register a warranty.
How do I check you out?
Four things, all of which you can do without asking us. Search the TDI windstorm certificate database for certificates issued at any La Porte or east Harris County address we say we have worked on. Ask for our certificate of insurance to be sent to you directly by the carrier rather than as a PDF from us. Ask which manufacturers we hold certifications with and ring them. And ask for three commercial buildings in Houston you can drive past and look at, which is the single most useful request you can make of any roofer and the one that separates people fastest.
Do you do residential roofing?
No. Not as a sideline, not for friends, not after a hailstorm. Commercial low-slope roofing and residential steep-slope roofing are different trades using different materials, different equipment and different skills, and a company doing both is usually doing one of them with the other one's crews. If you need a house roofed we will happily point you at somebody good.
Who actually turns up?
Our own crews. We do not broker work to whoever is available, which is the model a lot of the national outfits run on and it is why the quality varies so much between two jobs from the same company. Andre runs the service and repair side, Marisol runs estimating and the permits, and Wes has been foreman on the replacement crew since 2014. On a large job we will bring in specialist subcontractors for crane work, structural steel and sheet metal fabrication, and we tell you who they are in the bid.
Talk to a roofer
Want to talk to the person who will actually be on your roof?
Call and ask for Andre. On a commercial building of any size he comes out himself.
Call (281) 720-3785- A roofer picks up, not a call centre
- Line-item written scope before anything is torn off
- Progress billing tied to milestones, never 85% up front