A condition report per curb
We photograph and grade every curb, pitch pan and line set, not just the field membrane. That list is what your maintenance budget actually needs.
Commercial roof inspectionGrocery Store Roofing, at a glance
Grocery roofs in St. Louis carry more equipment per square foot than almost anything else we work on — refrigeration racks, condensers, make-up air, hood exhaust — and the store underneath can’t close. John Beal Roofing phases the work section by section, keeps every unit running, and dries in each night. Free inspections. Call (314) 429-6000.
Count the curbs on a full-size grocery roof sometime. Sixty. Eighty. Past a hundred once you add every condenser, every exhaust fan and every refrigerant line penetration somebody cut during a remodel. Each one is a spot water can get in.
Which is why grocery roofs don’t usually fail out in the field. They fail at the details. A rack gets swapped, the tech sets it back down on the same tired curb, and flashing that was already done gets one more season it was never going to survive.
Where The Water Gets In
Curbs, Lines And Drains — In That Order
Refrigerant line supports
Lines laid flat on the membrane wear a groove into it over a few summers. They come up onto pipe supports with slip sheets under every foot.
Drains and parking-lot debris
Cardboard, pallet wrap and leaf litter plug a grocery drain within weeks. Strainers, clean-outs and a scheduled drain check keep water moving.
Ponding water on flat roofsHail on coils and membrane
Missouri hail bends condenser fin stock and bruises membrane the same night. We document both so the claim covers both.
Storm damage & insuranceNothing left open over food
Sections above the sales floor and prep areas get dried in before the crew leaves. Every day. No overnight open deck, ever.
Early and night phasing
Loud tear-off runs before doors open where the lease and the municipality allow it. The rest gets sequenced aisle by aisle.
Commercial roof replacement
System Choice
What Holds Up Over A Supermarket
White TPO is the default here and it earns it. A grocery roof runs hot off all that condenser discharge, and a reflective membrane keeps deck temperature — and rack head pressure — down.
Where deli fryer or bakery hood exhaust lands, we switch that zone to PVC. Grease eats TPO. It’s slow, and it’s certain.
Insulation goes back to current energy code, which on most St. Louis reroofs means more R-value than what’s up there now. Tapered fill goes in at drains and behind curbs so water leaves instead of parking.
Walk pad runs from every hatch and ladder to every unit. Refrigeration techs live on that roof, and pad is a lot cheaper than the punctures it prevents.
Related: retail roofing in St. Louis for strip-center and big-box work, and restaurant roofing for the hood-exhaust details.
Common Questions
Can you roof while the store is open?
That’s the normal way we do it. Work runs section by section with staging kept off customer parking and away from the entrance, and the loud parts get scheduled before doors open.
Who moves the refrigeration equipment?
Nobody moves it. We flash around it and raise what has to be raised, working with your refrigeration contractor when a unit genuinely has to come off a curb. We don’t touch refrigerant lines — your tech does, and we schedule around him.
What about the health inspector?
Areas over food prep and open cases are dried in daily and never left open. If a section has to sit past close, it gets tarped and monitored, and your manager hears about it before it happens.
TPO or PVC on a grocery roof?
White TPO across the field, PVC in any zone where fryer or bakery exhaust settles. Grease degrades TPO over time and it’s not worth saving the difference.
How long does a full store take?
It depends on square footage and how cut up the roof is. A full-size store runs in weeks, not days, and you get a section-by-section calendar before we start so deliveries and remodel work can be planned around it.
Free Grocery Roof Evaluation
Tell us about the property and a dispatcher will call to schedule. No cost, no obligation.