County Allows Roof Inspections

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Did anyone notice workers walking on the roofs at the Law Enforcement Center, courthouse, and other county buildings last week? Those were workers from Stanfield Roofing, which was doing initial roof inspections in the hopes the county would hire them permanently for roof-related maintenance as part of a Routine Maintenance Program offered through Stanfield Roofing. The inspections, this time, were free.

“Essentially what that is, is our service department comes out twice a year, they do inspections of all the roof systems that you guys want us to inspect on the program,” said Morgan Tillotson with Stanfield Roofing. “In that process they’re going to be taking pictures, they’re going to create photo profiles for each individual property.”

In addition to the inspections, Stanfield will clean down spouts and do other routine maintenance that should extend roof life over time – an average of 2-3 years, according to Tillotson.

Stanfield Roofing gave a presentation at a KCamp meeting that commissioner Mark McGaughey attended, so he asked them to come to Ulysses to see if it’s a program Grant County could benefit from. KCamp is a member-owned, member-funded self-insured property and liability pool. KCamp was formed under the sponsorship of the Kansas Association of Counties and began operation January 1, 1991. Regulated by the Kansas Insurance Department, KCamp was formed to provide a viable alternative to commercial insurance because in the late 1980s and early 1990s insurance for municipalities was difficult to obtain and extremely expensive.

McGaughey is on the KCamp Board of Trustees, along with Stanton County Commissioner John Smith, among others.

“We have a relationship with KCAMP, obviously, that’s kind of how this all started,” Tillotson said. “KCamp saw the benefits of what the maintenance agreement does not only for you guys and your roofs, but also for them understanding that they’re not going to have to look at a bunch of roofs that may be hail, may be age. They know that someone’s keeping an eye on the roofs and they’re allowing for discounts from you guys, as well, and then we give a discount on the RTM (Rooftop Maintenance program).”

What a typical Rooftop Maintenance agreement would cost for a private business, counties and cities receive a 40 percent  discount.

“Really, the biggest is just understanding what is going on with your roofing systems,” Tillotson said. “Especially for you guys in making those decisions and seeing those things, you’re able to understand a little bit more when you get a storm or even you have a leak and the contractor comes out and tells you your roof needs replaced. “You’ve never seen a roof before, all you know is there’s a leak and there’s a problem, someone who’s supposed to be an expert is telling you that you need to replace your roof.

“Well, that may not be the case, it may have been something that just needed repaired – it may be a loose seam, it may be little things like that whereas the maintenance agreement keeps up on all those things.”

The program is designed to prevent major issues that could have been stopped when they were minor issues with normal, routine maintenance.

McGaughey said discussion at the KCamp meeting was actual cash value vs. replacement value for roofing systems.

“Right now, we have a replacement value on our roofs,” McGaughey said. “I think they’re leaning towards in the future, if a person’s not doing this Rooftop Maintenance program, that they may start looking at actual cash value, saying ‘well, your roof is 25 years old, we’re not going to pay you full value for that roof because you’re not doing this Rooftop Maintenance program.’

“So, I think it is a benefit in that sense, for sure, as far as the actual cash value vs. the replacement cost.”

Tillotson said if the county is showing the insurance company it’s taking care of its roofs, they’re more generous when it comes to damage on a roof because the insurance company understands that the roof is being maintained.

Stanfield was provided a list of buildings, ranging from the courthouse to the law enforcement center to hangars at the airport that they looked at.

“At the end of the day I think it’s smart to have every building on an RTM obviously due to the fact that you have preventative maintenance on all those different thing,” Tillotson said. “It really depends; every county’s different.”

Tillotson and his crew inspected the roofs as directed by the commission, and will give a report at the next commission meeting.