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Home/Service Areas/Louisiana/Gretna/Commercial Hail Damage Repair

Commercial Hail Damage Repair in Gretna, LA

Big Easy Roofing surveys and repairs hail damaged commercial roofs across Gretna and Jefferson Parish. On a membrane roof the hail damage is usually not the part you can see, which is why this page is about what hail does to each assembly and what has to be settled before anybody cuts into one.

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Under the surfaceWhere hail does its work
City or parishPermits the work
Set on scopeHow the fee works
Warranty firstBefore any core is cut

Gretna commercial hail damage at a glance

Hail on a membrane roof does its damage to the insulation and the reinforcement under the surface, so a walk over establishes very little. Moisture mapping finds candidate areas and cores settle what is there at each one, and both have consequences worth settling before anybody starts.

Where the damage is

Under the surface

The stone strikes the membrane, the sheet flexes, and the energy goes into the board underneath. The surface can read as sound while the assembly below it has taken the impact. Call Big Easy Roofing on (504) 800-8196 and we will survey it.

Who permits the work

City or parish, by boundary

Roof construction and reroofing on a commercial building are permitted and inspected through the City of Gretna Building Department at 740 2nd Street inside the city limits, or through Jefferson Parish outside them. Whether a limited repair is caught depends on the scope, so we confirm it rather than assume it.

Which code applies

IBC Chapter 15

A commercial building is not a dwelling, so the roofing provisions that apply come from the International Building Code rather than the residential code. Our Gretna commercial roof replacement page sets out how the statute splits the two. On a repair it decides what the replacement assembly has to achieve.

How the fee is set

On scope

The office at file sets the permit fee against the scope rather than from a roofing rate, and neither the city nor the parish publishes a roofing specific permit line, so the fee is confirmed against the final scope rather than an early estimate.

How extent is established

Cores and moisture mapping

A core shows the build up and the condition of the insulation where it is taken, and a moisture survey identifies the areas reading consistently with retained moisture. How those surveys work, and where each method falls down, is set out on our Gretna commercial roof inspections page.

The part that gets left out

A core is a penetration

Cutting a core means cutting through a membrane that is often still under warranty. The warranty position is settled first, and every opening is closed by a documented, compatible repair that satisfies whatever that warranty requires. A survey that skips both is not free, it is deferred.

On a shingle roof hail leaves a mark you can find, count and photograph, which is why our residential hail page is built around counting impacts in a marked test square. On many membrane assemblies none of that applies. The stone strikes the surface, the membrane flexes, and the energy goes into the insulation underneath, which crushes. The membrane can look almost untouched while the board below it has lost its compressive strength, and the reinforcement inside the sheet can be fractured without splitting through. Profiled and standing seam metal is the exception, because there the surface does tell you something.

That is why a commercial hail assessment is a different job from a residential one rather than a bigger version of it. What is being looked for is under the surface, so the survey has to go under the surface. A report built from a walk over and a set of photographs of the top surface describes the one layer the hail did least to. The two things this page is about are therefore what hail actually does to each kind of commercial assembly, and what has to be settled with your membrane manufacturer before anybody makes a hole in the roof to find out.

What hail does to each commercial assembly

Hail behaves differently on each of these, and how severely depends on the stone size, the age and thickness of the covering and what sits under it. The column that matters is the third one, because on several of these the surface can read as sound while the assembly underneath has taken the impact.

AssemblyWhat hail can do to itWhat a walk over showsHow extent is established
Single ply, TPO or PVCFracture the reinforcement, or crush the insulation below, and sometimes punctureSometimes very littleCores read with a moisture survey
EPDMBruise or cut the sheet, and crush the board under itSometimes a visible bruise, sometimes nothingCores read with a moisture survey
Modified bitumenDisplace granules and fracture the cap sheetGranule loss, which is real evidence but not the extentCores at the impacts
Built up with aggregateDrive aggregate into the bitumen, though the aggregate can also absorb the impactLittle until the aggregate is swept backAggregate cleared, then cores
Standing seam or profiled metalDent the pans, and in some cases affect the fixingsThe dents, which is the one assembly the surface does tell you aboutMeasured against the panel manufacturer criteria

No work prices are quoted on this page. A commercial hail repair is priced from the assembly, the area actually affected and what the cores find, and the permit fee is set on the scope. The survey methods named in the last column are explained in full on our Gretna commercial roof inspections page. Call (504) 800-8196 and we will survey it and price the scope that comes out of the survey.

Code, permit and the warranty on the membrane

Three things have to line up before a commercial hail repair starts, and the third one is the one that gets discovered too late. The building code decides the assembly, the office at file decides the permit, and the membrane manufacturer decides who may touch the roof.

The code that applies

IBC Chapter 15

Louisiana Act 239 of 2025 introduced the requirement, now carried at La. R.S. 37:3737(I), requiring parishes and municipalities that issue construction permits to permit and inspect roof construction and reroofing. A commercial building sits under the International Building Code rather than the residential one, so that is where the roofing provisions come from.

How the office charges for it

On scope

Neither the City of Gretna nor Jefferson Parish publishes a roofing specific permit line, so the fee follows the work rather than a rate. A hail repair scope that grows after the cores are read moves the fee accordingly, which is a reason to confirm the position against the final scope rather than the first estimate.

Before any core is cut

Read the warranty

A core cut is a deliberate hole in a membrane that may still be under a manufacturer warranty. Who is authorised to cut it, what closing it properly requires and whether the manufacturer has to be notified vary between warranties, and the answers are in your own warranty document. They get read before the knife comes out.

What we will not do

Interpret your policy

We do not interpret cover and we do not adjust claims, on any building. We survey the roof, describe what we find and price the work, and those findings are yours to give anybody. What they mean for a claim is a question for your insurer and your own adviser.

What a commercial hail survey report should contain

The location of every core on a marked plan, a photograph of each core face showing the layers, the moisture survey output with the method and the conditions it was taken in, and a statement of what was patched and to which manufacturer detail.

It should also say plainly what it did NOT establish. A survey that reads as though it found everything is less useful than one that names the areas it could not reach and the questions still open, because the second one tells you what to do next.

Why a free surface inspection is worth what it costs

A walk over and a set of photographs of the top surface is quick and usually free, and on several of the assemblies above it describes the layer that can show the least. It is not dishonest and it is not worthless. It is just not an extent survey.

The moment it matters is when somebody has to agree how much of the roof is affected. A marked plan, core photographs and a moisture map answer that with evidence. A set of surface photographs leaves it open to argument, and an open question on a commercial roof is rarely resolved in favour of the building owner.

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What happens next on a Gretna flat roof

Crushed insulation does not announce itself, and this climate is unusually good at turning it into something worse before anybody notices it has happened. Three things decide how long a hail damaged commercial roof has before the damage stops being a roofing question and becomes a building one.

Water finds the crushed area and stays there

Insulation that has lost compressive strength under an impact sits slightly lower than the board around it, and on a low slope roof that is where water collects. The membrane over a low spot works harder than the membrane anywhere else on the roof.

That is why mapping where the assembly reads wet is worth more than a photograph of the surface. It answers a different and more useful question than what the top of the roof looks like. What put the water there is then argued from the cores, the roof history and the surface evidence together.

Heat drives a bruise toward a split

A membrane with fractured reinforcement is still watertight until it is not. Daily heat cycling works on it, and a bruise that would sit quietly in a temperate climate has more movement to survive here.

The practical consequence is that a decision to defer is a decision with a clock on it. That is a reason to establish the extent while it can still be attributed to the storm, not a reason to panic.

Wet insulation is a thermal problem before it is a leak

Insulation that has taken water stops doing the job it was bought for long before anything appears on a ceiling. The building gets more expensive to run while the roof still looks like it is working.

For an owner or a facilities manager that is the argument for surveying properly: the loss has already started, it is simply not visible from inside yet.

Big Easy Roofing Process

Three steps, and the first one happens in the office with your warranty document rather than on the roof.

A roofer examining a hail damaged single ply membrane roof
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01

Settle the warranty position first

Who is authorised to cut a core in your membrane, what closing it requires and whether the manufacturer has to be notified, read out of your own warranty document before any survey is booked. Where the answer restricts us, we say so rather than cutting anyway.

02

Establish the extent, then write it down

Cores at marked positions read together with a moisture survey, every opening closed to the manufacturer detail, and a report that says what was found and what was not established. The findings are yours whoever does the work.

03

Price the scope the survey produced

The repair scoped from the assembly and the area actually affected rather than from a rate, and permitted through the office at file where the scope requires one. Call (504) 800-8196.

Everything else we do in Gretna

The rest of the Big Easy Roofing services available in Gretna, each with its own page and written scope. Residential hail is a different job with a different method and has its own page, and how a moisture survey is actually carried out sits on our commercial roof inspections page rather than being repeated here.

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Gretna Commercial Hail Damage Repair FAQs

The questions worth asking after hail on a Gretna commercial roof, starting with why looking at it is not enough.

Topic

Question not here?

Ask us about a hail damaged commercial roof in Gretna. No charge, no obligation, and we aim to answer the same day.

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Why can you not just look at the roof and tell me

Because on most membrane assemblies the hail damage is not on the surface. The stone flexes the sheet and the energy goes into the insulation below, which crushes, so the membrane can read as sound while the board underneath has taken the impact. Standing seam and profiled metal is the exception, because dents are visible.

Is this the same as your residential hail service

No, and it is not a bigger version of it either. Residential hail is assessed by counting impacts in a marked test square, which is set out on our Gretna hail damage page. On a commercial membrane there is often nothing on the surface to count, so the extent has to be established from under it.

How do you establish the extent

Cores read together with a moistu