Airport Terminal & Aviation Facility Roofing in Orlando, FL

Orlando Executive Airport (ORL) — general aviation in downtown Orlando

The roofing systems on airport terminals and aviation support structures carry requirements beyond standard commercial membranes. Jet blast exposure on airside roofs requires membrane adhesion and ballast specifications that exceed what you'd specify for a comparable logistics building. HVAC systems on terminals are denser and heavier than standard commercial, requiring a higher number of curbed penetrations and more frequent flashing maintenance touchpoints. Terminal roofs often span long, flat expanses with minimal slope — which means drainage design is critical and ponding tolerance is near zero. We've done this work, and we don't learn those lessons on your project.

Aviation-adjacent commercial roofing — cargo facilities, rental car centers, FBO hangars, aircraft maintenance facilities, hotel structures on airport campuses — presents a different set of challenges than the terminal building itself, but the airport coordination requirement doesn't go away. Our crews understand that badging and security access at any part of an airport campus is non-negotiable and is planned for, not discovered onsite.

How do you handle project scheduling at an operational airport like Orlando International Airport?

We work with the airport facilities department and FAA Part 139 coordinator to develop a phased work plan approved by airport operations. Material deliveries, crane lifts, and any work near airside areas are scheduled during approved windows and coordinated with the FAA NOTAM process if required. We've done this at multiple airports and it's a standard part of our project setup — not an exception.

What roof systems are standard for large-span airport terminal roofs?

Orlando Central Park is a 3,200-acre industrial campus developed through the 1980s and 1990s as one of the first large-scale planned industrial parks in Central Florida. Buildings here range from 50,000-square-foot flex industrial to 500,000-square-foot bulk distribution. The original roofing systems on much of this inventory — modified bitumen, EPDM, and first-generation TPO — are at or past end-of-life. We run active maintenance routes through Orlando Central Park and have replaced roofs on multiple buildings in the campus.

The Florida Turnpike and I-4 interchange zone south and west of the airport — the Kissimmee industrial corridor, the Osceola County interchange parks — has seen significant new construction in the 2010s and 2020s as e-commerce fulfillment demand drove speculative industrial development. These newer buildings are entering their first major maintenance windows. TPO 60-mil systems installed in 2008-2015 are reaching the point where manufacturer warranty-compliance maintenance, seam inspection, and drain redesign are the right scope rather than replacement.

The active logistics corridor means scheduling around truck traffic. Loading dock areas on buildings that run 20-hour operations require coordination on access, material staging, and noise. We are used to scheduling tear-off away from active dock hours, staging materials in the zones the facility manager clears, and confirming the schedule with operations leadership — not just the property manager — before the project starts.

TPO is the dominant specification for new warehouse roofing in the Orlando market. It reflects UV, handles mechanically attached installation well on large decks, and carries 20-year NDL warranty paths. For buildings with high interior process heat — manufacturing or food processing — we evaluate EPDM as an alternative because its seam system handles thermal expansion differently than TPO heat-welded seams in high-differential-temperature environments.

Insulation on large warehouse roofs requires attention to tapered drainage design. The sheer scale of the roof area means that even a half-inch slope differential between drain points is a meaningful difference in how water flows. We design tapered insulation packages against the documented drain layout and the ponding patterns we observe during the inspection walk — not against a generic slope table.

Modified bitumen is still the right specification on some warehouse buildings — particularly older buildings with existing BUR systems where the deck and insulation are sound and a torch-applied cap sheet recover is the most defensible capital decision. We are not attached to any single system. The recommendation follows what the building and its capital horizon support.

Hurricane Ian (2022) pushed 60-70 mph gusts through Orange and Osceola counties and produced significant rainfall across the Kissimmee Valley. Several warehouse buildings in the Turnpike corridor reported perimeter membrane separation and drain overflow events following Ian. In most cases the damage was not catastrophic — it was progressive: seams that had been marginal since installation finally separated under a sustained wind load, and drains that were already partially blocked backed up under the rainfall volume.

After any significant wind event, I recommend an inspection on every warehouse roof in the affected area — not because I expect dramatic failures, but because the progressive failures that do occur will not announce themselves until they become interior leaks. The inspection is cheap; the interior damage is not.

FBC wind documentation for warehouse buildings requires the fastener pattern design for the specific building height, exposure category, and roof zone. Many warehouse replacements done in the 2000s and early 2010s were installed to national-standard fastener patterns that fell short of FBC requirements. A replacement done today is an opportunity to bring the fastener documentation into compliance — the marginal cost of the correct pattern is minimal, and the documentation supports wind mitigation credit and insurance renewal.

Yes. We sequence every large warehouse replacement in working sections — typically 5,000 to 20,000 sq ft — that can be torn off and dried in the same day. The building never has an open section overnight. We coordinate with facility operations leadership on staging zones, dock access, and noise windows before the project starts.

Age and moisture-core results are the two primary inputs. We pull moisture cores in representative locations across the roof — typically five to ten on a large building — to determine insulation saturation. If more than 25% of cores read wet, replacement is the honest recommendation. If the insulation is dry and the deck is sound, a targeted repair or recover may be defensible. We document the recommendation in writing with the core data.

Approximately 6 to 10 weeks of production for a building that size, assuming no deck replacement and no major drain relocation. We build weather contingency into every warehouse schedule during the June-October rainy season. We give a written production schedule, section by section, before contract signing.