What is Roof Lifting?.

Traditionally, when an owner of a building wanted to expand, they either had to purchase a new building or buy land and develop it to a custom specification, costing millions of dollars and posing no small amount of risk. Then, in the 1970s, LIFTEX engineers invented the roof lifting process and allowed businesses that simply needed more height to achieve growth without expanding a footprint outward.

Roof lifting is the process of physically raising the structural framing of an existing roof on a commercial property using structural steel and proprietary equipment, perfected over 50 years by LIFTEX Roof Lifting.

Warehouses, factories, and retail spaces have increasingly chosen to lift their roofs to maximize their property’s potential without sacrificing a favorable location or sinking time and money into the development of a new facility.

The Benefits of Roof Lifting.

For many businesses & properties alike, a commercial roof lift can be one of the most valuable upgrades available. When compared to spending millions of dollars on developing new property (and the downtime experienced when moving operations to new facilities), lifting the roof is the better choice for fast results, minimal to no stoppage, and is a fraction of the cost.

Roof lifting is time-efficient: Think of the previous scenario; finding, purchasing, developing, and building a piece of property can take years – often precious years that most businesses cannot afford to delay while their needs continue to outgrow their situation. With LIFTEX, those businesses can often maintain their daily operations or current investment plan while the roof lift is being performed, resulting in minimal down time.

Roof lifting increases property value: Expanding on an existing piece of real estate is a great way to lift its property value. If the property owner wants to consider sale options at some point, or attract new high profile or anchor tenants, a structure with a taller roof and more usable cubic footage will maintain a significant financial advantage over shorter, less optimal buildings.

Roof lifting is environmentally favorable: Eliminating the need to develop greenfield spaces will benefit natural ecosystems and can help businesses achieve certain environmental goals. With many businesses committed to hitting carbon-neutrality milestones and reducing their environmental footprint, roof lifting is one of the few options that allow firms to increase productivity while minimizing their impact on the local environment.

Why Lift the Roof?.

The choice to lift a roof is a simple one; it’s simply less expensive and less time-consuming than searching for, procuring, and developing new spaces.

These days, time to market matters more than ever, making the lifting of a roof at an existing property the fastest path to increasing operational capacity. Most often businesses hardly need to pause operations while the roof is being lifted over the course of several weeks to months.

By choosing to lift the roof, businesses will have a net positive effect on local economies, employees, the surrounding communities, and the environment, checking every box from ‘shareholder value’ to ‘environmentally conscious.’

The Phases of Roof Lifting.

Roof lifting is a science, just like any other construction project. All of the components of a roof lift will fall into one of the four following categories, from due diligence to close-out documents.

Design: creating and engineering a plan to both lift the roof and complete the “vanilla-shell” in accordance with related building codes. Concurrently, schedules for materials and manpower are developed.

Preparation: getting the right pieces in place. Prep includes permitting, fabrication & delivery, coordination with other trades, and installing structural steel with roof lifting equipment.

Lift: the act of lifting the roof. The process typically takes an hour per foot, per section of roof lifted, depending on the size of the roof. Most roofs are lifted one section at a time.

Close: to finish the job, additional structural steel is installed to support and brace the taller building. The open space between the previous roof and the existing wall is enclosed and made “water-tight.” Punchlist items and final inspections are completed for closeout.