Houston does not publish a design wind speed. Its adopted code puts a footnote where the number should be and requires you to enter the property's physical address into the ASCE 7 hazard tool, treat the building as Risk Category II, and attach the printout to the plans. That is a per-address number, not a citywide one — which means a Houston roofing specification cannot be copied from the last job across town. We pull the printout for your building.
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Houston deliberately declines to publish one number. We run the ASCE 7 hazard tool against your building's address at Risk Category II, attach the printout, and specify the assembly to that figure rather than to a rule of thumb picked up somewhere else on the Gulf Coast.
Mechanically attached or fully adhered, over a tear-off or a recover, decided by what the cores show. On a Houston low-slope roof the attachment pattern is the whole argument — this is a wind city with a measured 96.7 mph gust on record at Intercontinental.
Two-ply asphaltic systems where rooftop traffic is heavy or the deck has a long repair history. In a city with 157 flood days in the storm record, redundancy at the membrane and the flashing is not a luxury.
No zoning does not mean no permit. Houston's own permit record for roofing states plan review required and inspection required, with a six-month permit validity and a ten-business-day processing time. Unpermitted work carries an investigation fee of $333.42 minimum or double the fee, whichever is greater.
Fastener and closure work, eave and end-lap repair, panel replacement and retrofit framing over a failed metal roof — priced separately so the decision is made on real numbers rather than a single figure.
Houston's solid waste rules are blunt: material generated by contractors, roofing expressly included, must be removed by the contractor, and roofing materials or shingles are listed as not accepted. A mixed pile can get the whole set-out refused. It goes out in our roll-off.
Full roof walk, core cuts, drainage assessment and photographs of every penetration and curb — plus the ASCE 7 hazard-tool printout for the building's address, which is what the specification has to be built on.
Recover versus tear-off, membrane, insulation, tapered design and attachment pattern, with the reason for each written out and what the cheaper option really costs across ten years.
Applications go through the city's iPermits system. Budget for the administrative fee of $33.56, a permit fee with a $91.06 minimum, and a non-refundable plan review fee of 25% of the estimated permit fee. Ten business days is the city's own published processing expectation.
Daily dry-in, no open deck overnight, the permit kept on site until final approval as the city requires, inspections scheduled rather than assumed, and a closeout package with product data, the wind printout, warranties, core findings and photographs.
Heat-welded seams, a reflective surface that matters through a Gulf Coast summer, and a clear repair path for a building held for decades. PVC earns its premium where restaurant exhaust or chemical discharge is in play — which in this city is often.
Multi-ply asphaltic systems take constant rooftop access and tolerate an imperfect substrate better than a single-ply. On Houston's enormous inventory of 1960s and 1970s commercial building, that redundancy is genuine insurance.
Most metal roofs fail at a fastener, a closure or an eave detail long before the panel does. We price the detail repair and the full re-panel separately, and we size the fastening to the building's own wind figure rather than to a default.
Five years on our labor for a full commercial system, in writing, with the covered scope stated. Repairs and partial scopes carry a shorter term and the contract says which one you bought.
No-dollar-limit system warranties of 15 to 20-plus years where the building and the scope qualify, installed by a certified crew with a manufacturer field inspection. We tell you whether yours qualifies before you budget around it.
Product data, the ASCE 7 wind printout, warranty registrations, core-cut and moisture findings, the permit and completion photographs. On a Houston building that file is also what a future underwriter will want.
Don't see your question? Call us at (469) 936-7663 — we're happy to talk it through.
Yes, and this is the most commonly misused fact in the city. Houston has no conventional zoning ordinance and it has a full Construction Code, adopted by ordinance and effective 1 January 2024. Roofing is exempt from permit only up to an aggregate of 100 square feet. Above that, the city's own permit record states plan review required and inspection required. The absence of zoning changes what you can build where; it does not remove the permit, the plan review or the inspection.
There is no citywide answer, by design. Houston's Table R301.2(1) replaces the wind-speed cell with a footnote directing you to enter the property's physical address into the ASCE 7 hazard tool, treat the building as Risk Category II, and attach the printout to the plans for verification. It is an unusual approach and a sensible one across a city of 640 square miles. Anyone who quotes you a single Houston wind number is quoting something the city has deliberately declined to publish.
There is no flat re-roof line in Houston's fee schedule, so we will not invent one. What is published: an administrative fee of $33.56, a minimum permit fee of $91.06 for most Building Code Enforcement permits, and a non-refundable plan review fee of 25% of the estimated building permit fee, with the permit fee itself computed from the valuation tables by construction type and square footage. Most fees rose 1.3910% on 1 January 2026 under the city's CPI policy. We get the real figure and put it on your contract.
Houston's fee schedule carries an investigation fee for unpermitted work of $333.42 minimum or double the fee, whichever is greater. The city also runs a roofing hotline for reporting unpermitted roofing work. On a commercial building the bigger exposure is not the fee — it is a stop on an occupied property with the deck open.
Not in Houston. The Texas Department of Insurance designated catastrophe area includes Harris County only for areas that are east of State Highway 146 and inside the city limits of Seabrook, La Porte, Shoreacres, Pasadena or Morgan's Point. The City of Houston is not one of those five, so no WPI-8 or WPI-8-E certificate regime applies to a Houston re-roof. That is genuinely different from Pearland, part of which sits in Brazoria County and is inside the designated area.
No, and we would rather correct that than let it sit. We searched the city's adopted amendments for sheathing attachment, secondary water barrier, sealed roof deck and enhanced fastening provisions. Houston amends exactly one section of the IRC roofing chapter — the wood shingle and shake provision — and imposes no local sealed-deck or secondary-barrier mandate. Some Gulf jurisdictions do; Houston does not. What does drive enhanced fastening here is the address-specific wind speed.
A great deal, and more than the hail reputation suggests. The record for 2000 through 2025 shows 140 distinct damaging-wind days within fifteen miles of the city center against 85 hail days, with 86 of those wind days carrying a report at 58 mph or more. The strongest measured convective gust is 96.7 mph recorded by the ASOS instrument at Bush Intercontinental on 21 June 2023. One honest caveat: Hurricane Beryl's July 2024 Houston impacts are absent from that database entirely — the local forecast office never entered them — so every 2024 figure understates the year.
Into our roll-off and out of the city. Houston's solid waste rules state that material generated by contractors, with roofing named, must be removed by the contractor, and roofing materials and shingles appear by name on the not-accepted list. Even resident-generated building material is capped at four cubic yards and expressly excludes shingles. If authorized and unauthorized items are mixed, the entire pile may be refused.
Free inspection, honest scope, real warranty. Most service work scheduled within 24–48 hours.
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