A replacement bid in Coeur d'Alene, ID lives or dies on snow, not on the membrane brand. The City of Coeur d'Alene design sheet carries a 60 psf ground snow load and marks weathering as severe, so the deck, the insulation and the drainage have to be priced for a roof that holds winter for months. We tear off, inspect the deck, and put back a system sized to that number. You get a base scope and a list of alternates. You decide what stays.
Wet insulation, rusted fasteners and a soft deck edge do not show on drawings. So the bid carries unit prices for those items before the first panel comes off, and the change order is a number you already agreed to.
The Call: Replace or Keep Patching
Replacement is the right call when the repair spend is chasing the same failures. Seams open again after a patch. Insulation tests wet across more than a fraction of the field. Flashings are cracked at every curb. At that point each patch buys a few months and a new invoice, while the wet insulation underneath keeps getting heavier and keeps losing its R-value.
Staying with repairs is the better call when the membrane is sound and the trouble sits in two or three details. We say so. A hands-on roof inspection with core cuts settles it in a day, and the findings go into a written scope you can hand to an owner or a lender. If the roof is dry in the field and tired only at the edges, a planned repair costs a fraction of a tear-off and keeps the schedule open.
What It Costs: The Four Lines That Move the Bid
Price moves on four lines. First is the deck: steel, wood or tilt-up concrete, and how much of it is wet or corroded. Second is insulation thickness, because the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code that Idaho enforces statewide sets the R-value you build back to when the roof comes off to the deck. Third is drainage, meaning new drains, sumps, scuppers and tapered insulation to move water off a roof that will carry snow. Fourth is edge metal and wind design.
Everything else is labor and access. A flat tilt-up roof with open access and no rooftop units prices differently from a roof with a dozen curbs, a kitchen exhaust and a tenant that cannot lose power. We break these out so a general contractor can compare them against the allowance in the owner's budget instead of arguing about a single lump sum.
What the City Sheet Says: Snow, Wind and Ice
The sheet lists a 60 psf ground snow load, a 115 mph design wind speed, a 24 inch frost line and ice barrier underlayment as required. Each one lands on a replacement scope. The snow load drives the structural check and the drift pockets behind every parapet and rooftop unit. The wind speed drives perimeter and corner fastening. The ice barrier requirement matters most on sloped metal and steep-slope sections tied into a low-slope roof, where meltwater refreezes at the eave.
Roof snow is heavier than most people guess. The city's own guidance puts saturated snow at roughly 20 pounds per cubic foot, and its moisture content runs from about 1 percent to 33 percent. Twenty inches of wet snow on a flat roof is a real load. When we replace a roof, we look at where that load gathers and we tell the structural engineer what we found.
Idaho adopted the 2018 International Building Code statewide, and Coeur d'Alene submittals are reviewed against the city's published criteria. We carry the permit and the submittal as a separate line so the schedule shows when review starts.
Where Old Roofs Fail First: Edges, Drains and Penetrations
Look at any aging roof in the Rathdrum Prairie and the same three places are open. Edges lift first, because wind finds them and metal flashing expands and contracts through a wide temperature swing. Coeur d'Alene sees a July mean near 70 F, a January mean near 31 F and a record low of minus 30 F, which is a lot of movement for a sealant joint.
Drains go next. A clogged sump holds water against the membrane, and in winter that water freezes and stretches the seams. Penetrations come third. Every pipe boot and curb is a seam waiting for movement. On a replacement we rebuild all three, not just the field.
System Choice: Match the Roof to the Building
A tilt-up warehouse like the 50,000 square foot, multi-tenant building in Riverbend Commerce Park wants a fully adhered or mechanically attached single-ply with a heavy perimeter. A hospital campus like Kootenai Health, the largest employer in Kootenai County, may call for a redundant system, because a leak over occupied space is a bigger event than a leak over racking. A gabled office in Hayden might be better served by standing seam metal that sheds snow in a controlled way.
We price the likely two and show the difference in installed cost, service life and snow behavior, so the owner chooses with numbers on the table.
Schedule: The Snow Window Is Short
The workable season for tear-off is shorter here than the calendar suggests. Post Falls averages about 59 inches of snow a year, and Silver Valley towns east along I-90 see more. A roof opened in late fall is a roof exposed to the first storm. We sequence the work in dry-in sections, so no area stays open overnight, and we hold a clear hold point at each completed section for your inspector.
Long-lead materials, crane time for tilt-up and metal decks, and any tenant shutdown all compete for the same few months. On an occupied building, our approach to occupied building reroofing sets the noise windows and the access paths before the first day on site.
Closeout: Punch, Photos and Paperwork
At closeout you get photographs of the deck, the insulation and each termination before it was covered, along with the walk-through list. If you are planning across several buildings, a written capital plan for your roofs turns one replacement into a sequence the budget can carry.
Send the plans, the existing roof section if you have it, and the target dry-in window. For work in Post Falls, Hayden and the rest of Kootenai County, we will return a base scope, the alternates and the change-order triggers on separate lines.
Commercial Roofing Questions
How do I know the deck is good before we commit?
We cut cores and probe the deck during the inspection, then carry a unit price for replacing bad deck, per sheet or per linear foot, in the bid. You approve the number before work starts, so a soft spot found at tear-off is a line item, not a surprise.
Can we recover instead and skip the tear-off?
Sometimes. A recover works only when the existing insulation is dry and the deck is sound. Moisture is the deciding factor, so a survey comes first. Where code and conditions allow a roof recover, it saves the disposal and the downtime.
What does ice barrier underlayment change in a low-slope scope?
Very little in the field of a flat roof. It matters where a steep-slope or metal eave ties into the membrane, since meltwater refreezes there. We list it as its own line so the GC can see which areas carry it.
Will a new roof need more insulation than the old one?
Often yes. Idaho enforces the 2018 energy code, and tearing off to the deck usually means building back to the current R-value. We price the added thickness as an alternate when the existing assembly was thinner, along with the tapered layers that fix ponding.
Who handles permits and the city submittal?
We prepare the roof portion of the submittal against the City of Coeur d'Alene design criteria and carry the permit as a line item. The review period goes on your schedule next to the material lead times.
What happens if snow arrives mid-project?
Each section is dried in before we leave it, so a storm hits a finished tie-in, not an open deck. We stop work when conditions make the seams unreliable, and the schedule shows weather days separately from working days.