HT Strenger Commercial Roof & Deck Drainage
HT Strenger installs, repairs, cleans, and re-pipes roof drains, deck drains, and overflow scuppers on commercial buildings across Lake County and greater Chicagoland. Flat-roof warehouses, big-box retail, medical office buildings, schools, restaurants, and light industrial buildings depend on these drains to remove rain and snowmelt from the roof before it becomes a leak, a structural load, or an insurance claim. When they clog, freeze, or fail at the sump connection, water finds its way into the tenant space.
We inspect from the roof down and from the tenant space up, and we camera the interior riser when the leak is not obvious.
IL Plumbing License #055-013973. Family-owned since 1911.
Why Roof Drains Fail
- Debris. Leaves, cottonwood seeds, roofing gravel, spray-foam residue, and dead insects clog strainer domes and choke the flow path.
- Cracked or missing dome strainers. Once the dome is gone, everything else follows it down the pipe.
- Freeze damage at the drain body or in the horizontal offset just below the roof. A frozen drain during a February thaw is one of the most common causes of an interior water event.
- Failed lead flashing or clamping ring seals. The drain is passing water, but so is the joint between the drain and the roof membrane.
- Undersized drainage for the roof area, especially after an addition. Ponding water on a flat roof is a code problem and a structural problem before it is a leak problem.
- Cast iron piping cracked at the hub below the drain, letting water track down the pipe and out the ceiling.
Pro Tip: Twice-a-year roof drain inspection (spring after leaf-fall wash, and fall after cottonwood season) prevents the majority of interior water events we get called to fix. Put it on the same maintenance calendar as your roof inspection.
Cleaning, Repair, and Re-Piping
Most calls start as cleanings. We clear the strainer, jet the drain body and the horizontal to the vertical stack, camera to confirm the run is clear, and reset a proper dome strainer. When the drain itself has failed we replace the drain body, re-flash the roof membrane in coordination with your roofer, and re-clamp. When cast iron risers below the drain have cracked, we cut back to sound pipe and re-pipe in cast iron or code-approved schedule 40, depending on the application.
Overflow Scuppers and Secondary Drainage
Illinois Plumbing Code requires secondary drainage on any flat roof where a primary drain failure would create a structural load. Overflow scuppers and secondary roof drains are your building’s second chance when the primary is clogged. We service, replace, and add secondary drainage on buildings that were built before code required it. It is cheap insurance against a roof collapse or a full interior flood.
Talk to Us About Your Roof
Call 847-566-0871 or use our contact form to schedule a roof drain inspection, a jet-cleaning, or a repair.
