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Up here the snow stacks up at the parapets, the roof steps and around your units, so that's where we start. Book it in the fall and the findings land on your desk in writing while there's still time to act on them.
Est. 1977 · 50 years on flat roofs alone | ★ 4.8 on Google | Licensed, insured, WSIB covered | Free fall inspection
Ninety Minutes North Is a Different Winter
Most GTA roofing companies will quote a building up here using the same assumptions they use in Mississauga. The numbers say they shouldn't.
Barrie averages around 223 centimetres of snow a year. Toronto averages around 121. That is not a slightly worse winter — it is close to double, spread across roughly 45 days a year when snow actually falls. Keep going toward Georgian Bay and the gradient gets steeper still; Midland and Owen Sound are higher again. This is the snowbelt, and the city sits in it.
The part that matters structurally is the design figure rather than the snowfall total. The ground snow load used to design buildings here is substantially higher than Toronto's — on the published climatic data, roughly three times as much. A building up here is engineered to carry a fundamentally different load from an identical building on the 401.
Barrie itself is growing into that. The City's plan looks toward 298,000 residents and 150,000 jobs by 2051, with employment land concentrated along the Highway 400 corridor and priority sectors including automotive, defence and advanced manufacturing — Honda of Canada Manufacturing, Innovative Automation and Prodomax among the names.
New buildings, big roofs, and a snow load most southern contractors never think about.
Who comes up the 400 when you call
1977 · Brian Sharp starts Crown. Flat roofs only, ever since.
4.8 · Our rating on Google
0 · Subcontracted crews on a Crown roof
Newmarket · Oct 2024, our nearest posted job. No Barrie job yet.
We'd rather earn the first Barrie entry in our gallery than pretend we already have it. What you get in the meantime is a firm that's done this one trade for fifty years, rated 4.8 by the people who hired us, with every roofer on our own payroll.
Snow Does Not Lie Flat on a Flat Roof
Here is the misunderstanding that costs buildings up here money: people picture snow load as a blanket — so many centimetres, evenly spread, a number you could work out with a ruler.
Wind does not allow that. Snow gets moved across a roof and deposited wherever the air slows down, which means it piles deep in some places and scours nearly bare in others. The load on a flat membrane is lumpy, and the lumps are exactly where the structure is least able to shrug them off.
Building codes account for this explicitly. The design snow load is not simply the ground figure — it is the ground figure adjusted by a set of factors, one of which is an accumulation factor that exists specifically to describe drifting. The code sets out the cases where drift has to be calculated, and they are not obscure: a surface at a different level from the one next to it, the area against a parapet, and the ground around obstructions and projections on the roof. The accumulation allowance can run up to around five times the basic factor. Five times.
So think about where those conditions exist on your building. Against every parapet. At every change in roof height, which on a plant with an office block attached is a long line. Around every rooftop unit, every mechanical screen, every stair bulkhead. Behind anything tall enough to slow wind down.
That is the map of where the roof carries its real load, and it is nothing like uniform — which is worth holding next to what that load actually sits on.
Three practical consequences follow. First, drifted areas are where structural problems start, so they are where attention needs to go — not the middle of the field. Second, anything added up there changes the drift pattern: put a new screen or a bank of units on a roof and you have created a new drift trap that the original design never contemplated. That is a genuine issue on buildings that have had mechanical added over the years, which is most of them.
Third, and most immediately: the melt. Snow that has drifted deep against a parapet melts more slowly than the rest, and the water it releases runs toward drains that may themselves be frozen or buried. A blocked drain in February is exactly the same problem as a blocked drain in July, except the load sitting on top of it is heavier and nobody is up there to see it. Getting a roof ready for snow is mostly about making sure that water has somewhere to go when it finally turns back into water.
Where We Look on a Barrie Roof, and When
The best time to assess a Barrie building is autumn, and the second best is right now.
We start with the drift locations rather than the field — parapets, roof steps, the upwind and downwind sides of every rooftop unit and screen. What we are looking at is the condition of the membrane and flashings in those areas, because they take both the load and the longest-lasting snow cover, and because base flashings at a parapet that spends four months under a drift age differently from the ones on the same building's south elevation.
Then drainage, thoroughly, because winter punishes it. Drains clear, sumps clear, and — the one that gets missed — overflow provision present and not blocked. A drain that will be under half a metre of drifted snow in January needs to be working in November.
Then the things that become problems only in the cold. Loose or lifted flashings that will let meltwater track sideways under a snow cover. Splits that are invisible in August and open when the membrane contracts. Sealant at transitions that has gone hard.
And where there is any history of ponding, we want to know about it before winter rather than after, because a pond that freezes is a load that does not drain away, and will not until spring.
Where there is reason to think moisture has already got into the assembly, a scan before the freeze settles it — wet boards in November are wet boards with four months to do damage, and it is far better to know.
None of this is elaborate. A proper look each spring and fall is the whole programme, and in this climate it is the difference between a roof that reaches its design life and one that doesn't.
The Crown Drift-Map Inspection
A fall visit up here follows the same four steps every time, in this order. Nothing fancy about it (that's sort of the point).
1. Walk the drift lines before the field
Parapets, roof steps, both sides of every unit and screen. That's where your snow ends up, so the membrane and base flashings there get our attention first.
2. Make sure the meltwater can leave
Drains and sumps cleared and checked, overflow provision found and confirmed open. If we think the boards are already wet, an infrared scan settles it.
3. Hand you a written report
Photos of the drift zones, the drains and anything we didn't like, written up after the visit so nobody's relying on memory in February.
4. Give you a straight winter answer
Fine for another season, stabilise it now, or plan a spring replacement. If it's replacement, we'll tell you whether PVC, SBS or built-up suits your load and your foot traffic.
What We Put on a Roof This Far North
Specification for a building this far north starts from the load, and the load is not Toronto's.
That sounds obvious and it is routinely got wrong, usually by a southern contractor carrying assumptions north with them. The structural side belongs to your engineer, not to us — but a roofer who does not know that the design snow load here is in a different bracket is a roofer who will make decisions on your building that do not fit it, particularly around anything added to the roof.
On the membrane itself, cold is hard on materials and on installation both. Membranes contract in cold and the stress concentrates at terminations and transitions, which is precisely where drift also sits. So detailing at parapets, curbs and roof steps matters more here than it does in the GTA, and it is worth more of the budget.
The systems we install are the same three everywhere: PVC single-ply, with material warranties up to twenty years; SBS modified bitumen, whose two torch-welded plies give a genuinely redundant assembly that we favour where a roof takes a hard winter and heavy service traffic; and hot-asphalt built-up roofing, backed by our fifteen-year workmanship warranty. We service TPO and EPDM on buildings that have them but install neither. Every replacement is a tear-off to deck.
One local point on scheduling. Roofing work is weather-dependent everywhere and more so here, and the honest position is that a tear-off in deep winter is a bad idea on any building where it can be avoided. If your roof will not last another winter, say so early — the difference between planning a spring replacement in October and arranging an emergency one in February is substantial, in both cost and quality.
And if the roof simply has to hold one more season, that is a legitimate answer too. We would rather stabilise it properly through the winter and do the job right in the spring.
Flat Roofing Repairs, Replacement and TPO Roofing
Most of what a building this far north needs is not a new assembly. It is repair work, done in the right order and finished before the weather turns.
A flat roofing repair here is aimed differently from one in the GTA. The failures cluster where the drift sits, so the first place we open up is the base flashing at a parapet or a step rather than the middle of the field. Splits that opened when the membrane contracted, terminations that have lifted, sealant at a transition that has gone hard and let meltwater track sideways underneath a snow cover — those are the jobs, and they are cheap next to the alternative.
Replacement is the honest answer when the field itself has gone, when the same detail has been rebuilt three winters running, or when the boards under a chronic drift have been wet long enough to stop insulating. We will tell you which of those you have and put both numbers on the same page, with the survey attached.
On materials, the short answer is that TPO roofing and rubber membranes are things we look after rather than things we lay. Crown installs PVC single-ply, two-ply SBS systems and hot-applied asphalt, and on a flat roofing job that takes a real winter the SBS assembly is very often the one we argue for, because redundancy matters more when the detail is under snow for four months and nobody can see it.
What ties all of it together is timing. Flat roofing in Ontario has a season, and the useful conversation happens in September rather than in February. Contact us before the snow rather than after it and the same work costs less and comes out better.
Flat Roofing Contractors, and What We Don't Do
Worth stating the boundaries, because the roofing contractors serving this corridor range from two-van residential outfits to national brokers, and we are neither.
Crown is a commercial and institutional flat roofing company. Survey and infrared scanning, repair, planned maintenance, tear-off and full replacement, and new work alongside a general contractor. Plants, warehouses, schools, clinics and the light manufacturing along the 400. Low-slope assemblies only.
What we do not take on: houses, shingles, siding, gutter and downspout work, and skylight supply. Metal roofing and cladding are not our trade either, although flashings and sheet metal details that form part of a flat roof are. We do not sell coatings as a substitute for fixing something, and we do not price a job we have not been on.
There are no subcontracted crews. The people on your building are Crown employees carrying our Ontario coverage, and the same crew comes back for the inspections. On a site ninety minutes from our yard, that continuity is the thing that makes the relationship work: you are not getting whichever local outfit had a gap that week.
The trade-off is that we are specialists rather than a general trade, and if your property needs four things done we are one of four numbers. What you get in exchange is a firm that has done nothing but flat roofing since 1977 and that knows the load up here is not the load in Toronto.
Before you call: two fair questions
Is a Toronto firm really worth the drive?
For an assessment or a planned job, the drive is our problem, not yours. Where distance genuinely matters is a mid-storm emergency, and we'd rather you heard that from us now. It's the best argument there is for having us up in October.
What does it cost us just to find out?
Nothing for the spring or fall inspection. If work comes out of it, you get a line-item quote. And if the roof can honestly be left alone another winter, the report will say so.
Where Our Nearest Work Is, and Why We're Saying So
Plainly: we do not have a completed Barrie job in our gallery.
The closest posted work is Newmarket, from October 2024 — up Highway 400 from here, same climate zone at the southern end of it, the same building types. Our nearest completed work is all listed by city and month with photographs taken on the roof.
We would rather tell you that than run a stock photograph of a snowy roof and a line about proudly serving Barrie since 1977.
The company since 1977 is real. Brian Sharp founded it; Joe Ferrier runs it; fifty years of commercial and industrial flat roofs and nothing else, with our own crews rather than subcontracted labour.
What we would say for a Barrie building is this: ask whoever quotes your roof what the design snow load is here compared with Toronto, and whether they have allowed for drift against your parapets and around your rooftop units. It is a fair question and the answer will tell you quickly whether they have worked this far north or are simply willing to drive here.
Reviews From Customers
Our business in Aurora had several leaks in the roof to our shop. Crown Roofing was amazing to deal with. Their worker Arvin was such a great guy and was really thorough in explaining where all the leaks were. He took photos to show us where the leaks were coming from. They also found a forth leak and fixed it in good faith without billing us.
Amanda Helps · Google review
I waited for all seasons before giving this review as I wanted to give a transparent and accurate review. I received multiple quotes and decided to use them to replace the roof on our building.
Susan Mahabir · Google review
Rated 4.8 on Google.
Snow Removal, Drifts, Permits and Winter Call-Outs
Should we be removing snow from the building?
Sometimes, and it is worth deciding in advance rather than in a panic. Roofs are designed to carry snow, so routine removal after every storm is usually unnecessary and carries its own risk — the most common way a membrane gets badly damaged in winter is somebody attacking a drift with a metal shovel or an ice chipper. Where removal is genuinely warranted is in the drifted areas rather than across the whole roof: against parapets, at roof steps, and around rooftop units, where the accumulated load is a multiple of what the open field carries. If you are going to do it, keep tools plastic, leave a layer of snow on the membrane rather than scraping to the surface, and never let anyone work alone on a roof in winter. If you are unsure whether the load is a problem, that is a question for a structural engineer, and we will say so rather than guess.
We're adding rooftop units. Does that affect snow?
Yes, and it is one of the more overlooked consequences of rooftop work. Anything you put on a roof interrupts the wind, and snow accumulates where the wind slows — so a new unit, screen or enclosure creates a drift pattern around itself that the original roof design never accounted for. The same applies to a new mechanical screen or even a tall parapet extension. The load implications are a structural question for your engineer, but from the roofing side it changes where we expect wear, where we detail more carefully, and where we would want to look during inspections. The time to raise it is while the mechanical layout is still on paper.
Do we need a permit to re-roof a commercial building in Barrie?
Assume so until it is confirmed. The City's published roofing exemption — re-shingling a roof provided there is no increase in the weight of the roofing material — appears on the residential permits page, among projects described as common residential work, and the City notes those lists are not exhaustive. The industrial, commercial and institutional permits page publishes no roofing exemption at all. The weight condition is the interesting part for a commercial re-roof, because adding insulation or changing to a heavier assembly is exactly a weight question, and a jurisdiction with this snow load has good reason to care about it. Roof alterations such as adding skylights or solar panels do require a permit. We check your scope with the City before quoting and file through the City's permit portal where needed.
Do you actually come to Barrie, or is it just listed on the website?
We come, and we would rather set the expectation honestly than overpromise. Barrie is about ninety minutes from our yard in Etobicoke, and that distance is fine for assessments, planned work and scheduled replacement — it is what our crews do. For a genuine emergency in the middle of a storm, be realistic with any GTA-based contractor about response time, including us: you can call the emergency line at any hour and we will respond, but ninety minutes of highway in a snowstorm is ninety minutes of highway. Which is the real argument for the autumn inspection. In this climate the way to avoid needing an emergency call in February is to have somebody on the roof in October.
Get It Looked At Before the Snow Sits On It
If your building is on the 400 corridor and nobody has been on the roof since spring, autumn is the moment — drains cleared, drift areas checked, flashings sound before four months of snow load settles against every parapet you own.
Call (416) 744-7788 or email info@crownroofing.ca. We will come up, walk the drift areas and the drainage, scan anything we are unsure about, and tell you honestly whether it will comfortably see out the winter.
Contact us early rather than late. The commercial roofing season in this part of Ontario is shorter than most owners plan for, and a September survey buys you options that a February emergency does not. If the honest answer is that the roof holds one more winter, we will say so and stabilise it properly; if it does not, you have time to budget a spring job rather than pay winter rates for a rushed one.
We work the whole 400 corridor — Barrie, Innisfil, Bradford and up toward Orillia — on plants, warehouses, schools and clinics. Membrane repairs, planned maintenance, drainage work before the freeze, water damage investigation after it, and full replacement when the field has genuinely gone. Same crew on all of it, and the same phone number at three in the morning as at three in the afternoon.
Two things are worth asking any commercial roofing firm bidding a building up here, and they take thirty seconds. What is the design snow load in this municipality against Toronto's, and where on this building does the code say drift has to be calculated? A firm that works this corridor answers both without looking anything up, and will show you on your own drawing where the load actually lands. A firm that is simply willing to make the drive usually cannot, and on a building carrying a real winter load that difference shows up in the detailing long before it shows up in the price.
If you would rather start with a second opinion than a survey, contact us with whatever you have — a price from somebody else, photographs of water staining on a ceiling, or just the year the roofing went on. We will tell you what it suggests and whether it is worth anyone coming out. Plenty of commercial buildings up here are in better shape than their owners think, and a short conversation is a cheaper way to find that out than a callout. Most of our commercial work up the 400 corridor starts exactly that way.
One closing note on what the winter actually does to a membrane, because it is not only load. Water is the mechanism in every case — meltwater tracking sideways under a snow cover and finding a lifted termination, water freezing in a split and opening it wider each cycle, water sitting in a sump that cannot drain because the sump is buried. Damage from any of those is cheap to fix in October and expensive to fix in March. The roofing systems we install are chosen with that in mind, and so is the order we do the work in. Where it is not good news, you will at least have the autumn to plan around it rather than the storm to react to, and on a commercial building that is most of the difference between a controlled cost and an uncontrolled one.
Crown Industrial Roofing · 227 Queens Plate Dr Unit #3, Etobicoke, ON M9W 6Z7
Before anyone sets foot on your roof
✓ Spring and fall inspections are free. Up here, the fall one is the one to book.
✓ Licensed, WSIB covered, and insured for comprehensive general liability.
✓ Crews holding current safety certification; ask for the certificates and we'll send them.
✓ Any new roof we put on comes with manufacturer-backed warranties on materials and a workmanship warranty of up to 15 years from us.