PAUL CADENA · ESTIMATING & OPS
Paul Cadena · North Star Roofing Systems LLC
I lead commercial roofing estimating and business operations at North Star Roofing Systems LLC — building takeoffs, scopes, and budgets that hold up once the trucks roll and the membrane comes off the trailer.
A good commercial roofing estimate isn't a spreadsheet exercise — it's a translation. You're taking a stack of architectural drawings, a walk on a hot deck, a tear-off sample, a manufacturer spec, and a crew's real cycle time, and turning all of it into a number a building owner can plan around and a foreman can actually build to.
That's the work I focus on at North Star Roofing Systems LLC. I think about commercial roofs as systems — deck, insulation, cover board, membrane, flashings, terminations, drainage, and the maintenance plan that keeps it warrantable. When the takeoff respects how those layers behave together, change orders shrink and warranty calls get rare.
I work primarily on flat and low-slope roofs across Indiana and the Chicago area — distribution, light industrial, retail, multi-tenant, and institutional buildings. The job mix is varied, but the discipline is the same: measure honestly, scope completely, and price what you can defend in front of an owner, an architect, and a roofer at the same table.
Membrane, insulation, cover board, fasteners, flashings, edge metal, drains, walk pad — line by line, with waste factors that match the field.
TPO, EPDM, modified bitumen, and recover vs. tear-off decisions matched to building use, deck, code, and warranty length.
Clear scopes that name the system, the manufacturer warranty, the flashing details, and what is intentionally not included.
Pricing tied to real labor cycle times, current material costs, and a schedule that accounts for weather windows and lead times.
Roof walks, core cuts, drainage checks, and photo-documented condition reports that justify the recommendation.
Plain-English summaries for property managers and owners who need to understand the bid, not just sign it.
A small library of pieces I keep returning to in conversations with property managers and first-time commercial owners. No jargon for jargon's sake.
A plain-spoken breakdown of how larger roofing programs can structure bidding, labor pricing, and scale across multiple states. Useful context for owners, estimators, and anyone comparing commercial roofing proposals.
Why union roofing companies win big jobs and tight bids, and what smaller contractors can learn from their structure.
A short practical roofing note for owners, estimators, and people trying to understand scope before price.
A short Google-profile style roofing clip for visibility, credibility, and local search presence.
Planning, documentation, and roof condition all matter before a commercial roofing decision is made.
Safety, access, setup, and trained crews should be part of the plan before work starts.
Flat-roof decisions should start with inspection, real options, and the right system for the building.
Real leadership is not about managing blame. It is about owning results, accepting consequences, and doing the work required to build something that lasts.
In an emergency, the first job is to stop the damage. The real measure of professionalism is coming back, completing the repair properly, and standing behind the final result.
Headlines move fast and context gets left behind. A closer look at what the media left out — and why the full story matters before drawing conclusions about the work and the people doing it.
Both are workhorse single-ply membranes. The real question isn't which is "better" — it's which behaves better on your deck, in your climate, under your maintenance plan. A walk-through of how I weigh the trade-offs on Indiana and Chicago-area projects.
Read the field note
What the photos mean, why core samples matter, and the three sentences that tell you whether you're looking at a recover candidate or a tear-off.
Read the field note
Most owners ask about price first. The answer is usually hiding in moisture content, deck condition, code triggers, warranty needs, and how long you plan to hold the building.
Read the field note
If three roofers send three bids that "look the same," the scopes are doing a bad job. Here's the short list of things every line item should make explicit.
Read the field note
Tapered insulation, crickets, scupper sizing, secondary drainage. The unglamorous geometry that decides whether a roof leaks at year three or year twenty.
Read the field noteNotes I'd pin above my desk. Some are about roofing. Most are about how to run a project, a crew, and a small company without burning out the people doing the work.
Spec sheets and Google Earth lie. Drains lie too. Standing water, soft spots, parapet condition, deck movement — these are signal that change a number by a lot. Boots on the membrane is cheap insurance.
Owners don't argue over the part of the roof you described clearly. They argue over the part you skipped. A boring, exhaustive scope prevents 80% of the change-order conversations that go sideways.
How a project closes — paid, debriefed, restocked — sets the tone for the next one. Estimating is upstream of culture; if the bid was honest, the close goes easy.
If a competitor's price is 8% lower, it's probably an apples-to-apples mistake on someone's takeoff. If it's 25% lower, somebody is missing scope, missing flashings, missing warranty, or banking on a change order to make it whole. Know which one you are.
Before-photos with timestamps protect everybody — owner, GC, roofer. They're also the cheapest education tool a junior estimator can build.
Most commercial roofing work comes back through people you treated fairly years ago. Property managers move buildings. Owners build a second one. Architects switch firms. Honest work is a long game; that's the point.
Outside of work, most of my best thinking happens on my black 2021 Street Glide. There's a particular kind of stillness on a midwestern two-lane at sunset — corn on both sides, an open sky, no notifications — that you can't get any other way.
I ride for the same reason I like commercial roofing: it's honest. The road tells you the truth about the bike. The bike tells you the truth about how you're paying attention. There's no faking it, and there's no shortcut. A long ride is a kind of audit on yourself.
A few hundred miles out and back through Indiana farm country, a stop for coffee, a slow walk around the bike. I come home with a quieter head and, usually, an idea I needed.
“The roof, the road, and the run of a small business all reward the same thing — paying attention to the boring stuff long enough that nothing breaks.”
Whether you're a property manager weighing recover vs. tear-off, an owner building your first commercial property, or a GC trying to get a credible roofing number on a tight deadline — I'm happy to talk it through.
The fastest way to reach me is email. Tell me a little about the building, the deck if you know it, the square footage, and what's prompting the call. I'll come back with what I'd want to know next, what I'd recommend looking at on the roof, and whether North Star Roofing Systems LLC is the right fit.