If you are a building owner, facility mananger or even a home owner with a flat roof that leaks, and you are interested in or got a bid from a roofing contractor to install a new flat roofing system called TPO (Thermo-plastic olefin), this is a must-read article for you, because you will not find this information anywhere else.
Forewords: TPO is a hot-air welded thermo-plastic single-ply roofing membrane produced by numerous manufacturers. TPO was created to be better than EPDM Rubber roofing and cheaper than PVC roofs, while it would still provide all the benefits of hot-air welded seams. It was a good plan, and now TPO membrane covers billions of square feet of roofs and represents an multi-billion dollars roofing market, but there are some problems…
In it’s fairly short life (about 15-16 years) TPO went through at least 2 generations. 1st generation of TPO roofs began to fail in late 1990′s and early 2000′s. Now, some manufacturers are on their 3rd generation (or major reformulation) of their TPO products. At the same time, TPO’s main rival – PVC roofing membrane such as IB Flat Roof, has not changed its formula in over 30 years. To get more insight into which thermoplastic roofing system to choose, I recommend you read our PVC vs. TPO roofing article.
Why you should not get a TPO roof – TPO roof on fire video.
The video clip above shows a brand new TPO roof burning on a roof of a new office building, being built in Salt Lake City, and filmed by the Fireman crew.
Whether you are a customer looking for a new flat roof or a roofing contractor, I recommend that you to do some serious research on TPO before investing in it. This will serve your own benefit.
To start, you may want to check out the WSRCA (Western States Roofing Contractors Association) ”TPO roof study” – http://www.wsrca.com/bookstore/index.htm.
WSRCA’s test roofs in Las Vegas, NV, Anchorage, AK, San Antonio, TX, and Seattle, WA demonstrate the product service life in diverse climates throughout the western United States. All have weathered past the four year mark, and the results are now published.
Problem is that for some reason they pulled off 2007, there is still no 2008 edition and only a 2 year old report from 2006 is available. But here is the “rumor” from trusted sources:
TPO roofs in the above study loose minimum of 1 mil of thickness per year and some TPO’s loose as much as two mil per year (in 10 years that will be 20 mil – imagine that on a 45 mil membrane). Average top ply thickness is 15 mil – some are 12. Once you are down to the scrim, the roof is gone, and the UV will eat the scrim and bottom ply.
Also there are problems with seam failures, premature curing, cracks along the seams, etc. These are TPO’s made in 2001-2002 (second generation) Supposedly there is no 3rd gen. going into production, and I suspect that the reason for the 2007/2008 edition of this book not being available is because manufacturers pressured WSRCA to pull those off. I could swear that I saw an ’07 edition available on sale in January ’09, and now its not even listed.
Aside from the above, most TPO’s and maybe some PVC’s (to cut costs) come with a wicking scrim, so you need to do something about the edge of the weld – that is like welding twice, and there is still lots of roof for error, and once the water get to the scrim, it will delaminate the membrane… I don’t need to explain the consequences.
So, bottom line – do you want your customers to have a 2nd/3rd gen. of repeatedly failing roof technology and put your reputation on the line for a gimmick created by greedy roofing manufacturers who are looking for ways to reduce costs at the expense of quality (putting cheap fillers into membrane to create nominal thickness)? What is the difference between 45 and 60 mil TPO if weathering surface is 12-15 mil? Just thicker bottom play that is made of junk in a first place.
Another thing that amazes me about TPO is the peel-n-stick seams. WHY?… The whole point of thermoplastic roofs (PVC & TPO) is the hot-air welded seam… EPDM rubber roof can be peel and stick… but TPO? All it does, is attracting hacks into thermoplastic roofing market. Those who do not care about quality install, fly-by-night dudes, etc. I mean, if you as a roofing contractor go and spend 10-20 thousand on the hot-air welding equipment you probably won’t disappear tomorrow, as you need to pay that equipment and make some money on top of that. You as a roofing contractor are probably in it for a long run…
Instead of conclusion:
As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the idea of a TPO roof is great. A cheap, naturally cool, long lasting flat roof systems featuring hat-air welded seams is something of an ideal an mark for the roofing industry to strive for. However the “cheap” part in TPO is why all these roof failures occurred and will be happening on a wide scale in near future. TPO’s problem is not the faulty design. In Europe, TPO has been around for decades and is considered to be a very good flat roofing systems.
However, here in the US, roofing manufacturers put the bottom line in their accounting books above product quality and interest of the clients by making their TPO membrane using primarily cheap fillers and low quality wicking scrim, and without proper testing or acquiring UL certifications. In the end, roof owners and to some degree roofing contractors become victims of corporate greed and irresponsible business practices.[PSGallery=1ondfvgxk]
Category: Cool Flat Roofs, Roof installation & repair Comments (16)June 10th, 2009
June 13th, 2009 - 9:18 am
In Florida, I have practiced Roof Consulting for 21 years. I avoided the ill fated original single ply debacle with Hypalon, the CSPE vs. CPE, the 200 permutations of black EPDM seaming, and was reluctant to get into white single plys. Back door approach with clients insisting on TPO forced me to take another look. I simply am old school with total of 35 years experience overall, and do not like the idea of a single ply. Lately, every client thinks TPO is the greatest things since pockets on a shirt. I have very little bad I can say until this article. I only hope that my hesitation was partly due to my diligence in researching the facts, but I still have millions of s.f. of the crap down.
What are we to tell clients about this stuff? What can be done? Is it any one manufacturer? Is anything being done at the mfg level to fix this as far as you know?
Quite disconcerting information.
I would like to be placed on your update list for this and similar topics, can you do that please?
Thanks for being brave and candid. There are not enough people out there to tell the king he has no clothes.
Rich Allen
June 13th, 2009 - 3:46 pm
Hi Rich,
I’ll try to figure out how you can follow the this article and comments.
As far what you should tell your customers – I think article is self explanatory – stay away from TPO. What manufacturers are doing is: My own opinion based on the industry gossip) – they try to threaten WSRCA and I believe the reason for 07/08 reports not being available is because of massive membrane failures across the board.
Think about it – Manufacturers now have billions of sq. ft. of 2nd/3rd gen. TPO on the roofs across US, and they want to handle material failures quietly. They definitely don’t want WSRCA or NRCA telling roofing contractors and building owners that TPO sucks. They quietly release new batches of membrane, hoping “this one will work”.
Don’t forget that First Gen. TPO’s were pulled off in late 90′ and early 2000′s, and since there are so many different types and brands, no one knows what exactly they are getting.
I am not sure about Hypalon, but the only PVC roof failures of any significance that I know of, where those of Trocal, about 20 years ago. Bear in mind that that was a Non-Reinforced PVC that would shutter like glass in a very cold weather, if stepped on. The only reason it was produced, was at the request of US Military for it to be non-reinforced. That product in of course no longer made, Trocal was bought out by Sika (as well as Sarnifil) and I have not heard of any other PVC problems.
It is funny how roofing experts always bring that Trocal incident as about the only bad thing about PVC’s performance on the roof.
Anyway, back to TPO: whether its problems are attributed to just one MFG – I don’t know but apparently most of them are problematic and some are just worse than others. Even if I knew any particular MFG, I could not name them for obvious reasons.
If I get more good info, I’ll post it here.
Leo
June 16th, 2009 - 3:29 pm
Thanks, I appreciate that.
I have been lucky, Florida usually gets everything first. Or no worse than second behind California.
We have failures on a LOT of stuff before others see it due to intense heat and UV.
Do you know of, or have experience with the ELMS material that is soybean based?
I need to drive this one out of the woods with some better news than I have so far.
Any rumors on that would be appreciated.
I worked for Tremco for first 15 of my 35 years, and not all in sales.
Some of the experience was handling failure claims.
I could write a book on what a joke that this matter became internally on how to avoid paying, and even avoid answering the requests for help.
Tremco inherited the BF Goodrich Hypalon system in 1979 and it was a complete mess, not to mention the product was 20 mils thick with a 15 mil (…….drum roll) asbestos backer. Whoooeee. Did that one go over well.
Some scary “chit” in this biz.
I also had a PVC blow-out years ago *in ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA no less, shattered on a hospital roof over their sterile stores, and pharmacy area. That was like a cannon ball dropping on a plate glass. 3″ up to 6+inches of stress relief from the center of the spider web out. People in the hospital were panicked cause they thought from the awful noise that something terrible had happened. *Well, it did.
June 22nd, 2009 - 6:48 pm
I have recently seen several mechanically attached, reinforced Trocal roofs ruined by approximately 1/2 inch hail. All were reported to be 10 – 14 years old.
July 28th, 2009 - 8:45 pm
I have heard from a reliable source that United coatings is developing acrylic coatings with reinforcement at the request of TPO manufacturers (carlisle among others) to head off the quickly coming flood of tpo failures. It appears that this new generation of TPO has as many problems as generations past and they are stress cracking in the hot desert climates at all the welds and accessory boots around pipes and drains and curbs.
I always wondered how these manufacturers could (back in the 80′s) offer a ten year system warranty that only lasted 5 years, re formulate and offer another 10 years which only lasted 6, then come back and offer 20 years when they have never hit 10 yet. Only a roofer would fall for that trick 3 times.
October 28th, 2009 - 7:14 am
Great work!
You couldn’t have said it any better. TPO is garbage and you were dead on with the use of it in Europe. The differences in the European sheets and the “commodity” sheets here in the US are night and day. The TPO roofs in Europe actually cost MORE than PVC.
The likes of the big guys in Firestone and Carlisle are the ones pushing this junk into the marketplace to boost their profits. Check out some documents referring to lawsuits by both Target and Walmart against Carlisle for their faulty TPO roofs. You won’t hear about that in the mainstream as they’ll do anything to keep it quiet but, call on Walmart or Target and see what they’re using now because, it definitely isn’t TPO.
There are FOUR manufacturers of TPO right now in the US and close to 16 sellers. ASTM can’t even keep up with the formulations anymore and have a very hard time trying to standardize it.
Lets also mention the fact that these roofs light up like christmas trees when exposed to fire. There was a huge fire in Salt Lake City recently on a TPO roof that went up in 3 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND7U2U1gIYA
This stuff is going to be a huge headache in a few years and already has been for many business owners. Carlisle just came out with a “new” system and slammed other TPO’s for failing prematurely how about that! They had to incorporate a new coating to make up for it’s inability to combat UV degredation thereby, admitting that they’ve been making a faulty product for 15 years.
Their EPDM sheets have worked well for them and they use that success to push this junk into the market and that is too bad because, architects TRUST their input. It’ll end up biting them in the butt eventually and companies like IB and every other PVC manufacturer will continue to get calls from business owners to replace failed 4-6 year old TPO roofs that the General Contractors VE’d onto the job originally and the architect specified or may not have even specified due to the misinformation for the manufacturers reps.
Here’s another interting article for MRCA and NRCA regarding TPO and EPDM actually failing fire tests.
http://www.mrca.org/files/public/MRCA_NRCA–Fire_testing_of_membrane_roof_systems.pdf
Let’s stop putting this junk on roofs. PLEASE
December 23rd, 2009 - 7:53 am
Leo,
You said it well when you mentioned that the TPO manufacturers are quietly releasing new formulations into the market. Since you can’t name manufacturers by name for liability reasons understandably, allow me to.
If you folks weren’t aware, Carlise recently released a new piece on their Octaguard formula and in their marketing piece go onto show the many failures with TPO sheets. I find it hilarious how they fail to mention their own failures but, I digress. Anyways, in talking to roofing contractors Carlisle released the press memo in October but, the roofers were told by Carlisle that the Octoguard product has been being sold to them since early in the year. Now that is absolutely outlandish and only further reason for Architects and Consultants to STOP specifying TPO. You don’t know what is being manufactured and the formulations are too inconsistent to rely on them.
Single-ply membranes that are meant to be hot-welded at the seams are a fickle thing. The membrane’s chemical make-up must be similar enough to allow for the 2 sheets to weld to one another. If these TPO sheets are constantly changing how are you ever supposed to repair a hole or tear in a membrane when they aren’t the same? It’s reality and it happens all of the time. Talk to any roofing contractor who installs materials other than TPO, a reputable contractor, and they will let you know that they don’t like working with the stuff. It’s too stiff and not pliable enough to work with, it’s very hard to know when you get a good weld on the seam, the have to caulk any cut seams since they are made with cheap wicking scrims, and they don’t repair well at all since the new membranes are not compatible with sheets only 2-3 years old!! Not to mention that they are starting to show signs of failing in as little as 4-6 years when they are promised to last 20. Sure the contractor can blame it on the manufacturer and the product but, at the end of the day, the owner is looking at you like you’re a nit-wit and should’ve known that this product was going to fail and you let them put it on their roof. After all, you’re the expert Mr. Contractor/Consultant/Architect.
The more Consultants I talk to, the more they are staying away from TPO for all of these reasons. I just wish the Architectural community would smarten up and realize this as well although I don’t expect them to since they really aren’t worried about the roof on their projects and usually just pull in a Consultant to help with the roofing specs.
December 24th, 2009 - 3:13 pm
I am not surprised at anything any longer. After 36 years in the roofing biz, the problems keep coming, and the supposed solutions or alternatives are not far behind.
If you were tending towards conspiracy theories, you may think someone (in the new world ROOFING order) was scheming to keep the failures spaced out evenly so there is a constant demand for roof replacement of failed product with the next best thing.
So, everyone is repeating mistakes. How do we as specifiers avoid this pitfall, and is it reasonable to assume that a client with even half a brain is going to accept a hold harmless clause due to material selection (some may call that design), and what can we do to avoid the pending litigation?
In most cases, frankly the client has asked for the TPO, rather than my alternative (and obviously more expensive choice), and in some cases I have alienated clients because of my steadfast insistence on putting a quality specification out to bid. Invariably some hot shot wanting to make a name for himself at the company HQ hears about TPO or reads about it in the Airline’s seat back magazine and hears that it is a green roof, cost less, reflects sunlight so there is an energy rebate from the local utility, etc. ad naseum. How Can you fight city hall? I get my teeth kicked in regularly on most of these points, and then have to roll over a play dead like a possum in the road waiting to become the road kill of this client’s future liability.
Does anyone feel that a “warning” to the client with backup fact sheets would be too alarming?
At least this would make THEM aware, that WE are aware, that the MANUFACTURER’S are aware of inherent problems in the TPO formulations, and that these roofs could be fire hazards, and a very high propensity for premature failure is likely, and this propensity increases over time in its potential rate of failure as it ages, dries out, becomes brittle, shows signs of “welding” failures, wicking of the scrim, and a knowingly poor choice for scrim byt he Manufacturer’s inasmuch as there are higher priced materials that could have avoided this type failure.
Keep up the dialog, I am getting to the point since I will be 64 in less than 2 months, maybe retirement is looking pretty good all of a sudden.
Does anyone feel this is a repeat of the history of EPDM in the first 20-25 years where the seaming changed every few months? Loaded up with Lamp-black as filler and was the disappearing roof at better than 2 mils lost per year? Especially in Florida. But wait. These roofs have manufacturer’s warrantees. That won’t be a problem. Besides, it is much less expensive than that old smelly BUR.
Good luck with that one.
December 30th, 2009 - 9:12 am
Our company has been applying TPO since 12 years. We have warranted jobs on all mayor construction on the island of Curacao and Aruba Dutch Caribbean. Airport terminals Hotels Offices etc. There has been not one case where a call has been made on the warranty as yet. As far as the membrane itself after 10-12 years looks great ad warranty will be extended for another period of 5-10 years. The amount f sun (thus UV) is very high in our climate. All clients agree on the “thermal” value (reflectivity) of the white membrane which results in their electricity bills.
This article begins with the following statement…..”this a must-read article for you, because you will not find this information anywhere else.” I WONDER WHY??
March 2nd, 2010 - 6:57 pm
Do you remember the words Phenolic, Hypalon, PUF, Neoprene, syn slate, IRMA, Insulation delamination, non-reinforced PVC, PIB, APP, to name a few, just read 1985 Second International Symposium on Roofing technology. TPO will be a new word.
March 8th, 2010 - 10:00 am
In this reasonably long diatribe, check out the number of times I use the word COST, and it’s permutations.
In my total career, starting in late 1974 I have been collecting data on roofing, magazine articles, reprints, manufacturer’s literature, and best of all – Manufacturer’s Catalogs (more recently, their CD Roms).
I have well over 100 catalogs, and the number of products and manufacturers who are no longer around, not just merged, which is another category, but their disappearance, along with their failed products is mind boggling. Bill said it well, there are so many products that we remember that have not worked, it would be a week long seminar just to discuss each one and what happened.
Not just the products themselves, but the “ingredients” used have been interesting as well.
I’m sure everyone remembers asbestos and how that worked out. Fact is, while asbestos was a major health issue to many who worked around the friable or free and airborne variety, at NO TIME, on any tear-off roofs did asbestos become substantially airborne to exceed the limitations set and tested on the jobsites. Even when back-pack blowers were used, and tear off machines. Lots of dust, but none that exceeded the minimum permissible levels for health concerns.
So, a good product ingredient was banned, mostly because of the manufacturing side of handling the products in the factory, the threat of litigation, and the industry knee jerk reaction to the “possibility” of someone having problems. The reformulation resulted in higher costs.
I know of no direct correlation of asbestos harming any roofer. If I am wrong, I would like to be proven wrong so I can 1.) apologize for my ignorance, and 2.) become aware of why very few people to this day can name a single incident where asbestos was the cause of problems with people’s health working in the roofing contracting industry.
The next big issue of ingredients is of course the California standards for VOC’s. This forced every company to reformulate their products to eliminate the VOC content from their materials almost overnight, (virtually in the historic time line of roofing, it seemed like it). If there was an alternative that was just as acceptable, just as inexpensive, and just as proven, why did it take legislation to change everything? The obvious answer is cost.
And, because the substitutes (at least at that time), were NOT equal. I am not certain that today they are equal to the formulations that many of us were accustomed to. Health issues again, directly with workers in the contracting industry have not been well documented, if there have been any problems. Maybe long term it could be proven, but the information on this is virtually non-existent.
The manufacturers of roofing products in North America have had various spurts of growth attributed to product permutations, the economy at various times, and the “natural selection process” that economies of scale forced smaller companies to try and compete, unsuccessfully, forcing the retraction, then cyclic re-entry of others. Overall, however, there has been only marginal growth in sheer numbers of “major manufacturers”. Does anyone think there could be any discussion among the big boys about products, trends, and raw materials? Of course not, that is Anti-trust, and no one would dare risk the wrath of the government for profit gains. Silly me for thinking this.
When years ago crude oil was a reasonable constant in origin of supply, vs. the current state of “mixed” supply or blending, the output of roofing materials was much more predictable, and constant in quality.
Today, when various crude sources must be blended, the fact is regardless of the quality control aspects in the labs of these manufacturers, the products have subtle differences chemically from batch to batch. There are only so many variables that can be accounted for in testing due to the technological expertise, and more importantly, the cost of doing finite testing on each source of raw product.
When you put these issues in perspective, we have continually changed all product formulations in every petroleum based material for the last 25-30 or more years. Regularly. So, how does every product remain the same? It doesn’t. Too Costly.
East of the Rockies, currently, most major crude oil supplies used for roofing relies virtually entirely on crude (and Flux) coming from Venezuela. What plans do you suppose are being made to have a back-up source for these supplies if Chavez decides to cut off trade with North America? Or raise prices to become prohibitive. Will we see another round of raw material changes that will subtly affect the entire product lines using this new source?
With Modified Asphalt membranes, we are already experiencing the modifiers having moved from scrap APP literally dug up from landfills before sufficient quantities of these modifiers could be produced. Quality? Who knows? Cost, of course, was very low.
We have seen the variations of SBS suppliers who have used Kraton Rubber crumb finding less expensive alternatives, and the cheapening of prices by varying the quantity of rubber in the manufacturing by changing formulations. To reduce Costs.
And there are so many things we are NOT being told about the actual sourcing of materials it can be a real crap shoot. While the in-house testing, Independent testing, UL, FM, ad nauseum all rely on the product PERFORMANCE, not the formulations, this does not imply quality of materials in-situ after aging will pass the same tests.
What happens later is not something anyone wishes to discuss. Aging in the lab using instruments and controlled calibration can often “predict”, but can not simulate what is being actually done to a product in the field.
All of this commentary is meant to offer food for continued thought that the end product may in fact be something that has not worked well, and has seen many failures, re-birth, re-formulation, and often major changes, but the continuum is that every manufacturer, of every product, has not been totally truthful (not that they are required to), but have played footloose with the consumers by insisting in marketing their materials that “we have not had a problem”, with product (fill in the blank). That is ludicrous and we all know it. There is no product that is immune from product problems.
The manufacturers have too much at risk to admit anything. Too Costly. Their issues if exposed would be corporate suicide. They vigorously defend anything that could be a threat to their product being exposed, and will buy their way out of situations vs. going to the mat with the defense of their product because they know it cannot be done.
The cost of failure, and the cost of litigation, loss of revenues, loss of credibility, and obviously loss of stock value prevent any disclosure of such problems. Too Costly.
It’s easier to blame someone else.
Many additives and fillers used in product formulation are not tested over time. They are not significant enough to be revealed in the typical testing done by the major agencies, but over time can be disastrous.
Ask some chemists and independent testing labs about additives such as fire retardant materials used in cap sheets of MB products. What do you think happens when a roof catches on fire that allows the roof to self extinguish? (a definition of FR or Fire Retardancy). An intumescent additive with controlled temperature reactivity exudes through the product to allow the FR function to kick in. How do they control this temperature reaction? How does it really function if only tested when the roofs are deliberately set on fire, not simply left to see what happens by elevating temperatures gradually?
Can it vary over time? Can internal temperatures on repetitive extremely hot days set these chemicals off to exude, then migrate, and finally outgas to completely change the formulation significantly enough that blistering will not only occur, but flourish?
Does anyone think the manufacturers did not know this could happen? And, if they didn’t, wouldn’t it be known very quickly after that first failure that caused them to know after the fact? When this happens in most consumer products, they issue a recall.
How expensive do you think it would it be to replace roofs due to failing product sold by a major manufacturer of MB roofing all over North America? Millions upon Millions of squares of defective products. All waiting for something to happen. Think of the COSTS.
No one has that big a checkbook, so they hide it. Then they play the blame game. Oh, the felts got wet, or the insulation got wet, or it rained, or the contractor didn’t apply the sheets correctly, or they did not broom the felts, etc. etc. Anything but truthfulness.
Later, when complete refutation of all of their contrived excuses fail, they finally have to “reluctantly” consider that there “could be” something that they as manufacturers “might have had problems with”, and agree to handle “out of court”. That’s why we do not hear about these things. No court information, no exposure by the owners, consultants, or others involved because the settlements require everyone to not disclose these issues. Often requiring everyone to sign a non-disclosure form.
These are not isolated situations. My guess is it is happening every day. We simply are kept in the dark. Why? Because there is too much money at stake. That is the principal behind every “conspiracy” being shot down. Big money can do a lot of things. But admitting their culpability is not one of them.
They had to know.
They knew
But kept on playing the odds.
It’s cheaper to buy problems after protracted deflection and blame, than make any admission of guilt. Just like the car manufacturers knowing a defective product would only cause 10 deaths for every 500,000 cars, it is a risk management decision.
These are the true elements of the process that we will never know. These are the scariest parts of having product failures. These are the parts of the iceberg just below the water line. Failures documented by the “public” are only the worst 2-5%. There are many others just simmering waiting for the next batch of lawyers to defend to the point where finally they agree on spending money to fix those problems of the very few who will go the long distance for resolution to stay out of court.
Today’s mantra in business is “transparency”. Good luck on getting transparency on these issues, it simply costs too much to reveal the facts of the materials and their problems.
Wouldn’t it be great to hear from a “Truthful” manufacturer about these comments?
Costs have been, and will be the driver of products. From inception, to litigation. COSTS are what the entire process is about.
If the consumer would be willing to invest in something of quality, vs. first cost there would be significantly less failures because the products would have higher quality, single sourcing of raw materials, and protracted testing and continual follow-up to ensure a decent product.
So, they hide behind meaningless warranties instead.
The absolute BEST warranty, is NO warranty. Let the Uniform Commercial Code in each state govern how these product failure issues will be handled, and pretty soon the manufacturers will be forced to provide better products. The downside is, they will cost more.
Don’t ever forget, warrantees are developed and written by and in favor of the manufacturers. The Uniform Commercial Code was written to protect the consumer. Check out the terms and limitations in your individual state, and compare the “coverage” of both.
More later.
Keep up the good fight by exposing these manufacturers for what they are. Who is willing to name names? Somebody needs to. Maybe I will. Being sued is not a good thing, but it may be worth it to finally get justice for all of the fraud being perpetrated on the buyers of these problems waiting to happen.
As Specifiers we are already exposing ourselves to terrific degrees of legal retribution, so what is the difference.
One is our choice, one is theirs.
Have a great day in this wacky world of roofing.
April 1st, 2010 - 8:59 am
With all the comment above there are no photographs, description, location, type of membrane i.e. fleecebacked, mil thickness, type of failure, mechanical attachment, fully adhered, urethane foam adhesive, full coverage adhesive, partially adhered, total TPO membrane roof assembly, magnitude of problem.
Is there a real, or only a percieved, problem based on isolated occurences or opinion?
Where are the class action lawsuits?
Ardist Allen
April 11th, 2010 - 8:46 am
Rich,
I have enjoyed reading this blog. I work for a MB manufacturer that does not cut costs to make a buck. We have to compete with the other guys based on performance rather than cost.
Maybe it is our European roots and current connections, but our commitment to quality and our technical department’s conservative nature has us salesmen pulling our hair out sometimes.
I am currently working on a project that CANNOT leak, and has to withstand 167 mph winds. The local consultant that I am working with wants to use our system, but the out of town “Consultant” wants to use TPO. All I can say is that this project is in south Texas, and last year we had at least 60 consecutive days above 100 degrees.
How can I help my consultant battle this Northerner?
April 29th, 2010 - 3:23 pm
TPO class action below Mr. Allen
http://www.lieffcabraser.com/defects/tpo-roofs.php
May 27th, 2010 - 8:38 am
Scott,
Your comment, “I am currently working on a project that CANNOT leak, and has to withstand 167 mph winds. The local consultant that I am working with wants to use our system, but the out of town “Consultant” wants to use TPO. All I can say is that this project is in south Texas, and last year we had at least 60 consecutive days above 100 degrees.”
What system are you recommending for south Texas? I am an asset manager in Oklahoma, right in the center of “tornado” alley. Had huge hail recently, so need to install flat roofs on 2 commercial buildings. A roofing contractor brought in by one of the principals on the project wants to use a 60 mil. TPO system and I am not convinced that is the product that would be best to use.
Thanks, Diane
June 15th, 2010 - 12:27 pm
Hello Diane,
I need to let you know that Scott is a salesmen for a modified bitumen roof manufacturer, and his comment is an attempt to put PVC against TPO and somehow show that Mod. Bit. roofing is better. I am a believer that out of the three, the Mod. Bit. roofs are “not the best”. Yes they are durable, but besides that, the application method of either torching the seams or using cold-application (adhesive) will lead to leaks, and in some cases, fires on the roof. Also such roofs, often will not last more than 15 years without maintenance and repairs.
I do believe that PVC roofs will last the longest with minimal roof maintenance, and will stand up to solar UV radiation and rain / hail, etc. Of course my opinion is subjective, but do understand that we are a contractor – not manufacturer looking to increase sales of the product. We chose PVc roofs after careful consideration of every flat roofing material there is – EPDM Rubber roofing, TPO roofs and Built-up roofing – Modified bitumen, Tar roofs, etc. We have complete freedom to sell and install any roofing system, and yet our choice is PVC roofing – and the manufacturer we chose is IB Roofs.
As far as TPO roofs, after recent warning about TPO Roof problems issued by MRCA – http://www.coolflatroof.com/flat-roofing-blog/tpo-roofing/ – I would be very cautious about using TPO roofing, as apparently they are not very resistant to UV, as well as other issues.
Best of luck.