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.

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

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/defects/tpo-roofs.php

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?

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.

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??

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.

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.