This metal roof installation was more of an emergency job. In essence – during Hurricane Irene, a large (1500 lbs.) tree fell on the roof of this house in Cumberland, RI, breaking much of the framing and roof sheeting, and leaving a huge hole in the roof, as well as destroying a previous roof that was on the house – Interlock’s aluminum shingles roof, that was installed just a few years prior.

The homeowners – Mary and Rafael were looking a Metal Roofing Contractor to install (replace) the damaged roof with a new Metal Roof. For reasons unknown to me, they decided not to hire the original installer to redo their roof. At the same time they were working with a General Contractor (GC) that was doing other damage repairs (framing / insulation / electrical / plumbing and other interior work) in their house, and we were hired as an independent roofing contractor to do the metal roof.

About the same time, we had just finished our own metal roof in North Attleboro (full review coming soon), and Cumberland being only 5-10 minutes away , was very close for Mary and Rafael to look at our work.

Their General Contractor – Joe, took a drive to our No. Attleboro office, and spoke with us – we then went to see the job, and got the ball rolling.

Emergency roof replacement:

Old metal roof, damaged in hurricane Irene – roof framing repaired, and temporary underlayment installed:

It was essential to do the roof replacement as soon as possible, as the interior work in the house was progressing, but building inspectors would not sign off on the electrical work, and winter was looming (this was in late November), and cold temperature was settling in. At the same time, we dedicated the entire month of December, to last minute emergency roofs, and pushed less urgent roofs back slightly.

With this roof it was a race against time – while we had to take care of other badly leaking roofs – some with water leaking into bedrooms, or one with no roof at all (old Trocal PVC roof that completely shattered), we also needed to finish this roof before Christmas.

Another factor affecting installation timing was the fact that around holidays season, most manufacturers shut down plants, and take a long break. At the same time orders keep piling in, and it takes manufacturers some time to catch up after the holidays, which can easily create delays as long as 4-6 weeks in getting the materials.

In this case we needed to have materials on hand before the holiday season, but the contract was signed after Thanksgiving, which gave us and the manufacturer little time to get everything for the job ready. Fortunately, the materials arrived on Dec. 13, and we could start installing the roof that week.

Roof installation:

On this job, we had to install the roof, while GC was in charge of getting the roof deck ready for new roof to be installed. That included tearing off old metal shingles, and as was discovered later, another layer of asphalt roofing shingles, under the metal roof (while it is acceptable by building code to have two roof layers, it is always a best practice to remove old roofing first – especially when you are installing a lifetime metal roof, and we wonder why original contractor did not remove roof shingles).

We had to help GC with installation of roof underlayment to our standards (especially in valleys) and flashing the chimney. We coordinated a day, when GC’s guys removed old roof shingles, repaired / replaced damaged plywood roof sheeting, and helped the install GAF Deck Armor breathable roofing underlayment.

We began installing new roof the next day. Fortunately this was a walkable roof (relatively low slope), which made installation much simpler than if it was very steep. The most challenging part of this roof was the timing – we had to get everything done fast, and hoped weather would cooperate with us (which it did).

From a technical perspective, the most complicated part was the valleys, but in the bigger scheme of things, it was a straight forward roof installation.

We installed Tamko Steel Shingles Metal Roof in Vermont Blue Color. We also installed about 47 snow guards total – 33 in the front of the house where main entrance door and garage doors are located and another 14 in the back, above rear door.

We also installed ridge ventilation system along roof ridges, and a special order split pipe flashing to waterproof electric conduit, which was sticking out of the roof and electrical wires did not allow us to use regular pipe flashing. This pretty much completed this metal roof installation, and Mary and Rafael had their new roof for the Christmas!

If you are looking for an new metal roof installation in Massachusetts, Connecticut or Rhode Island, fill out our roofing estimate form.

Similar metal shingle roofs installed near Cumberland RI:

Metal Roof in Attleboro, MA

Metal Shingles Roof in North Attleboro, MA (installed in Oct. 2011 – coming soon)

Metal Shingles Roof in Johnston, RI (installed in Sep. 2007 – coming soon)

Roof Portfolio – check out other flat and metal roofing jobs that we installed in MA, CT and RI.

If you are interested in metal roofing but wonder how much a metal roof costs – try our roofing calculator to estimate the cost of your or see our metal roofing prices guide.

This post is actually an email conversation with a customer, regarding Tapered Insulation and our flat roof installation in Cambridge, MA done in the summer of 2010. This email conversation is posted as is with the customer’s permission – the only editing on this post was done to remove any personal information, and spelling . I thought this would be interesting to our readers who are interested in tapered insulation and/or have ponding water problems with their flat roofs.

Here is the original roof video, so you have a better idea about this roof:

Original email question about tapered insulation

Peter
Hello,
We live in Wellesley. We were referred to you by a friend. I was reading your article on flat roof installation and was confused by the calculation of roof pitch/slope on the flat roof you had installed in Cambridge. The page I’m referring to is: http://www.coolflatroof.com/flat-roofing-blog/flat-roof-cambridge-ma/
In the second paragraph you mention that you sloped the roof at a rate of 1/4″ per foot and that the span was 24 feet.

You mention, and I quote:”we started with a new 1/4″ per foot slope tapered insulation system, spanning over 24 feet run, which gave us a 3 inch difference between the highest and lowest points of the roof, and eliminated ponding water.”

If I calculate the run of 24 feet and the slope of 1/4″ per foot, the highest point I come up with is 6 inches not 3 inches… For a 24′ run to rise 3 inches that would equate to 1/8″ per foot and not 1/4″ as you state in your documentation. I was told that 1/8″ per foot isn’t adequate to quickly shed water and snow off a flat roof. Is there something I’m missing?

I would like to get started on a flat roof installation possibly with your company but I would like to understand your calculation before I go ahead with the estimate.
Would you please let me know what I’m missing here?

Thanks

Peter.

Leo:

Hello Peter,

You are correct – we did use 1/8″ tapered insulation on that job – I just checked my calculations. The highest point is in fact 3 inches – not 6. For some reason this did not cross my mind when I wrote the article, as we made the decision to use 1/8″ tapered ISO when we first saw the roof in June and this fact never crossed my mind again. Read the rest of this entry »

Senior project written by Riess Stanley
Nov 4, 2010

With economic strife on the rise, it has now become necessary to seek out ways to save money, as well as to find ways to “stay green”, and to do what you can to help the environment. Unfortunately, accomplishing both at the same time seems to be very difficult. Believe it or not, there is a smart, fairly simple, and very efficient way to succeed in these two areas in a way not often looked upon as a money saver, but rather a necessary and costly project when it doesn’t need to be; the roof. When you really get down to it, the roof is either costing too much, or saving plenty.

First off, if a building with a flat or low-sloped pitch was to have a black tar roof, it would be taking more money than one would realize. In warm weather, the black roof will absorb so much heat that an abundance of energy and money would need to be invested into cooling down the building. Moreover, all that heat beating down on the roof will make it crack, which in turn will cause it to leak once the rainy weather begins. This defeats the entire purpose of a roof. So, what is a low cost alternative for a black tar roof, that can keep the roof cool during summer months and can keep out the rain? The answer; PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) single-ply membrane. Read the rest of this entry »

Metal roofing is an excellent choice for quality-minded homeowners, because a metal roof is virtually the only lifetime roof system that is light-weight, long-lasting, and most of all – affordable. If you compare prices of a metal roof to slate or clay tile prices, you will realize that an average metal roof will cost you only about one third the price of natural slate, while it will look the same or better, and last at least as long.

There are many styles of metal roofs and many choices for roofing materials – your choices range from galvanized steel / aluminum metal roofs, to premium metals such as zinc, copper and stainless steel roofing. You can choose between a “standard” vertical panel (standing seam) metal roof, or a metal roof made to look like either cedar shingles, shakes, natural slate, or flat and barrel tile.

You will also get a wide range of colors to choose from. The result will be such that you will get the look you want with the price you can afford, and the long-lasting performance of metal roofing.

Metal roofing – premium roofing material at down to earth prices:

There is much confusion about the prices of metal roofs, as there is a wide range of metal roof styles and materials to choose form, with some costing a lot more than others. In this metal roofing prices guide, we will show you how much you should expect to pay for different metal roofing systems, and how the choice of metal roofing materials will affect your roofing cost. But before we jump into roof pricing for each type of metal roofs, let me clarify one thing: metal roofs are pricey as compared to asphalt shingles roofs, but keep in mind that metal roof is a lifetime roofing material and so should be compared to its counter-parts in the roofing market – other lifetime roofs, such as natural slate, clay Spanish tiles, concrete tiles, and lately, synthetic slate roofing. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, the MRCA (Midwest Roofing Contractors Association) issued a warning bulletin regarding TPO roof failures caused by the sun’s UV rays. You can read more about it on our original TPO Roofing page, as well as my commentary on this bulletin.

At the same time, major roofing distributors are shamelessly pushing TPO into the market and onto the roofing contractors without much regard for home and building owners. Bear in mind that because of low prices and “same cool roof” and “welded seams” qualities as PVC roofing has, TPO roofing is now the fastest growing commercial roofing product.

Here is a good example – pictures below will show you “manufacturer’s” stand showing a TPO roof designed for residential roofing contractors.

Why residential roofing contractors? Well, the way I was told, these are the roofers who can’t afford to spend $12,000 on hot-air welding equipment, so the roof manufacturer created a system so these guys too could jump on the TPO band-wagon.

(The TPO stand above, is displaying outside corner flashing, inside corner flashing, pipe boot, and drip-edge details. When I asked about the caulking along the seams, i was told it’s not caulking. It’s seam tape )

Here comes the best part! This TPO roof system is put together with … no, not hot air. Seams are primed and a seam tape is used to seal overlaps! But, it gets better – since there is no uncured flashing material in the TPO world, and these “shingle-bangers” don’t have Liesters (hot air welders) nor do they want to buy them, since the cheapest one – a hand welder – is $450 before tax. So, this manufacturer uses white EPDM uncured flashing for all detail work such as inside / outside corners, posts, curbs (skylights, chimneys, roof hatches, HVAC equipment, etc.). EPDM rubber on TPO – really?
Read the rest of this entry »

The term “green” has become very popular during the last decade and consequently overused, misused and abused. Anything and everything can be called “green” today. To make money and to attract environmentally-conscious customers, people will call themselves and their products “green”, even when it is just a blatant lie to confuse uneducated consumers. Being a roofing contractor, I will concentrate on roofing products and services. For example, many asphalt shingles manufacturers now offer “cool” and “green”  shingle products – to me it’s just a shameless tactic to sell the same NOT-GREEN crap that is painted A different color (usually some shade of white). Excuse me, but asphalts shingles are not green, period! TheY are made with asphalt, can’t be recycled and end up in landfills in 10-15 years.

Since the term green is very vague and can be interpreted in many ways, I’ll offer my vision of “green” – a green roofing contractor to be exact, which describes the way I think and try to operate our roofing business. I want to mention that when I say “green roofing contractor”, it has nothing to do with with a roofing contractor installing green roofs or roof-top gardens. To me a contractor installing roof-top vegetation is a highly-specialized landscaping company, but not a roofing contractor (unless they also install the actual flat roofing membrane to waterproof the building).

Quick navigation in this article:
What is a “green” roofing contractor and how one is different from regular roofing companies.
Learn about green benefits of Metal Roofing and IB Flat Roof

What is a “green” roofing contractor?

In my mind a green roofing contractor is a company that works hard to help protect environment and reduce its energy consumption and green-house gas production or carbon footprint. Sure, almost any company will have a carbon-footprint as it’s nearly impossible to be carbon-neutral, but there are many ways to achieve a much lower carbon footprint. Read the rest of this entry »

Replacing an old rubber roof with IB PVC roofing membrane in Lowell, MA.

In the beginning of Dec. 09 we installed a new IB PVC roof in Lowell, MA. This roof replaced an old EPDM rubber roof which was installed by a hack roofing contractor about two years ago, and was failing miserably, due to two factors: poor roofing system design on the part of EPDM roofing, and horrible installation by the roofing contractor. I suspect that this contractor had almost zero knowledge about flat roofing and rubber installation. Before I go into the IB roof installation, I want to talk a bit about the two factors mentioned above that contributed to the roof failure.

The roof actually consisted of two roof sections not connected to each other. One smaller roof in the front of this historic home was about 100 sq. ft. in total, but its shape made using a rubber roof not feasible due to limitations / flaws of rubber roof system design. Another roof section was just over 300 sq. ft. and covered an enclosed porch in the rear of the house. This section had a low slope to it (about 2 in 12 pitch) and a hip roof design. The failure of both front and rear roof sections was the result of bad installation by the roofing contractor and EPDM rubber roof shrinkage, as well as seam adhesive failure.

Rubber roof failure due to EPDM flaws and limitations and faulty installation by a roofing contractor:

When EPDM rubber roofing membrane is installed on a roof connected to a wall of a building, the membrane must be laid down with a flap going up the wall – in essence, the wall flashing and the roof covering must be done with one piece of material to eliminate leaks in the the roof to wall connection. Therefore, the field sheet of roofing membrane is only held down by glue (which happens to break down after 5-7 years). While in some cases this work out fine, very often the rubber shrinks and pulls away from the wall-to-roof connection point. This results in either the detachment of wall flashing, membrane pulling away from the corner of roof to wall connection, or in some rare cases, when the wall flashing is securely attached to the wall, the shrinking rubber roof may pull the wall with it – for example it can pull a brick parapet wall. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’m writing this, the 2009 Solar Decathlon in Washington, DC is nearing its completion. Twenty teams from around the globe are competing to build the best Solar Home, judged in ten different categories, including: architecture, engineering, net metering, living comfort as well as others. This year, Massachusetts – home to some of the  greatest colleges and universities in the world – is represented by Team Boston - the joined efforts of Tufts, Boston Architecture College and a team of volunteers, all with the common goal to create green and sustainable home designs that could be readily available and affordable for actual home buyers and home builders. You can read my 2009 Solar Decathlon Review with pictures and videos I took there during Columbus Day weekend.

Cool Flat Roofs and IB Roof Systems are proud sponsors of Team Boston’s solar home.  We provided the project with IB flat roofing materials (provided by IB Roof Systems) and a professional installation, as well as last minute roof design changes, and modifications to roof penetration placement and drainage setup. Read the rest of this entry »

Rubber roofing (EPDM) is not the best system for flat roofs, but in some instances, it just does not work right off the bet, and when it leaks, repairing such a roof is not even an option. In late July of 2009 we began work on one such roof in Roxbury, MA – a neighborhood of Boston, located 15 minutes from downtown.

The roof was installed by an unqualified roofing contractor who apperanly never installed a rubber roof before, nor did he care about quality at all, which you can judge for yourself from the photographs of the roof that we’ve provided. As you will be able to see, this particular roof, though small, required a lot of detail work, which is the defining factor of weather this roof will leak or not. The roofer that installed the EPDM rubber on this roof, completely skipped the flashing part, choosing to instead caulk the corners with rubber lap sealants, and in some cases used the sealant to adhere membrane seams. As a result, most seams – even those that were glued together with rubber glue, partially or completely came apart.

In addition to a generally horrible roof installation practice used by the contractor, the home owner – Jim  - was very concerned about insulation screws being loose under the rubber roof and in some places penetrating the roof, creating more leaks. Despite all the corner cutting and improper installation of the rubber roof, Jim had one advantage that kept his house more or less watertight, and without major roof leaks. The roof was built with a slight slope, which diverted all the water toward the wall drain, while parapet walls kept the water from spilling over the roof edges.

Just as a side note, this house used to be a part of a larger building, which was partially demolished at some point in time. Its current back wall used to be a separation firewall between different sections of the building. You can easily figure out by looking at the brick on the front and back of the house. This brings up a mystery which I cannot solve: The through-wall drain is located in the back of the house where the old separation wall is now. Therefore, back when the house was bigger, all the water would flow to the adjacent section of the roof. Still it had to drain somewhere, otherwise the house would be completely flooded, and a roof could actually collapse under all that weight. I suppose there were through-roof drains which were buried / removed during one of the re-roofs and a through-wall drain was created when the rear part of the building was removed. I will come back to this topic later on, when I’ll discuss the parapet walls on this house. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a project profile of a flat roofing system installed over a sun-room roof in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The roof system was planned in such a way that a premium wooden deck would be installed over it, and the long-lasting water-tightness was the most important aspect, while at the the same time aesthetics were also important.

Waterproofing a flat roof deck:

Wellesley is known for its beautiful mansions and only the best building products (such as an IB Flat roof) make their way into these homes. Having a backyard deck is a great addition to the coziness of any home, and very often such decks are built over a sun room, garage, or other living space. Therefore, having such deck completely watertight is of utmost importance. If this flat roof deck leaks, it would be very difficult to trace this leak, since a wooden deck siting on slippers over the waterproofing layer is usually built as one piece, and it would require a complete dis-assembly of the deck to find and fix the roof leak.

Railing systems on flat roof decks:

Each deck must have a railing system. For aesthetic and structural reasons, it is best to install the railing posts through the roof and tie them into roof rafters, rather than attach them to the outside perimeter of the deck. However, to make these through the roof posts watertight using conventional flat roofing systems such as rubber roof, is nearly impossible in the long run.

Why IB Roof is the perfect waterproofing system for flat roof decks:

Because of such high demands for the roofing material to be watertight and long lasting, IB Flat Roof was chosen as the product of choice for this high end residential home in a secluded neighborhood of Wellesley, MA. While this home was going through a complete renovation, a large addition was built in the rear of the house including a beautiful sun roof, and a beautiful premium wooden deck would be built on top of an 80-mil commercial grade PVC roofing membrane. Read the rest of this entry »