Last week, Boston was a host to hordes of roofing sales people, roof manufacturers’ reps and local roofing contractor from all aver Massachusetts and New England. It was the NERCA (North East Roofing Contractors Association) annual roofing convention, where most roofing materials, tools and equipment manufacturers were present, promoting their new products and services.

After being to a few of these shows already, the don’t get any more exciting, but it’s always nice that NERCA sets up up open bars with semi-decent wine, and cheese / crackers / fresh veggies & berries tables. I think for roof sales professionals, these roofing conventions have become a boring necessity as all they do is schmooze with each other and talk about competition. As for me and other roofing contractors, we can always find some new and exciting roofing materials and roofing tools, equipment and services, such as infra-red roof scanners, roof lifts, hydraulic-powered dumpster which can be lifted to the roof level to speed up roof tear-oof and clean up process.
As an Flat Roofs contractor we were there supporting IB Roofs which had a booth there, and I got to meet IB’s new Regional Manager Dana Spurgeon, as well as IB’s local reps in Massachusetts – Jerry Lang and Kevin Laprte (whom I already know of course).

Roofing Equipment presented at Boston Roofing Show:

Besides the obvious and now ritualistic visit to the IB Roofs stand, I wanted to find as many cool, interesting and innovative roofing products at this show, and quickly wondered off, to explore the unknown. My first find was an excellent new automatic hot-air welder by Leister – the new Varimat V2.

This new auto welder, unlike the original Varimat V, has increased and elongated nozzle, and much more powerful fan built into its heat gun, which allows siginificant increas in welding speed from 15 feet per minute for the Varimat V to a maximum 39 feet per minute and realistic 30 feet per minute for the new Varimat V2!

The new Varimat also has new computer controller which lets you save your setting into profiles of various welding speeds and temperature, which can be used for winter and summer roof installation and different roofing membranes, such as TPO roofs and IB single-ply PVC roofing. This new Leister automatic welder is the most advanced tool in its class, and can dramatically speed up roof installation time on large commercial roofing projects. However it comes at a premium price-tag of about $8000 before taxes, requires a more powerful, 6800 watts generator, and of course heavy gauge 240V extension cords, which can easily make the total price for this unit to be over $11000-12000.

Another interesting piece of equipment I found is the hydraulic-powered dumpster lift, which can be driven right up to the roof line and will let roofing contractor to dump old shingles or other roofing materials right off the roof, eliminating clean up, using tarps to cover the exterior walls of the hows and the grass, as well as roofing nails all over your yard, at the end of the day.

Another really interesting piece of roofing equipment is the automatic plates and fastener driver from OMG Roofing. Last year, at the roofing show held at Foxwoods in Connecticut, OMG Roofing demonstrated such unit for flat insulation plates, but did not have one that would quickly fasten the barbed plates used to hold down single ply roofing membranes.

Bellow you can see a video of this plates and fasteners driver in action, attaching a piece of PVC roofing membrane to an ISO insulation over wooden deck roof assembly: Once again, this unit uses barbed plates that are 2 3/8″ in diameter and are made to mechanically attach single ply roofing systems to the roof deck.

Solar Roofing products presented at Boston roofing convention:

Soprema Roofing also had a pretty nice stand where they displayed new Modified Bitumen roofing systems with cool roof reflective layer on the top and SopraSolar roof integrated solar systems. This solar systems, just like the IB’s Solar Wise solar roofing system, uses the UniSolar thing film Solar PV panels, adhered to the roofing membrane.

This new SopraSolar system is a much cleaner installation than Soprema’s original roof-integrated solar systems. The roof integrated solar PV systems are more expensive than regular solar systems, but they offer completely water-tight installation of the roof and solar panels and virtually eliminate roof leaks – calculate solar system cost using Solar Calculator – a free tool that allows you to estimate solar system size, number of kW and how many solar panels you will need as well as solar payback period.

Solar Roofing Tiles:

One more cool roofing product, also using UniSolar thin-film solar panels, which is made in Pennsylvania, is a Spanish roofing tile product, made to easily be installed with clay tiles and provide roof integrated solr panes without any roof penetration or solar mounting racks:

Other interesting roofing materials and products:

Soprema also had a demonstration stand showcasing its PVC roofing systems coated with natural copper, which would actually turn green and the patina process begins. This PVC roof systems also comes with PVC made ribs, so the complete roof system imitates Copper Standing Seam metal roof at a fraction of the cost.

Another interesting product, this time for the sloped roof is a roof vent, which can be installed along th roof eaves, when your roof does not have soffit vents, and improve ventilation of your roof, which will increase the time that your roof will last, make your roof deck last longer and help prevent Ice Dams on your roof.

Ultimate car for the roofing industry:

There was also a rather unconventional vendor present at this year’s roofing convention, who designed a vehicle specially for the roofing sales professionals. This new hybrid concept car features high gas mileage, wide wheel base and extra cargo space for all your roofing samples, brochures and equipment. Unfortunately there is no roof rack on this car, so you won’t be able to take a normal ladder with you, but you can always use a folding telescopic ladder, or as most roofing sales people do – measure the roof off the ground

This new hybrid car is rumored to be a replacement for Toyota Prius, which recently has had a lot of problems with it’s brakes systems and sudden acceleration. This new “bucket” car is supposed to eliminate most problems of a Prius and provide many additional benefits, together with great gas mileage.

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

At the same time, major roofing distributors are shamelessly pushing TPO into the market and onto roofing contractors without much regard for home and building owners. And bear in mind, 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 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 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 TPO world, and these “shingle-bangers” don’t have Liesters (hot air welders) nor do they want to buy them, since cheapest one – 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?

So basically, here is what you – the roof owner get: Untrained, inexperienced roofing contractor, installing a roof system (TPO roofing) which is unproven and there is a good chance it will fail, using flashing materials made for a different roofing system (EPDM rubber roof). And you loose the only real potential benefit of TPO roof – hot-air welded seams, since now all your seams are glued together, just like rubber.

So I want to know who wins? The manufacturers, the distributors, and partially the roofing contractors – but not the homeowner. Why? Manufacturer sells the membrane and accessories, while does not warranty the product since the contractor putting it down, in not trained / certified. Distributors will always get their cut, and contractors who screw up their work, usually disappear. So you, the roof owner will be left to pick up the slack on repairs – kind of sad I think…

Excerpt from TPO roofing discussion at Roofing.com forum:

The post bellow, is my reaction to recent discussions at Roofing.com – one about Pictures of failing TPO roofs, and another one, which started as a homeowner’s question about IB roof, and turned into a discussion about TPO vs PVC roofing.

If you do not feel like reading the two Roofing.com posts linked above, I will mention that Donl is a site admin at Roofing.com and Cerberus is a very knowledgeable (in my opinion) roofing consultant from Texas, and is an active participant in Roofing.com discussions.

The reason why I’m posting my response here – well, I feel that putting it on my blog instead of at Roofing.com will benefit you much more. There, only interested roofing contractors will read it and then, the post will disappear in a week or so.

To Cerberus and Donl:

Guys, I respect your knowledge and experience, of which you have more than I do. At the same time, it seems strange to me that you both defend TPO so actively – here is why:

Putting IB Roofs aside, I do believe that TPO is a bad product (here in US). But besides that notion I have to say that although these pictures ( http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/559881410NjElbu ) are from ’97 and the membrane was made around 1990, what has changed?

Also, it should be noted the sheets some are showing as failed TPO are from the early years of TPO roofing before there were ASTM testing criteria. Things have changed, so someone showing a failed TPO membrane from the 1990′s is like me showing a failed Carlisle EPDM roof from back when they were using N-100 Lap Adhesive instead of EP-95 or Seam Tapes; it is deceptive!

Cerberus – when you point out that it was one of the original TPO membranes that failed, do you really know what we as industry are dealing with now?

Do you know what exactly is sold at a local Bradco or ABC? Which formulation it is and how long it will last? Not a single TPO manufacturer will tell you what you are buying – they will never admit that they have a problem, unless it is a HUGE f-up.

Can you possibly know when this TPO will fail or will it last 15-20-25 years. No, you can’t know that, judging from what the TPO manufacturers are doing, which is changing the formulation every few years. And why? Is it because the previous formulation failed? And maybe to put even more fillers in the product to make it cheaper?

As much as I don’t like EPDM rubber roofing, as a flat roofing product, at least with it you know what you are dealing with: Membrane won’t fail. It will be the seams that will start leaking. So you can plan accordingly.

With TPO, you have:

- premature curing
- seam failures
- loss of thickness
- and now we find out that “some” TPO’s can’t take the UV

Yes, TPO is taking over commercial roofing market, and as you Cerberus rightfully pointed out – merely because of its low price and Cool Roof / Welded seams features…

Don’t know about you, but I won’t touch TPO just because I can’t put my name on it.

Do understand that I’d love to work with it – it costs much less than IB and I can get it locally. And because it’s cheaper, it would be MUCH easier for me to sell it! Instead I have to fight the competition which sells both rubber and TPO for much less than I can.

But what do I do when it fails, or the seams come apart, or the water separates the sheet through wicking scrim?

I go with a product that I personally can trust – not something that seems good on paper and is cheaper and easier shove onto customer.

And tell me this Cerberus. When I was asking people on this forum for good pictures of failing TPO roofs, you asked me: ” “Why? What are you trying to do?”

Well, I feel and know that TPO roofs are failing (some are here in Boston, and I can’t talk about it) but manufacturers won’t let people talk about it and specifiers cant say that – yes, TPO roofs are failing – because they already specified 1000s of squares. And roofing contractors won’t talk… and now one can say names. And I would probably also keep my mouth shut if I had a lot to loose .. fortunately I don’t work with TPO … And when I work with PVC, I know that it does work. I repaired an old IB (7 yrs. old) and it welded just fine. I repaired old Sarnifil (20+ yrs. old) with IB and it welded almost just fine. I even repaired a cracked Trocal (about 25+ yrs. old) roof with IB and after cleaning off the dirt, it welded just fine. So yea, plasticizers may leech out, membrane me shatter (and actually does when it’s Trocal ) and so on and so forth, but PVC works!

So what I was trying to do is to get information / evidence (pictures) of PVC and TPO roofs that are failing.

And you know what – in the end, it will come out. Or manufacturers will bite the bullet, quietly replace failed roofs and finally get the formula right (by not removing the components that make the system work)… but they will make less money…

Just my opinion…

Additional materials about PVC and TPO roofing:  TPO Roof failures.

TPO vs. PVC conversation – continued on Feb. 23, 2010

Quoted text is the response from Cerberus posted 0n Feb. 22, 2010:

And while you addressed your post to both myself and Donl, you seem to actually be directing the post at me. So, here it is in a nutshell.

1st – I’m not totally 100% comfortable with TPO yet, but that is because as a consultant I like something with a long successful track record. I know that TPO roofing is in its infancy, and like EPDM, Mod Bit, and yes, even PVC, systems in their infancy tend to have problems that need to be ironed out. In the meantime, as a specifier I am required by local codes to specify a roof with 70+% reflectivity and .70+ emissivity. In other words, I can choose between TPO and Derbibrite since PVC membrane isn’t popular in Houston.

2nd – If I was going to use a PVC roof, it would only be Sarnafil. However, now that it is Sika-Sarnafil how do we know they won’t play with the formulation? You asked me that question about TPO, so I am turning it around on you. Afterall, the first thing Firestone did when they purchased Rhoflex mod. bit. was change the formulation and make it cheaper in both quality and price.

I did address both you and Donl. Its just that Donl did not really defend TPO – more like bashed IB 

Anyway, one by one:

Am I starting a witch hunt? NO! … I know of enough TPO failures and some big ones here in New England, but I’m not at liberty to disclose them and can’t compromise my sources.

I really don’t care that much for TPO – I understand that people want to save money and will 99% of the time go with a cheap option – not quality. This is especially true in commercial market, which you (Cerberus) represent. In residential roofing things are different and TPO guys don’t know how to market to homeowners – therefore I don’t care much about TPO unless we are bidding on the same, usually commercial roof.

My problem with TPO is fundamental – until manufacturers stop “scamming” their customers (roof owners and contractors) by putting out crap products, I will have a problem with TPO. When they make TPO a good product, I will like it, but it won’t be as comparative, and PVC will kick its butt Pictures I needed as visual content.

Now about specifying practices: Basically from your last post I conclude that you will specify a roof that you are “not totally 100% comfortable with TPO yet” because local codes requires roof to be 70% cool and people are not willing to pay premium for PVC.

Also you as a roofing consultant know more than most people here do, and certainly much more than your “customers” – that’s why they hire you. I don’t understand why you would “withhold” information about TPO from your customers? Both Good and Bad.

Why did I use term “withhold”? If you told them about high risk potential of their TPO roof failing withing 7-10 years, they would not buy it. Therefore, I assume you do not enlighten your customers.

I want to stress the point that recent MRCA advisory about TPO roof failures concerns mainly the southern US – your territory with high temps and constant UV exposure.

Bottom line – TPO gets specified because it’s cheap – not because its good, and at the expense of building owners.

I don’t specify mod. bit., TPO, BUR, or any one roof for every building, and I certainly hope you aren’t only selling PVC for your low-sloped roofs. To do so either shows you are limited by the manufacturer’s approvals you can get, or lack of knowledge about other types of roofs.

Maybe I do lack both knowledge or manufacturer’s approvals 

You know – I can buy pretty much any roof I want – TPO / PVC / EPDM or even mod. bit. without manufacturer’s approvals. I won’t. I won’t install rubber because it will leak (not right away of course, but still). I won’t install Mod. Bit. … well I never did and don’t want to learn because in my opinion it’s inferior – those seams will separate and roof will once again leak TPO I just don’t trust. So that leaves PVC which I’m very comfortable with and, since we do not do skyscrapers, it fits our needs 99% of the time. Only once we had a roof for which PVC would not work, but the customer was not willing to pay $2000/sq of Soprema liquid-applied (not coating) – He wanted Rubber for $450/sq. Well I think that’s what he got .

So yes – most of the time I will prescribe PVC.

Massachusetts is our home state and here is where we install majority of our roofs (with Connecticut being in second place). In Massachusetts, roofing market is very different, depending on location, and although there are a lot more sloped roofs, not only in Mass., but in the rest of the country, we still install more Flat roofs than Metal roofs. As for geographic location of your home in Massachusetts, up north, toward the New Hampshire border, roofs are more prone to Ice Dam roof leaks and damages than houses located in the southern MA.

Although Massachusetts is not a very big state, the your location can have a dramatic effect on the amount of snow fall in the winter, and thus your chances of having Ice dams and and related roof leaks. For example on the same day, an average roof in Sharon or Norwood will have 1-2 inches of ice alone the eaves, whereas an average roof in Lowell will have 5+ inches of ice build-up. If you go further north of south away from Boston the amount of annual snow accumulation and ice dams will increase or decrease respectively.

Why do I mention Ice dams and roof leaks in the intorductory part? It’s simple – most commercial roofs are flat, and are not prone to ice dams, though they have their own list of problems that I will discuss bellow. Residential roofs on the other hand are the ones mostly affected by ice dams. These are both sloped roofs and low-slope / flat roof, and we have the best and longest lasting solutions for both - Metal Roofing for sloped roofs and IB Roof for low slope flat roofs, such as shed dormer roofs, and completely flat roofs.

Bellow we will give you a quick overview of most recent and some older roof installations that we’ve completed in Mass. Keep in mind that these are not the complete job profiles. Complete job overviews will be posted separately, as time permits us to write them. In the overviews bellow I will provide basic information about each roof, accompanied by a few pictures and short description of roof installation process and challenges we had to face.

Before we go into job reviews, here are a few additional articles you may find useful, when choosing a roof product for your home and a roofing contractor to install it:

How to prevent Ice Dams – comprehensive guide on which focuses on the root cause of Ice dams which is usually a combination of poor ventilation and and inadequate insulation in the attic space or between roof rafters. This guide will help homeowners minimize heat leaks in the attic, improve ventilation and eliminate the effects of ice dam leaks by installing a Metal Roof or an IB low-slope roofing membrane.

Low-slope roofs – Overview of common problems associated with low slope residential roof such as shed dormers or roof on most cape-style homes located in the norther MA. Common issues with such roofs include rotten roof decking / rafters and Ice-dams. Since this roofs are prone to Ice dam leaks, most of the rot damage is an effect of ice dams and although many roofing contractors will insist that using Ice and Water shield will do the trick, our experience shows that most of the time I&W fails to protect the roof even if entire roof deck is covered in Ice and Water. Therefore we believe that best solution for permanent protection of low-slope roofs and eliminating ice dams is the use of metal roof of IB flat roofing membrane in conjunction with solving ventilation/insulation issues described in the article above.

Roofs we installed in Massachusetts:

Low slope shed dormer roof in Westminster, MA

This roof we installed in early May of 2009. The house is located in heavily wooded are of central Mass, just north of mount Wachusett. Westminster, MA is located along Rt. 2, and not very far from New Hampshire border. These areas get major snow falls in the winter, together with colder temperatures than those in Boston and ice dams are a major problem in Westminster, even for high slope roofs. Low slope roofs such as the one we replaced there, are very likely to have ice dam leaks and other problems such as rotten roof deck, wet insulation, and mold.

The roof has been leaking for some time around the chimney in the center of the roof and was patched many times with tar, but rather unsuccessfully. Also, due to Ice Dams and roof leaks caused by ice formation along the roof eaves, the home owner installed heating cables to stop the Ice dam leaks. These however did not help either and after one more unsuccessful roof repair, home owner decided to get an IB roof installed.

The home owner and their cousin who is a roofer in NH, did the roof tear-off and replaced all rotten plywood decking, to reduce the cost of roof installation, while we installed the roof itself, insulation, chimney flashing, ridge vent and snow guards (snow retention system).

Note – even though before we installed IB roof, home owner’s main concern was to get ice and snow off the roof. After IB roof was installed, our concern was that due to roof’s pitch, which was about 3 in 12″, the snow and Ice would just slide off the roof in a large pile, crushing down onto deck and perch bellow it. Also there was a grill on the deck which was not movable since it was tied to a gas line.

The chimney flashing, which may seem to take not to much time, actually took about 6-7 hours to properly flash. The reason ot turned out to be so lime consuming it that it is located in the center and separates the ridge vent as well as creeping onto another side of the roof. Due to its position, size and the way IB roof is installed it not only took long to work around, but also slowed down the rest of roof installation. Because the the ridge vent buts into the chimney, we had to make sure that not only ridge vent is raised an inch off the roof level to prevent the wind-driven rain from leaking into the house, but also that it is completely tied to the roof, and flashed up the chimney. Once the chimney flashing was installed and counter flashing reglet had to bi installed as well.

All in all it took us 3 days to install this roof, though 3rd day was rather short. What really slowed us down, was the first heat wave of that spring and unrealistic number of bugs / flies / mosquitoes in this wooded / swampy area of central Mass.

Roofing membrane used: 50 mil mechanically attached IB PVC flat roofing system.

Insulation used: 1/2″ fan-fold Styrofoam insulation with clear plastic / metal facing.

Total roof square footage: Approximately 500 sq. ft.

Standing seam metal roof in Wayland, MA.

Right after the roof in Westminster was installed, we started getting ready for a big metal roofing project, which used .032 Aluminum standing seam metal roof in 1 3/4″ snap lock profile with 16″ wide pan and stiffening ribs. This roof took about two weeks to install between tear-off of old asphalt shingles, siding removal, replacement of rotten wood replacement, delays with material shipments and wrong type of flashing being delivered.

Actually one of the delays happened because our supplier ran out of Grey aluminum coil after 80 % of roofing panels were rolled out of their mobile standing seam roll-forming machine, which was based in Manchester, NH. As the supplier received more aluminum coil 3 dais later the send a different truck, from New London, CT. As that truck arrived and rolled off the first test panel, just out of curiosity I decided to compare first batch to the second one. It turned out that the machine on the New London truck was set up to be 1/8″ wider than Manchester truck. This, over the course of 23 panels gave us an extra 3″ of panel which converted to two extra panels – 1 1/2″ wide – on either side of the rear roof section and exactly 23 panels on the front. We had to send the truck back and wait for the Manchester, NH truck to deliver and roll out the same coil. Even the guys working for the supplier were not aware if this mismatch between the two machines.

In the end the Manchester truck delivered the right-width panels and we were able to finish the jobs without any more delays. The homeowner – Glenn – was also very concerned with snow and ice falling off the roof and damaging the gutters bellow, so we installed a commercial-grade double rail snow retention system to eliminate the possibility of snow falls form the roof.

We already posted a full review of this roof installation on our blog, a few months back, so if you want to know more details, read the standing seam metal roof in Wayland, MA job profile.

Rubber roof in Boston, MA.

In August of 2009 we’ve completed a rather small, but very tricky and complicated flat roof installation in Boston, on one of the traditional Boston-style homes/buildings, which you can see all alogn Mass. ave, Comm. ave as well as Blue Hills avenue, on which this house is located. It was originally a EPDM rubber roof, which had over 50 percent of seams separated due to adhesive failure. The two-tower wood design made this roof much more difficult to repair and our client – Jim – chose to eliminate the hassles of frequent roof repairs and decided to have an 80-mil IB roof installed.

Although this should have been a pretty much straight-forward roof replacement, with rubber tear-off performed first and a new IB roof installed, I sensed that it will not be an easy job. Until we opened up the roof I could not say for sure what obstacles we’re going to face, but once we did remove the rubber, we found that entire length of the masonry parapet wall was damaged by water and poor quality of brick mortar. We also found that we would have to rebuild the parapet walls much as 4 layers of brick deep.

Because a chose a careful approach to the rubber removal, by only pulling back the rubber membrane off the parapet wall, and not cutting it, we were able to do entire brick repair work and roof preparation, while having the roof watertight each night with original rubber membrane.

Once all brick repair war was complete and mortar had sufficient time to cure, we installed a 2×8 pressure treated perimeter wood nailer to which IB wall flashing and drip edge would be attached. Only on the last day did we remove the whole rubber roof, installed new insulation and laid dawn the new, mechanically attached IB PVC flat roofing membrane.

We had to come back one more time to install the new gutter and downspouts, IB two-way membrane vents and 9″ IB attic vents over specially cut holes in the roof deck. These attic vents were installed to vent out the moisture that accumulated in the small attic space when the old rubber roof was leaking. Once in place these oversize vents will eventually dry out the attic and prevent any future mold growth.

Now Jim can enjoy his watertight roof and get sun baths sitting in his beach chair on the roof of his home, and not worry about damage to membrane – he chose a very durable, commercial grade 80-mil IB roof. He will also enjoy a cooler home, due to IB cool roofing features.

You can read the complete job profile about this Flat roof in Boston, MA on our Cool Roofing Blog.

Flat roof in Framingham, MA

One of the more recent roofs we’ve installed was in Framingham, MA, where we installed an IB roof on yet another shed dormer roof for Ed Kelly – a high-end remodeling contractor out of Northborough, MA. The builder had his crew remove old asphalt shingles off this roof an replace most of the old decking with new 3/4" plywood. We were there to install just the membrane and flash it 2 feet up the sloped roof.

During my conversation with Ed (builder), he told me me why he chose the seemingly more expensive IB roof over a cheaper rubber EPDM membrane. His main reason was the IB’s hot-air welded seams, and hassle free roof performance. Before, Ed would use a rubber roof on a few of his projects, end all but one of them leaked due to problems with seams, and required expensive rubber roof repair. Ed decided to end his flat roofing nightmares and constant rubber roof leaks, and went with IB roof.

The entire job took us one day to complete. The roof was ready to start, as we arrived to the job site in the morning, and before dark we packed our tools and were ready to leave, as the roof was all done. The roofing crew which did the tear off and deck replacement was putting the new asphalt shingles and aluminum fascia trim back on, as we were driving away.

Roofing material: 50 mil white IB roof, mechanically attached.

Insulation: 1/2″ fan-fold Styrofoam.

Total roof size: Approximately 450 sq. ft.

Flat roof deck in Wellesley, MA

Just before the Framingham flat roof job described above, we did another job for Ed – an 80 mil IB roof that would be a water-proofing membrane for a roof deck over a garage being built as an addition to an already huge home in a very secluded area of Wellesley.

Once again, a complete job profile for this roof deck is already on our blog, so there is no point to rewrite it here – read the Wellesley, MA  flat roof deck installation overview.

Solar flat roof in Medford, MA

This job, was actually sponsored by Cool Flat Roof (us) and IB Roof Systems, as it was a non-profit project, competing in the 2009 Solar Decathlon competition, sponsored by the US DOE. We installed an IB roof on a Boston solar home with some help from the project volunteers and Architecture students from BAC and Tufts.

Once again, we have a complete coverage of the installation of the IB flat roof and the Solar PV panels on this roof - Solar roof installation in Boston, MA.

Low slope shed dormer roof in Hingham, MA

Yet another shed dormer roof and also with major ice dams problems and leaks. This roof was just a year old when we removed the old asphalt shingled, and installed a new 50 mil IB traditions roof with asphalt shingles pattern printed onto IB white roofing membrane. This roof was completely covered with Ice & water shield which failed miserably and forced homeowner to climb up the slippery ladder all winter long, sometimes two times a day, to brake off the ace along the roof edge.

Homeowner – Paul – tried everything, from sodium-filled socks above the skylights to heating cables – nothing seemed to help, as with lack of proper ventilation and inherent limitations of asphalt shingles, his roof was still leaking, as it faced north, and sun never shined over it in the winter.

Paul wanted a permanent solution to stop roof leaks and not a single roofing contractor that Paul contacted could explain to him how they would stop the leaks or promise that their roof will work. Some even offered to  install asphalt shingles with Ice & Water shield – Really? Paul already had shingles with Ice and Water and it was not working.

Initially, Paul contacted us about getting a metal roof installed on his house, but after examining the roof, I suggested ti install IB roof instead, and residential flat roofing solution form IB  - Traditions Classic seemed to be the best option as it combined all the benefits of IB roof with the classic look of architectural asphalt shingles printed onto the membrane. After a little decision making, Paul and his wife chose to go with a seamless one piece IB roof. In this case there would be zero possibility of ice dam leaks.

Now that Paul has a new IB Traditions roof, which is in effect a seamless, one piece blanket over entire roof, he and his wife won’t have to worry about roof leak and breaking ice off the roof any more.

With this, we conclude the first part of our Massachusetts job profiles list. We will update it as we have time to add more pictures and descriptions to each job, and will also add complete job profiles for each roof, when we have a chance.

Getting IB roof or a metal roof installed on your home in Massachusetts:

If your roof is leaking or you have Ice dams,and are tired of fighting with the ice, using heat cables, sodium-filled socks, raking your roof, and risking to fall of a ladder, you need to contact the low-slope roofing experts ( us ), request a free roofing price quote and schedule a roof inspection / estimate. You can also use our online roofing calculator to estimate your roof replacement cost and compare the roof prices of IB PVC membrane to Rubber roofing and Modified bitumen / Tar and gravel roofs.

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]

Cool Roofs provide financial and environmental benefits and long-lasting protection from the weather.

Roofing represents only 3% of construction costs. Yet, many builders, architects / specifiers, roofing contractors and even home / building owners look to reduce their total construction and/or renovation costs, and all to often they find these savings in roofing. This cost cutting comes not only at the expense of installation quality but also with the use of inefficient roofing materials. Two most common roofing choices are asphalt shingle for pitched roofs and Epdm ‘rubber’ for flat roofs. Former is made directly from oil and latter is made with oil by-products and other chemicals.

Are Cool Roofs for everyone?

In theory, every roof should be cool. If that was the case, our nation would greatly decrease its energy dependence and consumption. We would also improve our environment and air quality and less electricity would be required to cool our homes and buildings (bear in mind that over 50% of our electricity comes from coal-burning power plants and coal is the dirtiest source of energy, and pollutes air with, sulfur, lead, arsenic, CO2 and other harmful substances and green house gases).

However, many people would argue that cool roofs are only for Sun-belt states, and that black roofs are better for northern  states. This is completely wrong. Lets review the differences of Cool (white) roofs and black roofs in terms of energy savings and heat gain in the summer vs. heat loss in the winter.

First of all, let me state a notion that in the winter, the heat does not escape the building (unless you open your windows), but rather the cold enters the building and lowers the inside temperature. With that notion in mind, lets compare energy cost advantage of black roof in the winter and white roof in the summer.

Energy Costs Calculation.

Heat gain through the roofing surface: As you can see from the chart above, on an 85 degree F day, IB cool white roof will only gain 6 degrees or about 8% whereas black surface roof such as rubber roof or rolled asphalt or tar roof will gain 87 degrees (!) or more than double in temperature to a total of 172 F. If you get down on your knees, you will actually get skin burns.Imagine all this heat entering inside your home or place of business…

For comparison purposes we will use White IB PVC roof and a regular Epdm black rubber roof. We will use DOE Cool Roof Calculator and with following parameters:

Gas will be used as source of heat, but since gas rates differ from city to city we will convert the BTU value of 1 gallon of oil to that of 1 therm of natural gas. Oil price used in this comparison is $2.39 per gallon which is the average here in Massachusetts for oil customers with delivery contract as of January 8, 2009. Please note that the price of 1 barrel of Oil today is $41.89.

Calculation metrics:

• Insulation R-Value: 6, 13 and 20 (6 is an average for existing residential building where we replace a flat roof)
• Solar Reflectance: 85 for IB Roof and 6 for Black EPDM. Although IB’s reflectance is 87% the calculator will not let us use more than 85, and since with dust accumulation on the roof, reflectance drops, it is safe to use this number.
• Infrared (thermal) Emittance: 88 for IB Roof and 86 for Black EPDM.

Scenario 1 – Boston, MA.

Cost of electricity in  Metro Boston area is approximately $0.22 per kWh. The cost of heating the building we get by multiplying price of 1 gallon of oil by 0.71  = price of “1 therm of heating oil” – $1.70 / therm. Note that this is not the price of one therm of natural gas, but rather a BTU conversion from oil to  natural gas. I use oil as it is the most common source of heat in the north east and  New England in particular.

Scenario 2 – Los Angeles, CA.

I will assume the energy price in CA, as I do not live there. For electricity rates I will use 30 cents per kWh. This assumes peak rate (when most people actually use their air-conditioners) and all the surcharges, delivery charges, etc. This is the total cost per kWh.

Since gas prices in CA right now are jus a bit higher  in CA as compared to Mass. we will use $1.80 as the price of therm of heating oil. Bear in mind that in California, they rarely use heating and it is mostly natural gas or electricity or propane for remote homes.

Other calculation metrics:

• AC efficiency: We use average of 2.0
• Heating System efficiency: We use an average of 0.7 or 70%. My brand new Burnham closed loop hot-water radiator system is 86% efficient. The older heating system it replaced was about 50% efficient if not less. Also note that this is the burner efficiency and not the total system efficiency. Total system efficiency is greatly dependent on how well your house is insulated, the type of windows you have and the type of heat delivery you use: radiant, air ducts, steam or copper pipes with hot water circulating through the system.

Results – Net Savings per 1 square foot of flat roof area per year: Boston:

• With 6-r insulation Net saving is $0.079 or almost 8 cents.
• With 13-r insulation Net saving is $0.037 or almost 4 cents.
• With 20-r insulation Net saving is $0.023 or almost 2.5 cents.

Los Angeles:

• With 6-r insulation Net saving is $0.217 or almost 22 cents.
• With 13-r insulation Net saving is $0.1 or 10 cents.
• With 20-r insulation Net saving is $0.062 or almost 6.5 cents.

Let us now assume that you home is 2000 sq. ft. and has 6-r insulation value of the roof. In Boston, MA you would save $160 per year in electricity alone if you replaced your existing black roof, such as epdm rubber or tar & gravel, with a cool IB roof. Also add a leak free performance of IB roofs, no more roof repairs and other costs associated with roof leaks. In Los Angeles you would save $440 each year! Also add the Energy Star tax credit for cool roof installation of $500. This is an actual tax rebate, and it equals to an average of $1800 worth of tax deductions. In conclusion, I’d say that Cool roofs are much more efficient in the southern states where there is a lot more sunshine and almost no snow. But even here in New England, a cool roof is a very attractive choice for people that are looking to get long term savings, lifetime leak free performance and/or are worried about the environment.

Cool roofs vs. Black roofs:

While asphalt shingle is the ‘de-facto champion’ of sloped roofing with its VERY low cost and severe price competition in both residential and commercial markets, when it comes to flat roofing, there are more choices. Old-timers will recommend a 3 to 5 ply Built-Up roof or a two-ply Modified Bitumen. With the abundance of these and other tar and asphalt roofs still in service, and some new roofs being installed (although each year there are fewer BUR, asphalt and bitumen roofs being installed as flat roofing industry quickly transitions toward single-ply roofing membranes), all of these roof are destined to end up in our land-fill, as recycling programs for asphalt-based roofs are virtually non-existent. That is millions of tones and billions of square feet oil waste going into the ground each year.

Another problem associated with the above-mentioned roofing materials is their color – most are black, which attracts and transfers tremendous amounts of solar heat into the building or a house. As a result, the air-conditioning system must work over-time to maintain comfortable working and living environment. This causes overloads and power outages on electrical grids, increased cost of electricity, and as a result – higher electric bill.

To offset the above-mentioned high cost of electricity, many people choose to install a Solar PV roof system. This is especially true in California where $0.35 – 0.40 per kWh of electricity is a normal residential rate. We wholeheartedly support nation-wide deployment of small and large scale solar photo-voltaic systems, but the first step which many people should take before installing solar systems, is to reduce their average energy consumption. This is where Cool Roofs come in very handy.

Financial Benefits of Cool Roofs:

1 – Energy savings of Cool Roofs

Cool roofs provide tremendous reduction in cooling cost by reflecting 85-90% of solar heat and keeping your residence or place of work cooler in the summer. This directly reduces your electricity costs. This also puts less strain on your HVAC  equipment, which leads to less maintenance, reduced repair costs and longer life for the Air Conditioning units.

2 – Cool Roofs last longer and leak less than black roofs.

Cool Roofs generally outlast their counterparts by 50-100% and require much less maintenance and repairs than Rubber roofs, modified bitumen and tar / asphalt roofing systems.

For a flat roofing market, the two major players are PVC and TPO membranes. These are single-ply, thermoplastic roofs which are hot-air welded together to provide decades of leaks-free services. There are also acrylic and urethane cool roof coatings which make existing black roofs cooler and increase their service life by 5-15 years.

Note: PVC and American-made TPO roofs are fundamentally different in term of their chemical formulation and life expectancy, but both are considered cool roofs and Ideally should last 20+ years. Learn more about the difference between PVC and TPO roofing.

While 40 years ago there was no real alternative to asphalt-based roofing materials in the US market, for over 30 years we had cool roofs that are energy efficient, light weight and provide long-lasting protection with much flexibility to accommodate for any obstacle present on the roof. PVC Roofs were the first real cool roofs to hit the US commercial roofing market. Some US manufacturers of early PVC membranes (most notoriously Trocal) had problems with their product such as membrane shattering in extremely cold temperatures. Problem was due to membrane being non-reinforced with nylon scrim. All major PVC (and TPO) membranes on the market today, feature reinforcing scrim.

IB PVC / CPA roofing feature a true Non-wicking scrim which prevents the capilary water penetration between the two layers of the membrane. This is only one of many benefits of IB PVC Roofing which sets it apart from all other flat roofing systems.

3 – Cool Metal Roofs.

For large commercial / industrial applications, there is structural metal roofing, usually found on space metal buildings, aluminum reflective coatings, etc. Although these do not meet Cool Roof requirements, they still are more energy efficient than black rubber and asphalt-based roofs.

For residential and some commercial / retail / restaurant applications there are various styles of Architectural Metal Roofing. Usually coated with Kynar / Hylar high-performance coatings (paint) these roofs carry a Cool roof lable and also greatly increase the energy efficiency of you entire home or building.

Even without a Kynar coating, metal roofs are always “cooler” than asphalt shingles. Since metals (especially aluminum) have a much lower thermal mass, they do not store the heat, and cool off much faster than any asphalt based roof.

Biggest financial benefit of metal roofing is its longevity. Most metal roofs carry a lifetime warranty – usually 50 years is considered lifetime. Most metal roofs will outlast their warranty, and many are known to last more than 100 years. As we always mention to our customers, the roof is only as good as its installer. An improperly installed metal roof may leak after a first heavy rain. This does not change the fact that metal roof is the true life time product when installed properly.

Environmental benefits of Cool Roofs:

IB Roofs as well as other Cool Roofing systems provide enormouse benefits to the environment. From reduced CO2 polutions to reduction of roofing material waste going into our landfills, the whole chain of benefits is too complicated to fit into general theme of this article. Therefore I will only list the basic environmental benefits here, and will dedicate an entire article to just such topic, as I get more time.

General benefits to the environment: Again, I’ll use IB Pvc roof as the example, but most other cool roofs will “fit the bill”.

As a side note, I’ll mention that USA make up about 5% of world’s population, yet we consume 25% of world’s energy. It is also estimated that 30% of US energy consumption is just wasted. Therefore we (Americans) waste 7.5 percent of worlds entire energy.  And we wonder why gasoline / oil / electricity is so expensive….

• PVC roofs last an average of 2 times longer than other flat roofing systems. PVC is extremely durable & versitile – therefore rarely needs replacement. When you hear that PVC is not recycled bear in mind that most of Pvc-based products are still in service.
• PVC roofs are 99% recyclable and will find use in other application ofter they complete their life-cycle. PVC rarely ends up in our landfills, as it is cheaper to recycle it then to dispose of it. You will usually see it at landfills as a water-proofign liner that will prevent toxins and polutants from enetering the ground under large piles of junk and waste.
• Although PVC roofs use fossil fuel as one of its basic components (natural gas – methane, to be exact), the also use chlorine as the 2nd major component – therefore PVC contains 50 less of fossil fuels than other plastics (such as TPO roofs) and  do not use and carbon / oil-based products in it. Therefore PVC is not directly dependent on foreign oil supply, unlike Epdm / Modified Bitumen / Asphalt / Other Thermoplasics and oil-based products.
• Cool roof properties of PVC (and other cool roofing systems) reduce electricity usage of many commercial / industrial / residential buildings year after year after year. As a result, less pollution is emmited into atmosphere. In fact if all roofs in the US were cool, we would reduce our nation’s energy use by an average 10% which is now just wasted!

As a side note, I’ll mention that USA make up about 5% of world’s population, yet we consume 25% of world’s energy. It is also estimated that 30% of US energy consumption is just wasted. Therefore we (Americans) waste 7.5 percent of worlds entire energy.  And we wonder why gasoline / oil / electricity is so expensive….<–>