Foreword: If you are a building inspector / official, please try to understand that this rant is from a contractors point of view… Or at least try to be objective and unbiased.

Pros and cons of building permits:

Why do we need building inspectors (and do we really need them)? Well, they are supposed to inspect – right? They are there to protect homeowners from shady contractors, and ensure that construction goes in accordance with state / national building codes. That’s why we also have specialty trade inspectors (electrical, plumbing, mechanical, etc). But do they really do their job? Another question – why do we need building permits? Yes, to pay the building inspector for doing his/her job of doing the inspections. Yea, right!

I will purposely omit building inspectors in charge of large construction projects, such as bridges, sky-scrapers, factories, etc. There is a lot more responsibility there, and these inspectors are a lot more knowledgeable than your average “Joe, the building inspector”.

In my time being a roofing contractor, I had to pull many permits in the last 6 years – for almost every job we did. In all this time, only once have I seen a building inspector at a job site, and he was there to harass the home-owner about the “illegal kitchen” that came with the house they just purchased. In the beginning of my career as a contractor, I needed to get permits, but did not have sufficient / adequate insurance and in some cases did not have the Home Improvement Contractor registration in a state where I was doing work. Luckily for me, I was able to get permits, and because I have dignity (I’d like to think so) I did decent work without code violations and nothing bad ever happened. I once had a “stop job” order posted at a job site, where we forgot to pull a permit. Ahh… the good old days.

When you get into serious contracting like the Metal Roofing and IB Roof installations, you can’t afford not to have proper insurances and licenses. Your clients by default expect everything to be current and you to be fully insured – both worker’s comp and general liability.  And besides, it is easier to show proof of insurance than to explain why you do not have it, or better yet to ask a home owner to pull “an owners permit”. It is also much easier to get a permit in 5 minutes instead of waiting 3 days and hoping that the inspector is not a complete a$$ or is looking for a bribe – for some reason, I have a very strong suspicion that some building inspectors in Lynn, Revere, Malden and other surrounding towns in Massachusetts, purposely jerk contractors around, as if telling them – “give me $300 and you will have your permit”. I really believe so. Or they just hate people in general. But let me get back to building inspectors. 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 »

Recently we finished installing an aluminum standing seam metal on a residential home in Wayland, Massachusetts. The roof is made of .032 Aluminum, coated with grey finish Kynar 500 coating. It is a 1.5″ snap-lock standing seam, attached with stainless steel clips and wood screws. Also, as you can see, there is a rail snow retention system, which I will describe in detail bellow. It consists of cast-aluminum mounts attached to ribs of the standing seams roof and two rows stainless steel cross bars (rails) to hold snow and ice from sliding off the roof.

Originally, the homeowner was having bad problems with Ice dams and roof leaks. Originally the roof had “ice belt” made of copper, but it only covered the bottom 2 feet of the roof and as we discovered later, during a roof tear-off, it was tucked under the shingles above it by only 2-3 inches. Needles to say, this copper ice-belt did not work as it was intended to and the ice dams were still creating leaks. After a while, to solve the Ice Dams problem the home owner installed large sheets of aluminum.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rubber roofing is a popular choice for low slope and flat roof construction, because it is relatively inexpensive, and “does not require any special training” on the part of a roofing contractor to install it. Do understand that the actual installation of a rubber roof is somewhat complicated and requires experience with flat roofing if it is to be done correctly. However, anyone can buy a rubber roof from a roofing supplier and install it, without being certified by the manufacturer. Discover how many residential roofing contractors “learn” to install a rubber roof, nature and limitations of EPDM roofing membrane and why we recommend that you avoid putting a rubber roof on your house. Since a manufacturer’s certification is not required, many roofing contractors with little or zero experience in flat roofing, can and do install rubber roofs. However, without a contractor’s proper installation training and experience, such roofs begin to leak very soon after being installed. Discover the secrets of the residential flat roofing market and how contractors installing EPDM membranes, or simply rubber roofing.

See what’s involved in doing rubber roof repair yourself:

Repair a rubber roof yourself or hire a professional?

As a home or small business owner you should understand that to perform a repair of your rubber roof you will need to buy special supplies and allocate at least 3-4 hours on a sunny or at least dry day, with no rain in the next 12 hours, to allow the repaired patch or seam to cure and become watertight. Here is a list of supplies and approximate prices you can expect to pay to acquire these supplies from a commercial roofing supplier, such as ABC Supply, Beacon Supply, Bradco or Harvey Building Products. Your local Home Depot or Lowe’s will not have rubber roofing, so don’t waste your time there. Read the rest of this entry »