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 »

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 »

The word on the “roofing contractor street” is such that a large PVC roofing manufacturer has problems with their Roof-integrated Solar PV systems. Apparently, the way they designed and installed these solar roofs, the electrical wiring which connects Solar PV panels to the inverter and essentially the Electric Grid, is overheating and poses serious risks of fire. Since this information is still in rumor stage, and I doubt there will be an official announcement or acknowledgment of these, I for many reasons cannot name the manufacturer, the specifics of the problems or the source. However, there is evidence that it is real. If you are a large roofing contractor in Boston, MA area or in the rest of New England, you are getting the roofing bid lists such as the Blue Book. We do not as large commercial and government roofing jobs are a little out of our league, and we get plenty of work without paying huge sums of money for these bid lists (it costs anywhere from $3000/year to get periodic updates). However, in the last 3 weeks I’ve been contacted twice by two different gentlemen from Suffolk Construction. Basically Suffolk is arguably the largest GC in Boston area with $1.57 Billion in sales in 2008, have over 800 employees and are rated #313 of America’s Largest Private Companies by Forbes.

The picture bellow, shows a Solar roof produced by IB roof systems. This roof does NOT have overheating problems, and is intended to demonstrate what Solar Roofing is.

In any case, the two gentlemen from Suffolk, asked me to bid a new job in the pipeline of roof bidding lists:  A 4,000 squares (400,000 sq. ft.) on the IRS building in Andover, MA, and also they wanted 500 KW solar PV system that would be roof integrated – essentially they were interested in our IB Solar Wise PV system which in some ways is similar to the one above, but without the wiring overheating of course Read the rest of this entry »

Dear visitors, It is my pleasure to announce that our main site – www.CoolFlatRoof.com – is now officially running on the awesome WordPress Blog / CSM platform, which makes it run faster and offers you, our visitors great usability and ease of finding information about Flat roofing, Metal roofs, Green roof top gardens and Solar PV roofing systems. New website features include:

• Extensive Site-wide search. With over 30 different articles about cool flat and metal roofing it used to be difficult to navigate to the right page. Now, all you have to do is type what you are looking for into the search box at the bottom of the side-bar, and you will find what you are looking for.
• Comments & Feedback. You can now leave comments about every article that we have and also subscribe to those comments (you will get responses by email). I personally answer most of the comments you leave on our blog, and will do the same for the comments on our main site. As always, please respect us and our readers and do not post offensive commentaries. All comments are moderated by a human and all spam gets filtered. If you post a genuine comment or question, it will post and I will answer it as best as I can.
• Blog Roll / Green blog links: If you are an author of a green or renewable energy related blog, I welcome you to add us to your blog-roll, and I will do the same.
• Publish your green articles here: If you want to write about anything related to green construction and renewable energy, I welcome you to become one of our Authors / Contributors. You can post relevant links to your own site or blog, which will help you promote your site with search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and others.

These are just few new options that a new platform offers to make your search for roof related questions easier and more pleasant. Just a few roof related articles you may consider interesting:

IB Flat Roof: “A good roof is the one you can forget about” – such is the moto if IB Roof Systems – a great roofing materials manufacturer, who’s single-ply membranes we use exclusively for ALL our flat roof installations. We use IB roofs, because we as a contractor know that once installed correctly, an IB roof will outlast any conventional flat roofing system by 2-3 times. With a proven track record of 30+ years of real life, leak-free performance, IB roofing systems have nothing else to prove. An IB roof is a cool, truly sustainable roofing system that can be used for Green Roof-top gardens, Solar roofing and conventional flat roofing application in both residential and commercial markets.

Flat Roof Repair: Learn what to do when your flat roof begins to leak, how to choose a roofing contractor, what a roof repair will cost you and whether your should repair or replace your roof.

IB Roofing prices: Learn how much it will cost you to replace your old roof with an IB Cool Flat Roof.

EPDM Rubber Roofing: Discover the truth about rubber roofing materials, scam contractors that install residential rubber roofs without proper training / experience, and why you should definitely avoid these “super roofers”, and the inferior rubber roofing materials all together.

Rubber roof repair: Learn DIY techniques involved in fixing your leaky EPDM roofing system. This guide includes a complete list of tools & materials you will need and step-by-step instructions for Do-It-Yourself homeowners.

Home Solar systems: Comprehensive guide to designing, implementing and installing a Solar PV System on the roof of your home or small business. Lear now to position your solar panels, which inverter to use and how to minimize power losses, maximize Solar PV efficiency, and make your solar system pay for itself in as little time as possible.

These are just some of numerous informative and practical guides that we have created to help you solve your flat or metal roofing problems, find information on roofing materials and contractors. Let us know what you think of the new platform, the design of this site, and how we could make navigation / usability better and more comfortable for you. Enjoy! Sincerely, Leo – CoolFlatRoof.com

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 »

It is no secret that a metal roof, although designed to last a lifetime, is only as good as its installers. Additionally, metal roofing is a completely different animal than asphalt shingle roofs, cedar shake or even slate roofing, and to be able to install a metal roof correctly, you need a professionally trained metal roof mechanic.

Usually when a metal roof is installed by a seasoned roofer, who never worked with at least one of many types of metal roofing, the results are more than sad. The roof begins to leak with the first rain, the roofer’s reputation suffers and a very unhappy customer seeks to resolve the problems with the manufacturer, and files complaints with BBB, Angie’s List and other consumer protection organizations. Fortunately, all of these troubles can be avoided if a professional metal roofer is hired to do the job.

We understand the needs of home and business owners, and their demand for the highest quality of materials and installation. We hand pick the best materials and the most thoroughly thought-out roofing systems, and combine them with our unique installation methods, which in the end, provide you with a true lifetime roofing solution, and unmatched beauty for your home.

Examples of our unique approach to installation of metal roofing:

In the above video clip, you may see how we approach the installation of this residential metal roof in Revere, MA. As with most roofs, attic ventilation is crucial to the longevity of the roof, its wooden substrate and the health of the entire home, including its occupants. There are multiple ways to ventilate the attic space, but the most effective way is to utilize a ridge and soffit ventilation system, where the cold air enters the attic through the soffit vents, located along the eaves of the roof and escapes through the ridge vent. However, the ridge vent is often the path through which the wind driven water can penetrate the roof, causing slow, but devastating damages to the roof’s framing. Since the amount of water coming through the ridge vent is usually insignificant, homeowners will not notice the leak for many years, at which point the damage has already been done, and repairs can cost thousands of dollars. It is very common that the wooden substrate is completely rotten along the ridge line, and so are the tips of the rafters merging at the peak of the roof.

The solution to ridge vent leaks:

Water-tight ridge vent system

We designed a special way to raise the ridge vent off the roof level by 3/4 of an inch. While insignificant in therms of aesthetics, this bump-out prevents the wind drive water to enter the ridge vent cut-out, while the ventilation still works just as efficiently as it would have otherwise. Notice that the custom flashing we use rests on top of a pressure treated 1×4 board. The flashing is inserted into the top lock of the last course of aluminum shingles, which makes it impossible for wind driven water to penetrate the roof. Just as an extra protection measure, we used commercial grade exterior caulking at the joins of top locks between every shingle.

Electricity of the 21st century.

Do you know how your electricity is generated? For a long time I kind of knew, but was too lazy to actually ask my father, who is a physicist, what exactly is going on in the power plant. Now it boggles me to live with the fact that in our modern time when an all-inclusive communication and Internet device (iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.) is smaller than a deck of cards, we still use 19th century technology and basic principles to generate our electricity. Once you actually give this idea a thought, it becomes a shocking notion that our best minds have not been able to create a better way to create electrical power than to burn coal and natural gas – two most commonly used sources of energy to create electricity.

Just in case you were wandering, coal or gas is BURNED to heat up water which then becomes hot steam and drives the turbines. This is a basic principle and the actual process is more complicated, but even the “sophisticated” nuclear power plants work in similar manner.

Note: I did know that electricity can be generated in the old fashioned way, but I actually thought that there was some kind of a mechanism to directly convert energy stored in gas / coal / oil directly “into” electricity, instead of emulating the old steam-engine – oops… It is a shame that our 21st century society is still burning fossil fuels to make the turbine spin.

Aside from the fact that we get our electricity the same way as before WW I, natural gas, oil and especially coal are extremely dirty fuels, emitting dangerous pollutants, which affect our environment in such a drastic way that just a couple of generations from today, our children may not be able to enjoy the outdoors the same way we can today. I won’t even start talking about climate change and global warming. On top of everything mentioned above, humanity is quickly approaching a world-wide energy crisis. Our oil reserves are getting depleted, and if you believe in “Peak Oil” theory, we are about to approach the peak of the curve, which means that oil will continue to become more scarce and prices will keep on rising.

Although coal is very abundant, it is also becoming more expensive to mine, and delivery once again involves burning petroleum based fuels, creating more and more pollution. It is obvious to most intelligent people (except those heavily invested in oil, coal, cars, etc.) that we need a clean, renewable source of energy. Despite what may seem like rhetoric about renewables, I do honestly believe that this is the way we will power our world. However, the renewable energy must be affordable and/or competitive with current sources of energy.

Why Solar?

So what is the answer – what is a modern and clean way to generate electricity? Well, there are a few, and the most popular ones are Wind and Solar. My personal favorite is Solar and here is why.

Wind Turbines require lots of open space and lots of (you guessed it) wind to work effectively. Although wind is a great source of renewable energy, and unlike solar can work at night, it is not “customizable” or adaptable for the urban environment. There is just not enough space or wind in the city.

Solar on the other hand works just as well in city as in the country side. All you need is southern exposure with no or minimal shading. Solar can be installed on a roof of a sky-scraper, on the ground or even on a roof of a car. Solar is also a scalable system, and you can add or remove PV panels and/or inverters at any time. The bottom line is that solar photo-voltaic power generation is much more practical, and can be implemented where that power is needed. Besides that, both ways of getting “free” electric power from renewable sources are great. Given the notion that solar is more practical and flexible, lets get to the solar PV systems design and implementation.

Getting solar for your home or business.

Despite all the positive aspects of solar, it is expensive – VERY expensive. Additionally, not every site is suitable for a solar system installation. Therefore, if and when you decide to get into solar, the system must be designed and installed to operate at maximum efficiency, to offset its high costs and speed up the pay-off time.

Step 1: Gathering information about a perspective site for the solar project, and how much solar electricity you will need.

As mentioned before, the first step in determining if a solar system should be installed, a basic site survey must be perfored. Sinse most solar PV systems are installed on roof tops, the basic requirements for a site survey ar as follows:

• The roof plane where the solar system would be installed must have a southern exposure with some variations to the east and west. You can figure this out with a simple compas.
• There should be no shading from trees and surrounding buildings and structures to achieve the highest sun light exposure. This gets tricky, as the sun has a different angle to the earth during winter and summer months.  Thus, even in the winter, when the sun is at its lowest point, solar panels should have unobstructed exposure to it. The best way to determine where your shading is throughout the year is to use a special tool called “pathfinder”

After 3 days of rain, we finally got some decent weather on Monday. Although it was very warm for December, it was quite windy, which slowed us down. Nevertheless, we were able to get a lot of work done, including tearing of some old aluminum shingles/shakes, changing some plywood and of course making the roof watertight for the rain on Tuesday (yep, it was raining again)

As you may notice from the picture above, some of the roof rafters are not evenly spaced at 16 inches O.C., so each sheet of plywood had to be a trimmed top accommodate for the difference. Also some rafters “shift” left or right from their alignment… so to speak.

Since we knew it’s going to rain overnight and the next day, we covered the entire roof area with blue tarps. Later we will come back to this section to replace the rest of the plywood. We will also install Ice & Water barrier along all eaves and valleys and GAF breathable systhetic underlayment as the main waterproofing layer under the future Aluminum Shake Metal Roof.

Find more Green Blogs in Boston, MA area

On Tuesday we have finally started replacing a metal roof on the IHOP restaurant in Brighton, MA – near the Harvard stadium. This will be a big project, involving replacement of all the plywood and fixing rotted wood where necessary.

Since Tuesday night, it’s been raining non stop for 3 days, yet, we had enough time to tear off the old aluminum shakes on the section you can see in the picture, replace 3 sheets of plywood decking, and make the roof watertight.

Why we replace a metal roof?

Although a metal roof (especially aluminum) should last a life-time, sometimes it does not. A roof is only as good as its installers. In this case, as well as with the IHOP metal roof in Hyannis MA,  which we installed in the beginning of the year, there were numerous installation defects. Namely, each shake was attached to the roof deck with only 3 clips and nails. While it is enough for the Brighton IHOP, since each shake is 3 sq. ft., in Hyannis, with all its high winds, shakes that were 5 sq. ft. were still attached with only 3 nails.

Another problem in case of the Brighton IHOP roof, shakes which apparently were manufactured by Alcoa, have very small locks – 3/8 of an inch, where as the best metal roofing systems (which we install) feature 3/4 inch locks, making them a much more durable and wind resistant metal roofing system.

Third, and this is more of a guess: the flat roof portion of the IHOP roof in Brighton was recently replaced. We found that most of the plywood decking underneath the metal shakes was wet, soft and in some places rotted. Our conclusion is that the old flat roof was leaking, which caused some of the water to go under the metal shakes, and caused the rotted deck.

Our choice of metal roofing:

The two metal roofing shakes above demonstrate a clear difference of quality and design vs. the manufacturer trying to save pennies on reducing the size of the lock, which greatly reduces the integrity of the whole roof system. Honestly, we do now know why the aluminum shake on the left has such a narrow lock, but from our experience, we know that it can pose future problems such as blow-offs of the entire roof.

We will post more reports and pictures as the installation is coming along.

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