AskARoofer

Tackling a gravel roof

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 06:00:00 PST

From UV protection to fire resistance, gravel roofs have a lot of benefits. But the challenge comes when it’s time to restore them.

When home and building owners think of a roof, they probably think of shingles, tile or some sort of fluid-applied system (even if they don’t know the name for that). What they probably don’t think of is gravel. But gravel can actually be used in a variety of roof systems. Oftentimes you can find it as the final surface layer in built-up roofing (BUR) systems. To learn more about the use of gravel in roofing systems and how one might tackle restoring a roof that features gravel, Karen Edwards sat down with Greg Hlavaty of Western Colloid for an episode of the Understanding Roof Restoration podcast.

Greg opened the conversation by discussing the role of gravel on a roof in depth. He shared, “Gravel does three things. It adds a little bit of weight to the roof for things like wind resistance. Then it adds UV resistance, because no sun's going to get through that. It doesn't keep the temperature cool if it's a hot day, but it doesn't let the UV in. If you keep a good heavy layer of gravel on there, no UV is going to get through and degrade that asphalt. Next it is fire resistance. If you put enough gravel on a roof you can get a fire rating with paper towels. It is a barrier to the heat.”

Where gravel becomes a challenge for many contractors is when it comes time to replace it and restore the roof it is a part of. But it’s not an impossible challenge. Greg explained how you would start a gravel restoration job, sharing, “The first thing they'll do though on a gravel roof, is they'll sweep it and vacuum it. We always recommend a vac, sweep, vac. Where they vacuum it, sweep it with either a power broom or a very stiff bruise, then come back and back it again. There's a layer of gravel that is uniformly embedded into that asphalt. That doesn't come off very easy.”

Once that’s done, it’s time to put something new down. What Greg and Western Colloid have recommended for decades is asphalt emulsion. “An asphalt emulsion is an asphalt that isn't readily flammable. It is relatively inexpensive, so you can use in the higher quantities,” Greg explained. “Asphalt emulsion is a combination of a straight run distilled asphalt, one that's not been oxidized like hot mopping asphalt… It is mechanically ground with a bentonite clay. It becomes a colloid product and once the water evaporates, it's a combination of bentonite clay and asphalt.” Restoring a gravel roof with asphalt emulsion not only waterproofs it, but it does so at a low cost that makes it accessible to many clients.

Check out the entire podcast to learn more about restoring gravel roofs.

Take a walk down the 2024 memory lane with us

Wed, 01 Jan 2025 08:00:00 PST

By Emma Peterson.

As we look towards 2025, let’s take a quick look back at what was top of mind for home and building owners in 2024!

Here at AskARoofer, our goal is to find the answers to any roofing-related questions you have! In the last year, we are proud to have built a community and space for everyone, whether you need advice on how to choose a specific product/material or you need general information to level up your roofing knowledge. Before we hit the ground running in 2025, let’s take a moment to look back at the top content of 2024.

Top podcasts

Getting Concierge Color Service from a Roofing Company

In addition to our articles, we have an incredible multimedia team that is producing high-quality podcasts to help you better understand your roof and home. Our top podcast for the year was hosted by The Coffee Shops’ Lauren White and Megan Ellsworth. In it, the duo spoke to Kate Smith of Sensational Color and Kelly Kloeppel of DaVinci Roofscapes about the art and science behind selecting the right color for your roof.

Keeping Your Roof Moss-free

We also run a minisode series that is intended to give listeners bite-sized, yet comprehensive insights into the world of roofing. From sustainability to maintenance and beyond, each episode offers practical advice in under 10 minutes. The top minisode of 2024 was focused on the common issue of moss accumulation on residential roofs. In the episode, Lori and Matt Swanson, owners of Guardian Roofing and Gutters in Auburn, Washington spoke to Megan Ellsworth about how to maintain the longevity and aesthetic of your roof.

The hot trend of cool roofing

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 06:00:00 PDT

By Western Colloid.

Here’s why upgrading a building for energy efficiency is a must for building owners.

How can upgrading a roof for energy efficiency make a difference? When a building has a cool reflective roof, it can be beneficial to the overall sustainability of the structure. Cool roofs increase solar reflectance and emittance and in turn, this extends the overall lifespan of the roof and lowers the building’s peak energy demand. Aside from keeping up with the hot trend of energy efficiency, here’s why it’s beneficial to upgrade your roof to a reflective one.

When a roof membrane is reflective, it lasts longer than a non-reflective roof membrane. Just look at what happens to a roof on a hot day. If it were 85 degrees out, the surface temperature of a roof can reach up to 170 degrees depending on how long it’s exposed to the sun. When exposed to heat, it gets hot during the day and expands and then contracts at night.

This process is called “thermal cycling”, or how a roof moves during the heat of the day to the cold of the night. Thermal cycling can damage the roof membrane, seams, edge details and penetrations. But thermal cycling effects can be lessened by having a cool reflective coating or membrane. Reflective coatings can be installed on nearly every type of existing roof surface, including BUR, single-ply and metal. And building owners who are looking to save money should consider the life cycle of their roof. If their roof does not need to be re-roofed as often, this is easier on the wallet.

Western Colloid has always focused on reflectivity with our roofing products, especially considering the developing energy crisis. Most, if not all, of our roof system specifications for the past 50 years have included reflective roof surfaces.

Cool roofs are great for all buildings, but for structures without air conditioning, having a reflective roof is a must. Take for example, a study that the state of California did on a home improvement warehouse in central California. This warehouse would get so hot in the summer without air conditioning that they would have to close early. After having a reflective acrylic roof installed, this made the temperature of the building much more manageable, and customers could feel more comfortable shopping there during the summer.

In Los Angeles, there was a book binding facility with a tan-brown color cap sheet roof. This made them also close early in the summer because the working conditions were too hot. The owners decided to have our 720 ElastaHyde white acrylic top coat installed and this also resolved their temperature problems.

Another warehouse that benefitted from our reflective roof systems was a large spice company that had to store their spices in bulk. Most spices you buy are stored for two to four years before being packaged. In normal conditions they have a long shelf life, but due to the excessive heat in this warehouse, this shelf life was drastically reduced. After they had one of our cool roof systems installed on their warehouse, the temperature profile of the building dropped and they avoided spending lots of money on expensive air conditioning.

Cool roofs don’t just save energy, they also increase the comfort level of employees working in the facility. Some of our customers have facilities with stables and dairy farms and excessive heat can be hard on the animals housed there. One of our customers was a local Sheriff’s department horse stables that had tan coated metal roofs. After a contractor installed a Western Colloid reflective roof on the metal, this made a huge impact on the comfort level of their horses.

Most of the cost of any energy efficient roofing system will be the reflective topcoat. If we could give you a final recommendation, it would be to spend a little more money and update your entire roof with a Western Colloid reinforced system. By doing this, you’ll get a sustainable and renewable roof that is waterproof and strong, and our warranties are renewable. Nearly every roof is a great candidate for a reflective roof system and with over 50 years of experience, Western Colloid is sure to find the right roofing solution for you.

Original article source: Western Colloid

Western Colloid Announces a Game-changing Product – 298 X Asphalt Emulsion

Mon, 05 Feb 2024 10:00:00 PST

Western Colloid announces a new product to revolutionize the restoration of gravel roofs that have ponding water.

Western Colloid, the recognized leader in the roofing industry in fluid-applied reinforced roofing systems, announces the launch of 298 X Asphalt Emulsion, a product that revolutionizes the restoration of gravel roofs and ponding areas. 298 X Asphalt Emulsion contains a proprietary fire-resistant filler that increases the volume solids of the emulsion, making it much more effective as a fill coat over rough surfaces and to build up areas that have ponding water.

“With 298 X, we’ve added a special lightweight component to the standard 298 Asphalt Emulsion to maintain volume after drying,” explained Western Colloid President Greg Hlavaty. “The increased volume lessens the shrinkage that usually occurs when used as a fill coat over gravel or in ponding areas after evaporation.”

Western Colloid is a leader in developing systems to restore gravel roofs with their 298 Asphalt Flood Coat product that eliminates the need for a costly tear off and re-roof. The launch of 298 X allows contractors and building owners to achieve an even smoother surface on a roof restoration.

“Primarily, we're using it in gravel systems to fill voids, but it's also ideal in low and ponding areas as a ponding filler,” stated Hlavaty. “It’s also saving time and labor as in most cases a second pass is no longer needed when applying emulsion.”

Traditionally asphalt emulsion is not a high-solids product. The enhancement to produce the 298 X product transforms the standard asphalt emulsion into a high-volume solids product for enhanced performance and appearance. This formulation is currently being manufactured at the company’s Alvarado, Texas plant due to the high demand for re-roofing gravel roofs in that region. Production will be expanding in 2024 to their Oakland and Los Angeles, California plants.

“We are excited for the potential of this product and soon we will be offering Western Colloid 298 X in a spreadable grade for more specific use in ponding areas,” said Hlavaty. “We are very excited to add that version as virtually every roof has some standing water somewhere. In the future you will be able to just take a five-gallon pail of 298 X, apply it, let it dry, and continue with your installation.”

Be sure to visit Western Colloid’s website at www.westerncolloid.com for more information.

About Western Colloid

For over 50 years Western Colloid has been recognized in the roofing industry as a leader in FARR - Fluid Applied Reinforced Roofing, Reflective Coating Systems and Premium Asphalt Sealcoats. Headquartered in Southern California, with five other manufacturing plants and distribution centers, they can provide products to contractors and building owners anywhere in the Western and Mid-Western States. Western Colloid is also known for extensive experience in coatings, pioneers in energy saving and cool roof products and unique paving solutions. Acknowledged for their exceptional customer service and training they also offer bulk transportation and delivery solutions with their own fleet of trucks, saving contractors time and money.

Western Colloid can be reached at 800-464-8292 or www.WesternColloid.com.

Out of sight, out of mind: Why building owners shouldn’t overlook roof maintenance

Sun, 04 Feb 2024 06:00:00 PST

By Evelyn Witterholt.

Make the most of your building investment by prioritizing regular roof maintenance and inspections.

In theory, maintaining your building should be a number one priority for building owners. But performing quality, all-encompassing building maintenance is much harder in practice. One element of the building that gets overlooked is the roof, and doing so can be a costly mistake. In a recent episode of Understanding Roof Restoration, we spoke with Greg Hlavaty and Hal Leland from Western Colloid, about why building owners shouldn’t neglect their roof’s needs.

Building owners tend to ignore their roof when maintaining their building because it’s harder to see the issues there. Greg, president of Western Colloid, says nobody wants to get on a roof. Since you can see the windows and walls of a building, you’re more likely to spot their needs and fix them versus the needs of your roof.

“They're doing everything to make that building look decent, but nobody wants to get up onto that roof, and that's probably the most important weather barrier that they have on the building,” Greg said.

If you don’t want to get up on your roof, hiring a roofing contractor to see what maintenance it needs can save you money in the long run. Hal, general manager of Western Colloid, says that one thing they encourage contractors to do is perform annual roof maintenance for their customers. Whoever installed your roof could likely perform annual inspections for you and take care of all your roof maintenance needs.

“The rooftop, you don't see it, you don't look at it. It's got gutters, it's got leaves in the gutters. It's backing up water,” Hal said. “Every year you need to be up on that roof, just taking a look at it. You do that, you can double the lifespan of your roof alone.”

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about why regular maintenance is key to your commercial roof’s health.

Have spray polyurethane foam roofing questions? We have the answers!

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 06:00:00 PST

By Western Colloid.

Here’s your complete guide to spray polyurethane foam roofing restoration, including installation tips, benefits and maintenance.

Spray Polyurethane Foam, commonly known as SPF roofing, is made up of a mixture of a few chemicals that are then sprayed using a specialized gun. While spraying, the gun mixes the chemicals in the spray tip, which allows them to expand once combined. SPF is similar to the foam you’ll find in insulated ice chests and it creates great insulation on roofs. As SPF technology has developed, people started spraying it on many things, including cold rooms and tanks, and it was eventually adapted to roofs.

In using SPF for roofs, roofers discovered that foam by itself breaks down quite dramatically when it is exposed to UV — the cells would open up and instead of keeping water out, it would actually suck water into the roof. In order to use SPF on a roof, the roofing industry had to come up with a protective surface for the foam.

That’s when we began using acrylic roof coatings, usually embedded with roofing granules similar to rolled roofing cap sheets. Granules are also good for bird resistance because birds like to peck at foam. SPF roofs create great insulation, and they are also a good barrier against weather damage.

As with any system, some roof decks worked with SPF better than others. Plywood deck roofs were harder to install SPF on because the plywood flexed and moved damaging the foam. Contractors have also faced problems with applying SPF over metal roofs because they have a great deal of movement and can cause SPF to split and buckle.

Maintenance is key for foam roofs

What we here at Western Colloid have found over the years is that once that protective surface breaks down, it is difficult to make repairs. We are members of the Spray Polyurethane Foam Alliance (SPFA) and have been for decades. Although we don’t offer SPF roofing products, we're involved in this industry because we offer repair products for people with foam roofs.

It’s recommended that building owners keep up with maintaining their surface coating system. Whether it's seven, eight or nine years, they should recoat their foam roof to extend their life. Unfortunately, owners that don’t maintain their roof end up with foam roofs that are degrading.

That brings us to where we are today with SPF roofs. There are still a lot of SPF roofs out there, and the ones that haven't been treated well are some of the most problematic roofs you can run across. Some roofs cannot be saved because they've deteriorated to such an extent that the foam has broken down and it can soak up water like a sponge. Once SPF becomes exposed to UV damage, the exposed area is called “fried foam.” This is when the SPF has become soft, dusty or very brittle.

One option to remediating the SPF roof is by “scarifying” the foam. Scarifying means using a machine that’s similar to a lawnmower – it has blades that grind down into the foam until they get to a good layer of foam. And then, while that is very fresh, another layer of foam is applied over it and then recoat that.

Deteriorated SPF roofs can hold water forever

Occasionally a contractor will be restoring a roof with our Fluid Applied Reinforced Roof (FARR) system over the top of a foam roof with hidden water intrusion and it will blister. This happens because there's no place for that water to go. If it’s a metal deck that the water can't go down, it comes up. When the roof heats up it will blister. Blisters are mainly an aesthetics issue, but those roofs are probably holding water and it’s difficult to tell where that water is being held.

To repair a deteriorated SPF roof, you can cut the blisters out in the summer and try and let that roof bake out a bit. Then you can recoat it with a membrane over the top of it for the fall season.

SPF roofs are among the hardest roof to identify damage

With a built-up roof you can look around the drains and waterways to see deterioration, that is not the case with SPF. The best solution is with a moisture scan. If you find moisture, you can cut out and re-foam a three foot by three foot, or six foot by six-foot area. From there, you can bring it back to the same level as the existing foam, then apply a FARR system.

SPF roofs can hide a bunch of secrets unlike a built-up roof. In most cases SPF is the second roof. You’ll want to raise the curbs, pipes and the roof jacks, then cut them out and reposition them. When making these kinds of repairs, there are now foam kits that you can use.

Foam packs are convenient and they will also work with board stock insulation. You can find everything from a can of foam to small spray kits. Using these, you can spray a larger area with two bottles that connect with a hose to fill it. When repairing a blister, you can fill the void with one of these kits.

Contractors also use a lightweight mortar mix with cement to fix patches. They mix it and can then fix those voids and low spots that have been cut out. Then a FARR system can be applied.

Western Colloid’s #800 acrylic mastic is useful for SPF roof repairs. It has a water base and it’s very elastomeric. It can be used to easily repair cracks, splits and small depressions. If the defects are over a quarter of an inch thick, a three-course specification with polyester fabric is needed.

The issue with skylights

Skylights have a nice curb and water can easily run around them. When applying foam on a roof, sometimes contractors fill within a half an inch of the edge of the skylight. But when it rains, the water is going to run up and into the skylight. This can be avoided by controlling the roof’s drainage.

Foam can be added around drains and crickets. If done properly, water can flow right to a drain or a scupper. If there's a situation where water is holding in an area, contractors can shave the foam back two or three feet and make a nice drain sump where, which creates positive drainage on a roof. Then a Western Colloid system can be installed over it.

Making the most of an SPF roof

To increase the performance of an SPF roof, it’s recommended that a cool roof protective coating is installed over the foam roof to help the foam fight as little heat as possible to give it more value.

Installing a foam roof is a real art form. When a contractor goes out to a job, they will likely have a little weather station built onto their equipment – they’ll know the humidity, the air movement, the wind speed and they’ll record that for future reference. And when a foam applicator applies SPF it's beautiful and it lays out very smoothly.

Original article source: Western Colloid

Industry experts reflect on the positive impacts of reflective roofs

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 06:00:00 PST

By Western Colloid.

Here’s your complete guide to spray polyurethane foam roofing restoration, including installation tips, benefits and maintenance.

Maintenance is key for foam roofs

Deteriorated SPF roofs can hold water forever

To repair a deteriorated SPF roof, you can cut the blisters out in the summer and try and let that roof bake out a bit. Then you can recoat it with a membrane over the top of it for the fall season.

SPF roofs are among the hardest roof to identify damage

Contractors also use a lightweight mortar mix with cement to fix patches. They mix it and can then fix those voids and low spots that have been cut out. Then a FARR system can be applied.

The issue with skylights

Making the most of an SPF roof

Original article source: Western Colloid

Understanding roof restoration episode 12 - The argument for good roof maintenance - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 12:00:00 PST

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Greg Hlavaty and Hal Leland from Western Colloid. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Karen Edwards: Hello, and welcome to the Understanding Roof Restoration podcast. I'm your host, Karen Edwards, from askaroofer.com. The Understanding Roof Restoration podcast dives deep into the topic of restoring roofs. As the popularity of roof restoration continues to grow among building owners and contractors, there are many questions that arise. With a wide variety of roofing systems on existing buildings and many available restoration options, we turn to the experts at Western Colloid to answer your questions on roof restoration. Greg Hlavaty, Hal Leland and the team at Western Colloid have been manufacturing and installing these systems for more than 50 years, and they have seen it all. We will tackle a different topic each month and answer questions submitted by you, our listeners.

Hi everyone, this is Karen Edwards, and welcome to another episode of Understanding Roof Restoration. Today, we're going to be talking all about roof maintenance, and I am excited to welcome back Greg Hlavaty and Hal Leland from Western Colloid. Welcome.

Greg Hlavaty: Welcome, how are you?

Hal Leland: Hi, good to see you.

Greg Hlavaty: Now, you actually say Hlavaty better than anybody in my 70 years, unless I'm home in El Campo, Texas.

Hal Leland: It's still not perfect, but it's the best that we've heard.

Greg Hlavaty: You actually-

Karen Edwards: Thank you.

Greg Hlavaty: Because we always say the H is silent, but you actually, it's not truly when you say it, if a Czech person says it. That H is just there in the beginning and you actually put that in there.

Karen Edwards: Well, I tell you, I was born with and grew up with a Polish name ending in S-K-I, so I always try to pronounce names as best I can, so thank you for that compliment. So this is our episode 12 of Understanding Roof Restoration, and as I mentioned, we're going to talk all about roof maintenance. And I'd like to start off just by talking a little bit, maybe Greg or Hal, how do we define roof maintenance, what does it consist of?

Greg Hlavaty: Well, first I'm going to say that this is maybe the most important, or to a building owner podcast that we've done because following just some of these, the basic guidelines for roof maintenance may either, I'm not going to say it'll eliminate, but it'll indefinitely prolong all the previous podcasts we've done. Fixing my foam roof, fixing my metal roof, BUR, how do I... All those things can be either, not fully avoided because eventually everything wears out at some point, but you can dramatically extend the life of a roof with some good roof maintenance.

And it's well known, this doesn't come from the roofing side. You can go to BOMA, a building group or IREM, all those that have different kinds of seminars, and they'll tell you the worst problem with maintaining a building is the roof because nobody wants to get on the roof. You don't see it. You see the walls, you see the windows. They're fixing the landscaping. They're power washing the walls, they're painting the walls. They're doing everything to make that building look decent, but nobody wants to get up onto that roof, and that's probably the most important weather barrier that they have on the building. So first of all is don't be afraid to either get up on the roof yourself if you're capable of, there is some ladder climbing in that and take a look for yourself.

Or better yet, hire somebody, and it's probably your good roofing contractor to go up there and do the maintenance. But the maintenance consists of very simple things, which is just getting the leaf and debris out of the drain sumps, because if a drain plugs up and it doesn't drain fast, then the water sits on the roof. Instead of hours, it sits on there for days, sometimes weeks. That's probably the worst of all things. But then you have trades that go up there and work on your roof. HVAC people, painters, electriciansm, and they leave. They don't care about the roof either, they leave it as they found it.

Karen Edwards: Or they drop a tool, right?

Greg Hlavaty: Right. So roof maintenance, first of all is just observing your roof. How does this, I get up there, and oh my gosh, there's debris everywhere. The drains are plugged. Those are simple things that a building owner can have a maintenance person take care of. Some of it's a little bit more elaborate. Go ahead, Hal.

Hal Leland: It's out of sight, out of mind, right? You just never look at the roof. And our whole thing is annual roof maintenance, whether you put one of our assemblies on or not, when you have a roof, it's just like any part of your building. It's your carpeting, you need to clean it, right? The rooftop, you don't see it, you don't look at it. It's got gutters, it's got leaves in the gutters. It's backing up water, it's out of sight, out of mind. And like I said, again, every year you need to be up on that roof, just taking a look at it. You do that, you can double the lifespan of your roof alone.

Karen Edwards: It reminds me of the refrigerator in the kitchen, especially if you're not tall enough to see on top of it. You may climb up on a step stool to open those cabinets above the fridge and you realize, "Oh my gosh, look at the dust and dirt on top of my fridge. I need to clean this." Same thing with the roof, right? You just have to make sure you do that a couple times a year even.

Greg Hlavaty: Right.

Hal Leland: Yeah. I'm 6 foot 6, so I see the top of my refrigerator, you're right, it can be disgusting. Sometimes you can't get your arm all the way back in there either, so.

Karen Edwards: And that's in your house.

Hal Leland: Right.

Karen Edwards: So imagine what a roof is going to look like being exposed to the elements with all that, the leaves and debris.

Hal Leland: Oh, it can be horrible, right?

Karen Edwards: Yeah.

Hal Leland: And so like Greg said, they're maintaining. You're painting the outside, you're trimming the trees around it, but no one cares where those leaves are going, right? They're going up on that roof deck, especially if you have a parapet wall on it, you can never see what's up there.

Greg Hlavaty: And as your building ages, especially commercial buildings, but residential too, but especially commercial, the other thing that happens is your landscaping matures, and what used to be small trees that were maybe two or three feet from the top of the building that you placed around to make your landscaping around the facility or maybe the owner of the property all around has trees. Well, those get bigger and bigger every year, and as they get bigger, they get taller. As they get taller when the wind blows or their branches overhang the roof, what might not have been a problem the first five years, the second five years are shedding leaves and branches and squirrel nests. I mean, we have some amazing pictures of palm trees growing out of drain sumps. I mean, two or three foot tall palm trees growing out of drain sumps. Ivy growing up and down the parapet walls on the inside. Just amazing-

Hal Leland: It takes about two years for a palm tree, a Mexican fan palm in California to grow three feet tall. So in two years, you can have a three-foot tree on top of your roof. It's not in your [inaudible 00:07:53]. Right out of a drain. And the roots are, that's a grass family so the roots are incredible, so it's stopping all water from exiting the roof.

Greg Hlavaty: So that's the main thing is don't be afraid to either get up or have somebody get up on your roof. It's not going to be free if you don't do it yourself, but the money you spend will do two things. It'll prolong the life of that roof, and if you have a warranty on that roof, Western Colloid, like many if not most building roofing manufacturers require some maintenance to a roof to keep that. You can't just put a roof on, say, "I'm not going to touch it for 20 years," and if you have a 20-year warranty and expect it to perform.

Just like with your car. You don't get to go buy a car, get the warranty, don't change the oil, don't do anything else, and then you have a problem with it after three years, you pull it in and they say, "Well, you haven't done any maintenance on this. This warranty is not in effect." You have some liability and responsibility on your side, and whether you have a warranty or not, look at it as your own warranty. You can get up there, you can catch things when they're early. Sometimes it's one gallon out of a little three gallon bucket to fix something, a deficiency that's showing itself a small split in that area.

Hal Leland: Hopefully they're not using silicone to do that patch with, we've spoken about before. But on another note, I mean, every commercial building has a maintenance guy that they've hired on staff, almost everyone or a guy that flows between these buildings and that should be one of this guy's, his key hits every year is go and look at that roof. So that's just another note for a building owner.

Greg Hlavaty: You can do it anytime of year, but I always recommend if you're going to do it once a year, do it in the fall before the winter sets in, so then you catch, it's gone through the dry season, all the leaves are from the previous year there. You can get up there and get it in good shape. I've just spent the last two weekends going around my property here making sure, we got a winter coming. I'm looking at all the things that once it starts raining and the wind blows and it gets wet, it's hard to do. So do it late summer or fall and get prepared for the winter so that you can just not be woke up in the middle of the night by a tenant or your own people saying, "Hey, it's coming in around the fax machine," or the computer or whatever.

That's the biggest thing is what the downtime that it might put to your building operations. And there are simple things. Some owners can do it themselves. Like I say, it's always good to have a roofing contractor do it because they know what to look for. There are signs of that they can get up there. And again, it's not going to be free, but it is going to be cheap compared to the alternative. There are so many things like the pipes that direct water from air conditioning units. So many air conditioning units dump onto the roof. Well, that's like raining every day. You think, oh, it's dry this summer, we didn't have any problems, but you had an air conditioning unit working. You don't have a drain pipe running to the drain. So every day that water that it accumulates from the process of condensing the air. Spills onto the roof, and that's like rain and it'll wear it out. It'll fill ponding areas.

They should all have a PVC pipe or some sort of pipe to direct it to the drain, and so many of those that had them when they were new, but an AC guy or somebody else up there doing something, kicked it and broke the pipe so it spills on the roof, that's one of the easiest things to find. And one of the worst offenders to roofs is directing water from HVAC units to drain areas, that's a big problem. That is really bad in the summer because what happens in the summer, you get direct, a lot of UV light, a lot of heat in the summer, but wet at night from the AC or during the day and so that bakes off. And when you wet it down, bake it off, wet it down, bake it off, that's really tough cycling of that roof membrane. You're accelerating the weathering of it by two or three times.

Karen Edwards: Wow. Something that simple as a PVC pipe to direct the water, as long as your drains are clear. Now, do most contractors offer maintenance package? I know in my home, my HVA system, I have a contract with a contractor who comes out in the fall and the spring and does an air conditioning check and a heat check. Do contractors do that for roofs?

Greg Hlavaty: Absolutely. And we recommend it even when they've put on one of our systems, talk to the building owner. Maybe the first couple of years, it's going to be in good shape, but start a program where... And usually you'll get it a little more reasonable, because they'll charge, instead of a one time, oh, I got to do a lot of stuff. I'll be up there every year, I'm going to spend two hours on your roof with one or two men. Here's what it's going to cost you, and every year, I'll give you a little report. And anything we catch, we'll take care of in that two hours. If there's something more major, something, an air conditioning has been installed or something's been removed and it takes more work, then there might be some additional charges. But absolutely a yearly maintenance package is ideal way to go for cost.

Hal Leland: Every one of our contractors has a maintenance division, and these guys, if they're not working full-time on a crew and they've got some other responsibilities, they're always providing maintenance for their home, for their owners. So that's a big-

Greg Hlavaty: Yeah, and oftentimes you'll find an additional benefit because if you do have a problem or a leak that is unseen and it comes up and you're one of the people that this contractor has a maintenance contract with, you're going to be one of the first he gets out to. He might have a stack of 25 calls he's got to make, and it might take him three or four or five days depending on how long it's been raining to get all those calls done. But if you're one of the people that has a maintenance contract, you're going to be on the top of that list.

Hal Leland: You're in the database, right. Mr. Jones? Yep, we'll be right out there.

Greg Hlavaty: Right.

Karen Edwards: That's a huge benefit. And I wonder too, I would think, but I don't know this and maybe you don't as well, but would my insurance company see it more favorably to know that I have regular roof maintenance contract in place and that I'm taking care of that?

Greg Hlavaty: You'd have to go company by company policy. There are different things that you can get insurance breaks on, fire rated roofs and non-fire rated roofs, different things that you can provide. So I can't answer that for all of them, but there may be some. It's worth the question, and Hal brought up something that he just touched on, but I don't want to touch on it, I want to hammer on it. And that is, oftentimes a building owner will get that friendly guy that's been coming around saying, "Hey, I'd like to do work on your roof." And finally he decides, "Okay, get up there. You can do some roof maintenance." And many times, that roof maintenance for some of the smaller contractors is going over to the roofing distributor, picking up a five gallon bucket of silicone coating and going up and rolling it on in the low spots and around the drains. I'm pleading, begging, building owners do not allow your little contractors to go up and make repairs on your roof with silicone unless you intend on putting a completely coated silicone coated roof system on there.

Because what you do is, it sounds like a good idea because a silicone, as we've talked about in the past, is an amazing product and it weathers beautifully and it has all kinds of wonderful, it can withstand ponding water in its own. It doesn't always help the roof withstand ponding water, but the coating itself does. But what it does do is it makes, when it comes time to either re-roof or coat that roof or put a maintenance system on, if there's silicone spots all over it, you can't because nothing will stick to it. So all of a sudden, you could increase the cost of your re-roof or your roof maintenance system like we would provide, or many other roof coating companies like ourselves that is economical. It'll put you out of that market because people can't stick to it. Oh, we put silicone on it now, we can't put a maintenance system on.

Nothing will stick to it. So you're going to have to tear that roof off now if you have problems, or you're going to have to put a board overlay over it to separate it for the new roof doubling or tripling the cost of what you thought it was going to take. So please be careful. So many of these guys run around, and that seems like a good idea. Using this product that has great weathering ability but is not the right product for doing maintenance. Do it with a good, use a good modified mastic. We use acrylic mastic and reinforcements. Reinforced acrylic coating, a reinforced urethane coating, some of those, you can do all those things to do the maintenance, but once you put silicone, you can never go back. And so that means you've just condemned that roof to either not being able to put a maintenance overlay on it, or a tear off.

Karen Edwards: So we're not saying all silicone is bad. We've got systems that work great. We're just saying don't use it for maintenance and repair.

Greg Hlavaty: Yeah.

Karen Edwards: Okay.

Greg Hlavaty: Because it'll eliminate about two thirds of the products you can then put on when it comes time to spend a little money and put a 10 or 20 year overlay system on that.

Karen Edwards: Okay. Well, at this point, we're going to take a quick break so we can hear a message from our sponsor, and then we'll be right back to finish this conversation talking about roof maintenance, so stay tuned.

Ad: This podcast is brought to you by AskARoofer and Western Colloid Fluid Applied Roofing. When you're looking for answers for your roof, what better place than askaroofer.com? If you are looking for answers on restoring your commercial, industrial or low slope roof, look no further than Western Colloid. For over 50 years, they have been bringing old roofs new life. Together, we're helping contractors, building owners, property managers, architects, engineers and consultants choose the best commercial roofing system. Find Western Colloid today on askaroofer.com.

Karen Edwards: All right. Hi, everybody, we are back to continue our conversation about roof maintenance, the importance of it and why it matters. My next question is, how do you find a contractor and start that relationship? The Yellow Pages of the past, you look, see who's got the biggest ad and maybe they've got more money or bigger, better contractor, but what are your tips on choosing the right partner for your roof?

Greg Hlavaty: Well, a lot of it is, there's a little bit of due diligence in it. You can call a few of them and see if they have any references. References are, I think they're critical in finding a contractor. So many building owners use the who's the cheapest method of, even if they're doing a new roof, a re-roof, a maintenance, whatever they'll call, one contractor will come out and give them a proposal, and the next thing you know, they're calling four other guys, "I want you all to come out." And then they look at the cheapest one. And I often say, "Well, you know what? Take the cheapest one and when you get the cheapest one, call me because I'll find you somebody who'll do it cheaper." There's always somebody that'll do it, and if that's your goal, then that's all you're going to get is a cheaper system.

So you might want to talk to a couple of them, but sometimes it only takes one. You get either a good feeling or you get some good references. "Hey, who do you do work for?" Or, "Is there somebody around that you could refer me to, so I know I'm getting a good deal?" I think networking is often the best way to go as opposed to just finding the guy that's the cheapest. There are a lot of guys running around in pickups and there's many unlicensed contractors. That's another thing. And many of those guys are good qualified guys. They just haven't gone through the process because there's more to becoming a licensed contractor, and that's something we haven't talked about much.

But being a licensed contractor is a big deal in that you not only have to do the right kind of work, you also have to have the business sense because everybody up there putting that roof on tomorrow could go around with their truck and do some sort of roofing work for somebody. But doing the whole package, having the insurance, having the equipment needed, having the business backup to run a business that's profitable. If they're not running a profitable business, they're not around to come back and fix what they did before. So you want somebody that's been around, just because they're new doesn't necessarily mean they're not good because there's always new contractors starting up. But there's many ways to look at how to get a contract.

Hal Leland: Myself, I get a dozen calls a year from people who have reference or search to our building maintenance groups like BOMA and IREM, and the good reputable contractors and manufacturers are listed on their website as members, and that's another resource that we get these larger commercial properties that really, that's their due diligence. If you're a homeowner, like Greg said, it's word of mouth and someone that you know, and do you know someone in the construction industry, but these larger groups go with the larger groups like we belong to.

Greg Hlavaty: Right, that's a great point because contractors that have been around a while, they support the building management, different groups and societies like BOMA, IRAM, facilities maintenance, IFMA, and if they're in there, you're not the guy that just started yesterday, went out, bought a pickup and all of a sudden is on their radar. You've been involved with those people. You've got to perform, or you're going to get a black eye in those groups so that's a great resource. Even if you're not a member to one of those resources, they have their guides online that you can find a lot of those things. So somebody that's responsible, they may not be the absolute cheapest because they have overhead and what have you. That's the other thing. One person, a company, and all he has is a truck and a little bit of equipment has very little overhead.

So he can be pretty darn cheap, maybe quality, but maybe not. And so you know somebody that's paying their bills has the overhead is doing it, they're doing something right, and they can always, if we're involved, you can come to us because we have guys in different regions that we would refer you to because we know the guys that do the quality work, not only the systems, but then do the maintenance to those systems too. So do a little bit of homework. It might only take a couple calls, but that's a really important factor because the original founder of our company back in the late '60s, early '70s, one of his first flyers that he used to mail out was protecting your most valuable asset.

Most of us, the biggest chunk of money we have in anything that we invest is that building. Not our cars, not our refrigerators, not even often our homes a lot of times, it's our commercial buildings in that. And so that roof is protecting that, your valuable asset and the interior of that asset. So take a little bit of time, but reach out to a, and if it's not us, reach out to another manufacturer. If you're going to be on the list of a quality manufacturer that puts out good roofing systems, they're not going to lead you to somebody that just popped up yesterday. They're going to give you somebody that does work with them so they can give you references.

Karen Edwards: It's a good point for any contractors that may be listening, right? Is to build those relationships with your manufacturers, with your suppliers and join those organizations and get involved and build those networks.

Greg Hlavaty: Absolutely.

Karen Edwards: Agree, 100%. Also, you want to, I think it's very important to make sure they're insured. There's a lot of risk that goes into getting onto a roof. And as the owner of that building, you want to make sure that anybody that's going on that roof is practicing safety, the correct safety measures and they're carrying the right protection and insurance.

Greg Hlavaty: Exactly. You want to question, do you have a safety program? Do you have... Because if they don't have the right insurance, if that guy falls, it's your responsibility as a building owner, it's going to come down to your liability. So you want to be sure that that is done and that they have all the things they need to go up that roof. Because roofing is one of the more hazardous.

Karen Edwards: Occupations, yes.

Greg Hlavaty: Occupations, right, exactly.

Hal Leland: Only if you fall off.

Karen Edwards: Well, true. True, and we don't want that to happen.

Greg Hlavaty: The other thing is when you get somebody that go up there, if they're going to give you a report, a maintenance report today, it is so easy with our phones and cameras to, they'll give you pictures. Ask them for a photo report. Show me what you found, because you don't always want to go up on the roof. Matter of fact, you may absolutely not want to go up on a roof. There's many times when we go do a roof inspection, the building owner doesn't feel comfortable going up a 20 or 25 foot ladder. And that's fine, but they would like to know what's going on up there. So you can do a quick photo, give them a photo report when you come down, either after you do the maintenance or with a proposal for the maintenance. Here's what I found, you've got leaves here, you've got this here. You've got these broken pipes. I'm going to do this, this, and this, and this, it's going to take me this many hours. Here's what it's going to cost you, and here's the proof. Here's the photos of your roof.

Hal Leland: Our big guys do the before and after, and it's in a file, right?

Karen Edwards: Yeah. I was just going to say the after is so important too, especially because say you do have severe weather come through and you maybe have some damage, and then you might need to file a claim. And sometimes insurance companies will say, "Well, that wasn't there because that's from lack of maintenance." And then you can produce a report and say, "Here's my before and here's my after picture, and here's the date that this was done," so it gives you a little bit of leverage in those situations.

Greg Hlavaty: That's a great point. That's a great point. Because we all know that we all have to live with them, but sometimes we have to fight with them, and that's insurance companies. So having that proof and backup is a great asset to have and keep in your files.

Karen Edwards: Definitely, wow.

Greg Hlavaty: Just real quickly, it's really funny because some of the biggest companies and even the smallest companies, but the ones we've had the longest relationships with and use the systems, we hardly ever get warranty calls on it. And that's because they do the roof maintenance, and those roofs just sail through their years of lifespan with little or no problems. And if there is problems, that's the other thing that I should have said before, we have a maintenance engineer. He's actually a trained civil engineer that went to work for a very large, you'd know the company if I said it, but has multiple buildings on the West Coast. Over a period of almost 20 years, he kept records of every time somebody went on the roof, you went on the roof if you were an air conditioning guy and paint, you had to sign in and sign out.

But the most thing he did is he kept records of roof leaks, and what they were caused from. Every time there's a roof leak, was it a window on a wall? Was it an interior leak at least? And surprisingly enough, less than 50% of all the roof leaks over those 20 years were from the roof membrane. They were from flashings, they were from walls, they were from air conditioning ducts. They were from pipe that were put in and not properly flashed. So not as many as you think actually come from the roof membrane. But all those things are very technical and they have to be looked at, and they have to be looked at by somebody who knows what they're looking at.

Karen Edwards: For sure, wow. This was a really great conversation today on the importance of roof maintenance. We hope that you learned something and take that information and implement it in your everyday practices and processes for your roofs and your buildings. Greg and Hal, I want to say thank you so much for all these episodes we've worked on. We are going to be taking a little bit of a hiatus, but we've got so many episodes in our backlog. As you mentioned at the beginning, Greg, we've talked about restoring metal, restoring single ply, built up, all kinds of, reflectivity. Any topic that you possibly have any questions about, take a listen because you're going to get your answers there. And as always, you can listen to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform, on westerncolloid.com or askaroofer.com. So thanks for joining us today, and we'll see you next time. Bye, guys.

Understanding Roof Restoration Episode 11 - Reflective Roofs & Energy Efficiency: Why it Matters - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 12:00:00 PST

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Greg Hlavaty and Hal Leland from Western Colloid. You can read the transcript below, listen to the podcast or watch the webinar.

Karen Edwards: Hello and welcome to the Understanding Roof Restoration Podcast. I'm your host, Karen Edwards, from askaroofer.com. The Understanding Roof Restoration Podcast dives deep into the topic of restoring roofs. As the popularity of roof restoration continues to grow among building owners and contractors, there are many questions that arise. With a wide variety of roofing systems on existing buildings and many available restoration options, we turn to the experts at Western Colloid to answer your questions on roof restoration. Greg Hlavaty, Hal Leland, and the team at Western Colloid have been manufacturing and installing these systems for more than 50 years, and they have seen it all. We will tackle a different topic each month and answer questions submitted by you, our listeners.

Hello everyone. I am Karen Edwards from AskARoofer. And I'm excited to welcome back to the program Greg Hlavaty and Hal Leland from Western Colloid. Welcome, gentlemen.

Hal Leland: Good to be here.

Karen Edwards: Great. Always great to have you on. And we are going to be talking this month about, for understanding roof restoration, why someone might want to upgrade for energy efficiency and why it can make such a big difference for their building. So let's talk a little bit about why putting on a fluid applied roofing system on an existing building can really change the energy efficiency of that building. Why is that?

Greg Hlavaty: Well, first of all, most of our roofs, if not all of our roofs for the past 40 years, have been reflective surface roofs, which is maybe a little bit different than most other companies. Almost everybody's gotten on the bandwagon in the last 10 to 12 years, 15 years, that, hey, we need cool reflective roofs. We were always reflective. In the early days, it was our water-based aluminum. But even as early as the mid to late '70s, we were putting white acrylic roofs on. So it's always been a thing for us because it does two things. It's, energy efficiency is key. And that's a hot topic these days with energy crisis, energy issues worldwide, everybody's looking at that. But it's also the energy efficiency or the reflectivity of the roof membrane itself. There's just no question that a roof membrane lasts longer if it's got a reflective coating and it doesn't have to do as much work. It doesn't have to fight the thermal shock, the high heat, high temperature.

A cap sheet roof, a gray granulated cap sheet roof on a Southern California day at 85 or 90 degrees, the surface temperature of that roof can get up to 150, 160, 170 degrees depending on direction of the sun and how long it's exposed to the sun. And that means that roof membrane, and we're not even talking about the energy of the building yet, we're just talking about the membrane itself, that membrane heats up, it expands, it swells. Everything that happens to any kind of a substance when you heat it and then it drops down, if you're coastal, it drops down into the low 50s, high 40s at night. And that is a thermal shock. That's the expansion contraction on a metal roof, on any type of roof, a built-up roof. And so it's just good for that membrane and that membrane just lasts longer if you put a good reflective coating on. The UV doesn't burn out. If it's an asphalt roof, asphalt only lasts so long under UV. It burns out and the reflectivity keeps that out of the way.

So that's all the practical things of parts of the membrane. And that's not just us, that's every membrane out there. Almost all the single-plies are white except for EPDM. And even EPDM, which is not used widely in the hot climate areas, but that even has a UV barrier. It's not white, it's black. They put a black pigment in it to keep the sun from eating that, eating the EPDM rubber out. But it's important. So that saves the owner money. That means that he's not re-roofing as often.

That was always the early part of our reflectivity. And so we just naturally phased into the energy crisis. So when the state of California, who leads the pack for the whole nation in energy laws and requirements for buildings and what have you, they started their tests back in 2003, I think, somewhere in that range, and started monitoring buildings with reflective roofs and non-reflective roofs. And they were given rebates at the time. You could get a rebate. If you put a reflective coating on your roof, you could get a good portion of that rebated back to you. And what they found after following these buildings that had reflective surfaces on them, reflective coatings, they were saving somewheres in the range, on the low end, 15%, on the high end, 30%.

There's a lot of factors that come into this, how tall the building is, how many floors it has, how much windows and all that. But just on an average, if you're saving 15 to 20% in summertime energy cooling, it's a big deal. And it's peak energy. That's when the worst of our problems is, right at 3:00 in the afternoon when every hot building in the area has got their air conditioners going full bore. So that's that peak load that they were trying to tame and it did a real good job. So much so that they put it into state building regulations, building codes.

Go ahead, Hal.

Hal Leland: Yeah, so that was all driven by the California Energy Commission, and they did start working in early 2000s. And in 2005, Title 24 for the state of California adopted cool roofs. So it's Title 24 Part Six, and that is where the Cool Roof Rating Council was born. And Greg's right, all these membranes are white. PVC, TPO, even EPDM in the west makes a white sheet now. And we've, of course, coatings, and we've always been the coating guy out here in the west. And Title 24, it drove everything. Now everyone follows them to the Atlanta, Georgia, Miami Beach, Los Angeles. They all follow California Energy Commission Title 24 Part Six.

Greg Hlavaty: By the way, Hal is on the board of Directors of the Cool Roof Rating Council which you can speak about a little bit.

Karen Edwards: I was going to ask Hal, what makes a roof cool? What requirements does it have to meet in order to be classified as a cool roof?

Hal Leland: Well, the CRRC, the Cool Rating Council, I'll lead you, or I'll read you our little blurb on it and what we do. We're a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We develop fair, accurate, credible methods for evaluating and labeling the [inaudible 00:08:31] properties of roofing and exterior wall products. And we have a mission. Our mission is to bring the objective scientific information related to cool surfaces to critical discussions and informed decisions about the impacts of heat islands, extreme heat and energy use in the built environment.

So it's a very important little group. And all we do at the Cool Roof Rating Council is we measure reflectivity and emissivity. And we've been adopted into codes and standards. We're working on ASTM International, but we're already in ANSI, which is the American National Standards Institute. We have S100, which identifies the preparation of samples, how we treat them, how we test them at one year and at three years. So that gives us our qualification for Title 24 Part six, Los Angeles Green Building Code, LEED qualification system. So I'm involved with that because that's what we do. We're right in the heart of that as Western Colloid.

Karen Edwards: You mentioned that you test it at one year, you test it at three years. So just being white doesn't mean that it's going to meet the requirements of a cool roof. It has to be tested and proven.
Hal Leland: It does. And like I said, the CRRC, all we do is we test. So you're going to get a number regardless, a certain emissivity, a certain reflectivity at one year and a certain rating at three years. But it's the government agencies that call out what you need to qualify to get a cool roof. And California is, like Greg said, is the leader. They're always the leader and every state in the nation follows us. And so California requires a certain emissivity and a certain reflectivity to qualify for Title 24. So that's our goal whenever we make any coating is to exceed that.

Greg Hlavaty: Let me say something about the state of California. There's a lot of things, a lot of us in the manufacturing, building, roofing industry and all that gripes us about the state of California and all their codes and all their energy. But I'm going to point out one real simple basic fact. In the late '90s and the early 2000s, California was rolling ... we had brownouts and rolling blackouts all summer long. It was, "What area are you in? Are you getting the blackout?" You're getting the rolling blackout, you're getting the brownouts. We needed more energy to be built and we had to build more generation plants. And they said, "No, you're not going to build any more generation plants." Matter of fact, they took a few offline, some of the nuclear.

Since then, they've not built any generation plants. And yet all those problems, I'm not going to say they've gone away 100%, but they've gone away 90-plus percent. They've accomplished what it would have taken in building more energy plants by putting some of these energy codes in. So the proof is in the pudding. It has worked. It has kept us from having to build more generators.

Karen Edwards: That's really impressive just by making that change, by putting reflective roofing systems on buildings that it's had that impact.

Hal Leland: It's not just roofs, it's walls. And now I'm on a steering committee for pavements as well. Greg and I have been working with a new chemistry, it's not asphalt-based, for pavement. Reflective pavements. I think that's going to be even a bigger movement, quite frankly.

Karen Edwards: Wow.

Greg Hlavaty: And let me say this about the energy thing. The whole aspect of it means different things to different people. So it means, like Hal talked about, heat island. Well, heat island in effect is, how much does your city, the dome over your city heat up because it's becoming so hot? And if you have that island or the city itself, usually a metropolitan area, if that gets hot, everything around it gets hot if it's just two or three degrees more. And there's lots of evidence for this. You can look at a lot of aerial photographs or satellite photographs of how the countryside is one, two, three, five, six, eight degrees cooler than the city. So that's heat island. Then that reflects into everything else. The people on the street, people in their cars, houses, the industry and all that, so that's the heat island.

That's the big picture. That's the planet kind of picture looking at it. But then there's the local city and the governments that either have to bring in energy for their people and then they have to implement codes, so it means something to them. And then you get to more granular and then you talk about the building owner. What does it mean to them? It's energy directly and a dollar bill. The state, if they don't have to put in more generating facilities, and usually they put in generating facilities not to cover the electricity needs day in, day out, 365 days a year, it's the afternoons of the summer. The peak, what they call peak load. And that's what they have to gear for. And if they can drop that down, they don't have to even cool off all the way around. So that's a big thing to them.

The bottom line is, I have a map here that the Department of Energy put out some years ago. This is pretty old and it might be updated. But what they found in the testing, metropolitan scale savings per 1000 square feet of roof area of air-conditioned buildings ... So we're talking about warm weather climates in Los Angeles for every square feet, a thousand square feet roof, the building's air-conditioned, this is all averaged, you could have high and low, but it's $20 a month. $34 in Phoenix, $11 in Fort Worth, 18 in and Houston, $9 in Chicago, $17 in New Orleans, $17 in New York City.

Karen Edwards: Wow.

Greg Hlavaty: So, it doesn't have to be down here in the southwest and the heat area because the heating energy is not as demanding as the cooling energy is. And we've always had a lot of pushback from different manufacturers. Manufacturers that made black EPDM would push back, "Oh no, in the northern climates you don't want white roofs." But what it's really shown, anywheres up into the southern Canada, for the most part, having a cool roof is better than having a non-cool roof. Because any of those areas, you take Chicago, it's hot in the summer. In New York City-

Karen Edwards: I was just going to say that. It's hot in the summer. I'm in the Northeast. It's hot in the summer.
Greg Hlavaty: So, it's a benefit. And those are benefits to the building occupant, owner. Might be the owner or the occupant.

So it means different things to different people. But the reality is, is that this is an easy way to achieve some energy efficiency for yourself, for your neighbors and for the planet by just ... In most cases, you have to put a new roof on to get a cool roof. In our cases, our retrofit roofs, our maintenance systems accomplish that for them without the need to tear off and re-roof and what have you. So like I said, we just slid right into it. We've been doing this for 40 years, but it's become a very appropriate thing to do.

Go ahead.

Hal Leland: Want to just jump in because you're making all great points. But we've done a few projects in Philadelphia on the row homes. Everyone lives in the northeast knows what a row home is, right?

Karen Edwards: Right.

Hal Leland: We've gone up and we've coated one-half of a row. And we've watched the energy change and the savings in that top floor, and it's tremendous.

Karen Edwards: Wow. You guys were pioneers before it became cool to be cool.
I'm going to pause. Don't go anywhere because we are going to hear a word from our sponsor. And when we get back, we will continue this conversation.

This podcast is brought to you by AskARoofer and Western Colloid fluid applied roofing. When you're looking for answers for your roof, what better place than askaroofer.com? If you are looking for answers on restoring your commercial, industrial or low slope roof, look no further than Western Colloid. For over 50 years, they have been bringing old roofs new life. Together we're helping contractors, building owners, property managers, architects, engineers and consultants choose the best commercial roofing system. Find Western Colloid today on askaroofer.com.

All right. Welcome back, everybody. We are talking about the energy efficiency of cool roofs and upgrading when it makes sense and why someone would do that.

I think our discussion so far, Greg, as you said, you've been cool since the beginning. And then throughout the years with the Cool Roof Rating Council, with testing, with regulations, it's become a requirement in some places, particularly California. And we've got some roofs out there that are darker, are asphalt, are dark material. And they're prime candidates for that makeover to become energy efficient. And you mentioned yourself about rebates that may be available. And I'm not an accountant, nor are you, so definitely talk to your tax accountant. But are there still options for folks who make that change to a reflective roof to get some benefit financially in addition to the cost savings of [inaudible 00:19:16].

Greg Hlavaty: There's not many of those around anymore because they've been ... because the cool has been put into code in most places. There's still a few areas. California started out with rebates and then they said ... then everybody complained, "Why don't we get the rebates anymore?" Well, because it works so well that they made it a law. We got you to do it by dangling the carrot. Now we're using the stick, but do it because it's important.

I was going to bring up one more point is that we talk about air conditioning and saving the energy that we're going to use to cool the building and all that. There's also a really important use of cool roofs for non-air conditioned buildings. And a lot of people don't realize we've had multiple. One of the first studies that the state did was a Home Depot facility in ... somewheres up on the central coast. I can't remember the city. Hollister or one of those. And that Home Depot got so hot during the summer that they had to close it early in the afternoon because it became uncomfortable above what they called a temperature that they could allow the public in.

So they put in some fans and ducting that helped a little bit, but they ended up putting on just a good acrylic reflective coating on that roof and it totally changed the profile of that building. They kept it open during all hours that they needed. We had a couple of facilities in Los Angeles that had a tannish, brown-colored cap sheet roof on them. And again, the same thing. One of them was a book binding company that in the summertime, they would close early on the hot summer days because it was just too hot to work in that warehouse. So they put a system on with our white coating and totally changed. That problem just went away there. They could work all the hours they needed.

There was a big spice company that I won't say the name of, but store spices in bulk that then get packaged and put on your shelves on your market. And most spices are not picked from the tree or the plant or whatever and you get them next week. You get them next year or two years or three years. They have a pretty good shelf life, but their shelf life was dropped by two or three or four years in the warehousing of the spice company until they put on cool roofs over. They were either going to have to air condition in the warehouses, which is very expensive, or they put the cool roofs on which totally changed the profile, the temperature profile of those buildings.

So there are a lot of reasons to put a cool roof on besides just saving the energy directly in the building. It's the comfort level of the employees that work inside those facilities.

Hal Leland: Or the dairy cattle, Greg.

Karen Edwards: Oh, right. Animals, they don't want to be hot either. [inaudible 00:22:34]

Greg Hlavaty: The Sheriff's Department stables, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department have metal roofs, and the metal roofs had a light colored, light tan roof on it. But the sheriff's stables with all the sheriff's horses, which is a pretty good amount of horses they have that they use for either use or also parades and different things. Anyway, we put one of our metal systems on there and made a big impact on the comfort level for the animals.

Karen Edwards: Well, it's hard to argue. I love that you're sharing the real life scenarios where this has been done and this has made a huge difference. It almost is a no-brainer, why would you not do this?

Greg Hlavaty: Right.

Karen Edwards: Wow. Wow. This is fantastic.

So are there things that a building owner should know? Like I said, it seems like a no-brainer to me, but we've talked about this in other episodes. Not every roof is a good candidate for this and there's factors that they need to consider. But you guys, you have the expertise to help. So you're happy to talk to someone if they're unsure, if an owner or even a contractor is not sure if they're a good candidate. What's that look like for them in helping them determine that?

Greg Hlavaty: Well, first of all, we have people anywhere we sell our products. We're happy to view the building, give them some ideas. One of the big differences with us, and there are many really good fellow coating manufacturers out there that will sell reflective coating to you. The thing is, if you're going to spend the money on that reflective coating to save energy or save the membrane of the roof or whatever your reason is, the most of what you're going to be spending, any system, is going to be that reflective part of the top. Because that's more expensive whether it's acrylic or silicone or urethane, any of the different technologies.

So if you're already going to be putting that money out, with Western Colloid, what we're a little different is, is that you can put a membrane on with it. A relatively inexpensive membrane, a reinforced asphalt emulsion with an acrylic surfacing to give them waterproofing, tensile strength, the full membrane strength that they need for a roof and get the white reflective coating on it. Because you're already going to be paying for 50 or two-thirds of that if you just put the acrylic on. So why not upgrade that roof?

Now, if it's a brand new roof, that's something different. But usually if it's a brand new roof, they're already under the energy code. So think about before you just spend money on painting something white, think about getting some bang for your buck and getting a membrane with it that does some good for your building. But most buildings, if they're aged, they're going to need something.

Karen Edwards: Yeah, Hal.

Hal Leland: So, you said not every roof would be a good candidate. I think every roof is a great candidate for a reflective roof system, whether it's a single-ply or a coating system. And like Greg said, a coating only is not always the best option for you. So multiple layers of reinforcement, all acrylic, polyester-reinforced systems, asphalt emulsion, polyester and acrylic, and modified versions of either of those.

So every roof is going to benefit from getting the sun off of it and stop, what Greg was talking about earlier, is that thermal cycling. The movement of a roof a day to the night, to the morning, to the afternoon. That's the moving, shrinking, and moving and shrinking and moving, that's what tears the roof apart. That's what delineate the seams. It can work on a metal roof. And a ton of movement in a metal roof. So stopping the thermal cycling by making your roof reflective and emissive is ... that's going to benefit every roof deck, whether it's cap sheet or existing coated roof or single-ply or whatever.

Greg Hlavaty: You're building a new building and you've got a new construction, then they'll give you an option for a good single-ply membrane. PVC, TPO. But in most cases, we're talking to building owners that are existing, or a roofing contractor that is talking with building owners that they've got already existing issues and problems.

And it's the flip side of that too. I got a roof, I don't necessarily need to put a cool roof on right now, but I got leaks and I got problems. Well, again, if you're going to do that, if you're going to put one of our maintenance systems, one of our reinforced systems on, you're going to almost automatically, but hopefully by choice, is you'll get the energy efficiency as part of the package. That's just another selling point that if you're a roofing contractor that's listening to this.

And by the way, we had a little roofing expo at our plant in Texas yesterday.

Karen Edwards: Oh, nice.

Greg Hlavaty: And there was 22 contractors. Several of them mentioned that they listen to our podcast regularly. So that's nice to know that they're out there listening to this.

Karen Edwards: Excellent. That's great feedback. We're glad that you're listening and we hope that you're learning and that we're helping.

I know I sure have learned a lot talking to you two over all these episodes. I just want to say thank you for being here. We love talking about all the issues related to roof restoration. Energy efficiency was a great topic today. It just makes sense. And Western Colloid has a solution that probably will meet your needs. So please reach out and talk to them.

And remember, if you have questions, we want to answer those. So you can send us your questions at westerncolloid.com or askaroofer.com. If we use your question in a future episode, we will send you a gift. And we love talking about restoring roofs. So next month, please tune in because we're going to be talking about the argument for good roof maintenance, and what is roof maintenance? What does that entail? What does it mean and why should you be doing it?

So remember, you can listen to us on your favorite podcast platform. We are all over the place. You can find us on westerncolloid.com, askaroofer.com. So please subscribe and set your notifications so that you don't miss an episode. We'll see you next time.

AskARoofer

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