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Corporate Roof Consultants Newsletter
Keeping up with Change
April / May 2005
In this issue:
- Sea of Change in the Single-ply Industry
- Alert! Serious PVC Membrane Failure
- New Self-Adhesive Single-ply Products
One constant in the Roofing Industry is change. In the past few years the Roofing Industry has seen many changes. It seems every time we look around someone is introducing a new and improved product of some type. Building owners today have an amazing number of roofing products to choose from. This makes maintenance on these roofs even more complex and harder to manage.
Corporate Roof Consulants main focus in these newsletters is to keep you informed of the many new changes and the good & bad with these changes we see "from the roof".
Sea of Change in the Single-ply Industry
In the single-ply segment of the market, we are seeing rapid growth of the TPO membranes in comparison to EPDM, and PVC. Nearly all traditional single-ply manufacturers now have a TPO product now. Main growth with TPO stems from its low cost and the ability to hot-air-weld the seams. The earliest TPO roofs are now just passing 10 years on the roof. A number of early TPO systems of the mid-90's have failed as the manufactures worked out various polymer formulations and manufacturing problems. Many of the early Black TPO systems performed poorly, a reason many if not all manufacturers discontinued making Black TPO. Now with many manufacturers offering 15 and 20-year warranties, we have to wait and see how well TPO does over the long run.
The PVC side of market has seen two traditional non-PVC manufacturers start offering new PVC roofing system, the two being Carlisle and J P Stevens. At the same time we see Firestone moving out of the PVC market now focusing only on TPO. A couple of other manufacturers have made major changes in their PVC formulations. It will interesting to observe over the next few years how well these new PVC's and the reformulated PVC products perform.
Alert! Serious PVC Membrane Failure
Over the past three years CRC has seen a number of PVC roofs installed between 1995 to 2001 with extenstive "star" and "crescent" shaped fracturing. These small fractures begin appearing a few years after the roof is installed. At first the fractures may be identified as mechanical impact or hail damage by mistake. Wrong!
These factures can be something far more serious, the PVC membrane may be failing. If you have a PVC roof and see small fractures like these, call CRC and schedule a roof assessment survey. CRC will examine the roof, and if the PVC roof is failing, CRC will help you make a valid warranty claim and get the defective roof replaced by the manufacturer.
More details on our website "PVC Case Study"
New Self-Adhesive Single-ply Products
One area of change Corporate Roof Consultants is pleased to see is the development of self-adhered single-ply roofing systems. Several TPO manufacturers (Genflex & GAF) and at least one PVC manufacturer (Sarnafil) have in the past year introduced new self-adhesive technologies.
CRC has always been a strong proponent of fully adhered single-ply roof systems vs mechanical fastened systems. The new self-adhered systems, while more expensive material wise, go down faster with lower labor cost, and eliminate odors from applied adhesives. Very useful systems for applications over schools and hospitals where occupants may be sensitive to fumes and odors from the glues.
Contact Information
Email info@corporateroof.com Here
phone: 727-518-9564
Website: www.CorporateRoof.Com
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