by Roofer911.com |
If you’ve always had a gabled home, you might think that a flat roof on a home is strange but think again. Flat roofs have been used to top structures for at least the last ten thousand years. Nor are flat roofs just found where the weather is arid and rainstorms a novelty. Granted, flat roofs are thought best where the sun shines the fiercest but flat roofed home ownership stretches from coast to coast and border to border in the United States.
The three categories of flat roof are built up, single ply and spray on. A built up roof consists of layer upon layer of a weatherproof membrane laid down in crisscross fashion until the desired thickness is achieved. The membrane can be tar-saturated paper topped with asphalt or rolled asphalt. Gravel is then placed on top to break direct sunlight. Single ply roofs are lighter and the most common ones in use today. They are weatherproof membranes usually of rubber, PVC or thermoplastics. The rubber roofs are black with adhesive seams. The PVC and thermoplastics ones are usually white with hot air-welded seams. Spray-on roofs are also known as paint-on roofs and consist of spray-foam insulation or SPF roofing.
SPF roofing is in two distinct parts with the SPF sprayed first then topped with an acrylic or urethane coating to ensure a seamless and waterproof tight fit. Sand is then placed over the foam and acrylic to stop the sun’s rays from penetrating down and destroying the foam. One drawback of this type of flat roof is that the birds will eat the insulation but their damage is easily fixed when doing roof repair with roofing grade caulking.
Steven Briesemeister
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