HAIL verses FOAM... What say you?

This was an asphalt and gravel roof, with a recovery board and a torched modified bitumen and finally a 1" SPF overlay.... No HAAG Engineering needed on this one!

Here I am spraying cutback asphalt with my brother above me shooting cedar blend granules (50/50 blend of brown and buff granules, mixed with shovels in the driveway and shoveled into the granule hoppers.

Yeah, slope was too low, but resurfacing only helped seal that somewhat. I don't recall if it leaked before, but it didn't leak after.

I'll go make it a point to take a pick of it this weekend. Probably looks rough by now but it has been there 25 years, and the roof was dry and curling just a tad even before that.

That is a strange looking house. What is that? Shingles on a flat-near flat roof?

This is my brothers and me resurfacing a shingle roof about 25 years ago with red GAF granules and a Kold King rig. We could do up to 4 average sized house a day with us 3 brothers and you couldn't tell it wasn't a new shingle. We did custom color blends of buff, walnut brown, red, green, white, black.

1.5 gallons of Monsey Products/GAF fibered cutback asphalt precisely sprayed, and 50 lbs of granules blown in at just the right angle.

We charged $35/SQR to do hail damaged roof - customers loved it, insurance companies loved it, our competitors hated it! They lasted very well - the resurfaced roof below is still on. Our material cost was around $5/SQR - average house 20 SQRS - around $2,400/day gross profit before labor. That wasn't too shabby back in those days.

The main drawback was you had to have a wandman with an unusually high degree of control over the wand. Nearly impossible to train anyone to do it.

If the Teejet nozzle plugged - as it often did when working with granules in close proximity to open-top 55 gallon drums of cutback - the wandman had about 45 second to screw the retainer ring off, clear the plug, and get spraying again before his tie-in line skinned over and the granules wouldn't stick, necessitating a respray of that area which would cause a visible tie-in line that we didn't want.

Granules had to be spray in at a 45 degree angle at the right height so they wouldn't embed too deep into the cutback. The granuleguy needed to always hear the slight muffled noise of the granule blower out the end of the hose, otherwise the hose was about to plug with granules, which was a major pain in the butt.

The good ol' days.

We are getting ready to offer granules over SPF. Customers love the look of granules, and they give a degree of leverage if they get hail damage because not every roofer and his dog can install them. I'll never forget when an adjuster called me about 25 years ago on a barrel top roof we put 12' poly fabric in cutback with #93 white GAf granules. He said "Ummm, well, it looks like 90 lb. rolled roofing (this was before mod bit's heyday)...but the seams look like the rolls are 12' wide and I don't think 90 lb comes that wide." lol I said

What I am struggling with is the emotion of having to pay Roofmaster $14k for Granule Master rig when we have built tons of granule setups on Kold Kings. Trouble is, those hoppers have to be custom manufactured with rolled steel and coned tops and bottoms and not many manufacturers can make them.

SPF is very popular in the Southwest- down here in Texas not so much. In Arizona and New Mexico SPF the competition is fierce. A large percentage of contractors have their own rigs.

3.0 lbs with 3 gallons per square is common- two passes of 1.5 gallons per square- add the Shasta #9's and you have a beautiful roof. If a contractor is using 2.5lbs they usually only apply just 1.5 gallons per square of coating. (they are considered sub par) Not to mention most of the time had under 1/2" per pass of SPF.

I only used the chopped glass a couple of times over SPF but it was difficult to sell against others offering 4-5 gallons per sq with 20 year warranties.... just remember hail was not a huge factor like it is down here.

2.5 lb and up is considered roofing foam: http://www.henry.com/sprayfoaminsulation/roof/roofsprayfoam

I don.'t know that I have ever seen SPF coatng actually installed to 3 gallon spec. You have to apply 2 coats to avoid mud cracking and we are the only contractor know of around here who does.

SPF with Polyurea coating is about as good as it gets, although pricey.

It was bought and the claim was approved. The adjuster didn't even blink an eye; the ratio appeared to be correct which this adjuster could careless.

Where I come from 3 lb foam is standard for roofing, anything less is for insulation. 3 gallons per square is also standard (about 27-30 dry mills)- in addition, broadcasting Shasta #9 granules adds to the resilience.

My favorite elastomeric coating is mfg by KM Coatings. It has a thermal resistance of .91, reflectivity of .86 with almost 70% solids and is Title 24 compliant-

d. Not enough information.

Was it 2.5 lb foam? 2.8? We use only 3.0 lb foam on roofs and it's much more hail resistant than 2.5. Additionally, foamers will install 3/4 gallon per SQR in order to bid cheap when the spec may call for 3-4 gallons. 3 gallons is far more hail resistant than 3/4 gallon.

Secondly, there are so many grades of acrylic elastomeric it isn't funny. Some have the puncture resistance of wet toilet paper, and others are much better. The new SureCoat product seems to be very good - I've been testing samples of it in the fridge.

Thirdly, chopped glass emulsion over SPF at 9 gallons and 3 lbs of glass is better than all the above.