torch or s.a.

Hi ya,ll I am doing some small flat roofs at fort hood, 8x10's storage sheds. I have been using torch but they are thinking about the safety, fire hazard . what do you think of the pros and cons. safety, price, time and warranty. thanks

i can't figure out for the life of me why people use anything other than copper on flat/low slope roofs but anyway i've used the base sheet/cap sheet peel and stick a couple times and really liked it. haven't seen any failing myself with it yet. all of the toxic plastics are extremely temporary down here.

I find it very difficult to get FR sheets in the S/A. I can only get white and I have to buy it up in advance and store it if I want to be sure to have it. If it's not an FR sheet I won't install it. All the small jobs I have used it on have held up remarkably well. Basically pristine perfect so far. We'll just have to see how they do over time. When there is big-time consequence regarding performance, I do a base and two and a cap. Ambient temp is a big deal, even if you augment with some of your own heat (which is tricky and can void warrantees if you are not careful) SBS is said to be much less UV resistant than APP. Much less. I don't do torch at all and never have except on extremely rare occasions. If you are good with a torch, I can't imagine S/A saving you any time "all-in."

T.P.O

sa has come a long way....we use a hot-air welder at end-laps, flashig details, etc., to help it along....

sa is also typically an SBS modifier, as apposed to the typical "torch-on", APP....IMHO the SBS is signifigantly superior, as it relates to thermal-shock resistance.

What Woody said.

I recently did some tile maintenance on a roof that also had a large cricket with the first SA roof I ever did, back around 2000. I've never had any callbacks on it and other than some minor granual loss, it has held up well.

The main problem in my climate is for about 4 months of the year weather conditions are a real hinderance. If it's dry enough it is rarely warm enough. Even when we get warmer, dry days in the Winter, it might only be 2-4 hours of the day that are warm enough to install SA.

We've never ran a torch so I can't compare. We've been installing cold applied for about 10 years, and switched to SA about 6 years ago. Most are nailed base sheet, some SA base. No problems on any of them!

Now, it's a bit of a PITA in the wind, but 8x10's should be simple.