A homeowner in La Habra Heights had a custom-built home with a very low slope roof. When we first saw the roof it was leaking and definitely needed to be replaced. Like so many Hot Tar and Gravel Roofs – this roof had several layers – way too much weight than the roof structure was ever designed to support. The lowest-sloped areas of the roof had been crushed virtually FLAT – offering rain water no escape.
A serious, secondary issue with this home was the lack of ceiling insulation. With no attic, there is little opportunity to fix such issues until now! We added 4-Inches of pure comfort averaging R-46…
continued…
When we first looked at the roof it was the rainy season. We actually saw the house for the first time during a rain storm…
We were in for a series of storms so we covered the roof with 6-Mil plastic sheeting.
A few months later we began a complete Roof Renovation. We were going to get rid of the ancient Tar & Gravel Roof technology and make this home way more comfortable year round. The proposed R-46 of ISO Roof Insulation would help keep the heat from escaping through the uninsulated ceiling during the winter months and would help insulate the home from the hot air of summer too. The proposed Liquid-Applied, Single-Ply Cool Roof will reflect the intense sun energy in summertime helping even further. We are going to end up with a roof so “GREEN” even the most ardent environmentalist would want to give it a bear hug…
ROOF REMOVAL
Thanks to a 13-man “tear-off” crew, the multiple layers of heavy old roofing was removed and hauled off in about half a day.
ROOF INSULATION
We installed ISO Roof Insulation over the entire roof surface after repairing some rotted plywood and having the city inspector “sign-off” on the repaired roof deck.
Sorry we don’t have photos of us installing the ISO Insulation on this project… We have several other projects posted on our site with lots of detailed-pictures of us installing ISO using 3 & 4 Inch metal plates and special deck screws. (One project you might check out is the Palm Springs, CA Condo Project)
MATERIALS DELIVERED
Here comes a truck that (in the Heights) could get a $661.00 ticket. But we are grateful to see our materials arriving… These long driveways are a bit tricky for drivers new to this Los Angeles Gem of a community…
Our Elastomeric coating and specially-woven polyester scrim-reinforcing fabric! New Technology isn’t anywhere as heavy as the old Liquid Dinosaur Roofs…
After the ISO board was installed, we caulked the seams and made sure that the new ISO Roof Deck was utterly pristine. Then we primed the ISO with some dark-tinted Elastomeric coating – to speed drying. Next we started building a Single-Ply Roof by spraying Bright White Elastomeric Cool Roof Coating onto the primed ISO and then rolling polyester Scrim-Reinforcing fabric into the wet coating. We used a paint roller to “back-roll” the wet coating and fabric to mechanically bond the Single-Ply Roof…
We strive to make a permanent mechanical bond to the 2″ x 4″ factory-painted Drip Edge Metal. You might notice that the Drip Edge runs around the outside perimeter of the roof and inside perimeter of the courtyard roof opening.
Since we took that approach – it was kind of like burning a candle from both ends. What we ended up with was an uncovered walkway of sorts. Worked out well – as we don’t want to have to walk on the coating until we are doing the entire roof with the 2nd and Final Coating…
Getting the fabric embedded in the coating takes time. It takes even more time when you have to stop and trim the fabric carefully with a pair of scissors around roof penetrations such as vent pipes, skylights and exhaust vents…
The photos of the FINAL coating are so “over-exposed” from the horrendous glare of the bright white coating that they aren’t very informative – so we will call it quits here. Photographing a completed COOL ROOF in the height of the summer months is like snow skiing in Vail in June – both eyes and cameras are completely “blinded…”
We hope that this project was instructive…
Recap: We removed a rock roof. We installed Roof Insulation. We built a cost-effective Liquid-Applied, Single-Ply Cool Roof that will save money and energy.
