Steps Involved with Installing TPO Roofing
If you're not sure what kind of roof coating you need, you might want to first get familiar with your various options in this article - Different Roof Coating Options for Your Commercial Roof
So the first thing we do with the gravel roof is we get rid of the gravel. A lot of roofing contractors may want to just tear the roofs off, but it's really better not to do that because of landfill waste and things like that. Also, you want to maintain your existing insulation. But if you were to go over this existing gravel, the real problem is weight. So by getting rid of the gravel you're getting rid of two hundred pounds per square. A TPO system is very light - more like 40 pounds per square, so it's worth the effort to get rid of the rock and keep the roof. commercial roof coating
After clearing the gravel, we'll put down insulation and then after that we're going to put down the single ply system TPO over gravel. The next thing we do after the roof is swept is we put down is half-inch insulation. This is basically a buffer so that nothing from underneath can get through, if there is pebble there or anything, it won't poke through. So this goes on the whole roof.
Then we go to adding the TPO at 60 mm. It cannot be ripped - it's very formidable. This stuff should last 50 years
Once they start getting the TPO on the roof surface, they start heat welding, which is the next phase.
Let's discuss how this gets adhered and fastened to the deck. When things are set up, you'll see screws and wide plates that are about 8 inches apart, all along every single seam on the roof. Then the next row comes on will overlap the first and will be heat welded together. When it's done welded seams will be just as strong as any part of the material sheet.
The way it's kept down is at one side of the six or eight foot sheet it gets screwed down with the plates attached to the deck. That way it can't come up - the wind can't blow it up. So once the sheets are heat welded together, the whole thing is stuck to the deck.
Every every pipe flashing and every penetration gets dealt with individually by an individual installer. He heat welds individual strips to make a watertight boot around that particular vent or protrusion. Square shaped boots are usually manufactured right on the roof as needed. For a pipe or other circular protrusion, you'll get a prefabricated conical boot. Those get heat welded down at the base, right to the top deck layer, and is really your only point of concern. The top portion, where the vent pipe exits, gets a fifty year caulk on it and then it gets a band like you would see a hose clamp in a car, and that gets tightened down making a seal that is good for the duration of the roof.
Installing TPO Membrane | Roofing it Right
I'm Dave and I'm Wally it's hot it is well you guys been seeing our videos of our a little practical get-go I know we're finally to the stage where they start stall numbering now you may notice we're wearing booties you guys an audience mace may chuckle at that you gotta remember we've been tearing off a nasty pitch roof I mean it's been hot it's dirty you didn't pack my other shoes I didn't know it's your fault now poker so as booties necessary no but it's gonna keep that membrane cleaner when we're kicking it out you don't have to wear booties but I'll tell you may sound stupid these things are cheap but it's gonna save you a little time you have to clean so much so we're gonna lay this roof up probably the lace roof okay well I think we're going to start hearing the drain with a 5-footer because we're tapering this white we're actually taping tapering always we're going to start Center this on the drain or pretty much run from wall to the to the edge out there and then we're going to go to the left and to the right where they're going to take over the crew that's doing the tear off right they'll take off or take over and go that way now the reason we did this of course is because the decks going this way mechanically attached we have to hit the top of the flue right that's why we're wearing our sheets this way I mean you could run him this way because that is longer but because of the deck we're going perpendicular to test so we're looking at this roof how many half sheets do we really have to have up here well if you wanted to do a half sheet you would do out there back out and back while I don't mess around a lot of messing around so I think we're gonna do fingers maybe do what has she run fingers right and we'll talk about that a little more as we get installing this perfect yep you crossed okay we're gonna take this five foot rule where several this drain rather than trying we're gonna take it to the water block that's our specification under any clamp ring round and run the membrane cut the hole try and get this tube squeezed in there anybody's ever mussels water black know how messy it is we're gonna do a prior to installing the membrane actually this is our flex seal that was our water block flex seal or water block this is our spec one full pool one full two / gray now the tricks gonna be somebody doesn't walk in it which sure you guys haven't been on a roof we know that's virtually impossible but this is gonna be covered up we'll put something around here so nobody actually gets into it no come to me go to you down a window flashing cover that walk now I'm going to kind of cut this hold me ghosts we're not gonna put the plant bring on right now I will come back in a little bit just little buddy walks in this area it's cut a hole right here the center of this grain so I'll bet I will tidy it up okay so the settings I put on the robot is 10 feet a minute for about 900 degrees this machine will run I believe while 11:48 is a maximum temperature and I believe this b2 will run around 30 feet a minute you will never let me say this again you will never well cheap you a lot fast it's you gotta remember I've got this big cord I'm trying to drag with me I got trying to keep this thing straight I've got deflections in the deck because you can see right here that we're gonna have to come back and patch in but how I arrived at these temperatures was there's a formula was taught years ago you take the ambient temperature whatever it is that's about 80 degrees so I divided that by 10 gives me 8 I added 2 feet a minute 2 that gives me 10 feet a minute gets me in the ballpark okay you don't have to stay there but you got to have a baseline and I did test wells earlier what I did I set this up at 10 feet a minute I started at 600 degrees I did well I bumped it up 100 degrees I did another weld and I but I didn't touch my speed what I did I ran those those temperatures to I max this machine out from 600 degrees till m48 then I went dad back and did my test bulls and I stepped up the scene up in the middle which gave me about 10 feet a minute right around 8 by 900 degrees so that's where we get that's where we we test well that's how we arrived at the settings on this machine what we're going to do now is at the end of these sheets were going to put faders now a lot of you have done picture framing picture framing is on the outside the true outside perimeter of a building which is when you step off the roof as you're stepping it down that is a true outside perimeter a lot of the younger guys don't have experience with laying up half sheets all the way around the perimeter it works we've been doing it for years but now there's another way we call it faders so when we're going to put feeders in we're going to go between the two seams half of the sheet so we're doing 10-foot sheets now it would be five foot would be make your mark at five foot Gino okay now Gino's guy is his market five foot because we have a five foot perimeter he is going to install plates and faster twelve inches on center straight-line five foot 85-foot miss by an inch now he's putting go foot fight scene plates in here five fasteners now he's going to use this fasteners fasten it down and then we're going to scrip that in with our eight-inch flashing strip which is a reinforced product what this does now I have fastener to every five feet out here at the edge of the roof where the wind is where he hits first you can also do fingers with rhinobot so we put the Rhino bond plates in first lay the sheet over top and come back and zap it in so right now I'm cleaning the membrane very important to clean it just because I cut it you know what I mean all right it's not too dirty it's a brand new roll that just came out so I would just use water for this there's no need for the TPL cleaner or just plain old water it's it works so guys as you saw I just welded this by hand kind of took me a while I highly recommend when you guys are doing this to use the robot use the robot to weld your your fingers as well it saves you some time now the only reason I'm doing it by hand our generators being used somewhere else so I need I want why not finish this up so I'm using the hand Walter but always try to use the welder to help you guys out with the job so now what we're going to be doing here we're going to end up doing the wall flashing and it's we had to like a steel beam on the side of the on the bend so we're gonna move the flashing seven inches on the flat so one of the tricks that I was taught by market by Dave Wiley and Mark was we're when your guys are there you mark your seven inches when you come here you measure 14 inches so you mark your 14 inches because once again pretty quick we have a 7 inch on the flat so we're going to do is go back and put that put the edge of the seam right here where those up 14 inches went just crease it out and then with the roller we're gonna roll in so by rolling this in once we're done this is that's gonna help the tpo do an l-shape so we're not fighting it because if you don't crease it instead of having that that nice little L shape it's gonna come out and it's gonna bow out by where it right at that transition so we really really want to square this up is as you can see it's gonna stay nice and flat and this crease helps us out so this is a cool trick I recommend everybody using it and you're not trying to fight to try to get the TPO tight to that to the transition I'm going all the way duck well we got through another one rarely barely we're wrapping this one up here in Maine we've done tear off we've AIT's a pitch you need some pitch learn some pitch what six inches to tear off something like that we got all the tpo on our end tapered systems on everything's buttoned up ready to go for the roofer contractor to kick off tomorrow it's up to him to finish this job it's about 5:30 or 6 o'clock here in Maine and I think we're just about ready to go what do you think I have myself anything gonna add it's been a long day I'm ready to go back to work and get some rest I heard that let's go