Spray foam roofing in Blackfalds is a recover system, sprayed over an existing low-slope roof and finished with a protective coating. The commercial buildings here went up in a fairly narrow span of years, which means a lot of their roofs are arriving at the same decision at the same time.
A membrane reaching its decision point
A single-ply or built-up roof put on twenty years ago is not failing dramatically. It is getting brittle, the seams are working, the flashings have been patched a few times and the owner is starting to get quotes. That is the moment a recover makes the most sense on a Blackfalds building, because the existing assembly is still dry and still doing its job, and it can stay in place as the base for what goes over it. Left another five years the same roof may be wet, and a wet assembly has to come off.
Recover while the deck is still dry
This is the whole timing argument. A recover leaves the existing roof in place, so nothing is torn off, nothing goes to landfill, the building is never open and the tenants below never stop trading. All of that depends on the survey finding the assembly dry. Where there is trapped moisture the wet material comes out and the job becomes a larger one, which is said before a price rather than discovered halfway through.
Rooftop units and the penetrations around them
On newer commercial buildings the roof is busy. Rooftop heating and cooling units, curbs, vents, conduit and drains all penetrate the surface, and every one of them is a joint that somebody made and somebody else later worked around. Those penetrations are where these roofs leak, not the field. A sprayed system runs continuously up and around a curb with no seam at the transition, which is the single most useful thing it does on a building of this type.
New buildings fail differently from old ones
It is worth knowing what to look for, because the failure pattern is not what people expect. An older roof fails from age across the whole field. A twenty-year-old roof fails at details: a seam that was always marginal, a flashing behind a unit that nobody can see, a drain that was set slightly high. The survey looks at those specifically, and where the field is genuinely sound the recover is a straightforward and comparatively inexpensive piece of work.
Spray Foam Roofing Blackfalds: Common Questions
What are the options for a roof that is about twenty years old? That is the decision point. A recover suits it while the assembly is still dry.
Do we have to tear off? Not if the survey finds it dry. If there is trapped moisture, the wet material comes out.
Where do these roofs actually leak? At penetrations and flashings around rooftop units, far more often than in the field.
Size the assembly with the R-value calculator, then get a free Blackfalds quote. More on Spray Foam Roofing Alberta.