My name's Spencer.
I'm a project manager here at Nedlaw Roofing.
Our focus is making sure your building,
whether it be shopping center,
whether it be hospital,
or whether it's your home,
making sure it's waterproof
and kept in good condition.
Today, I'm going to be walking you through
two of our favorite roof systems.
Both have their places
and advantages in society today.
One's an asphalt built-up roof,
and one's a torch-down roof.
Sometimes you can't use asphalt.
It's inaccessible to the building.
So you opt for a torch-down system and vice versa.
Our two favorite systems share a lot in common,
and you would start out with a vapor-barrier insulation,
a cover board, and then we kind of bridge off.
So, the vapor barrier is
to prevent condensation in the building.
If there's no insulation inside,
you need a vapor barrier
so that you don't get water droplets
on the inside of your building.
It's creating a thermal break
between the outside air and the inside air.
Similar to tar and gravel,
you're going to roll out your vapor barrier.
You're then going to install your insulation.
You're then going to put down
your protection board on top.
All of this is going to be
mechanically fastened to the deck,
and then you're going to start
installing your membranes.
The asphalt is usually around 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
The torch is 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
We want to protect the roof
so that we don't start any fires,
so that we're as safe as possible.
So, we use things like a cover board
to protect the insulation
and anything below from starting a fire,
as well as special tape we install
around the perimeter to block the fire
from getting inside the building.
The protection board is an essential part
of your roof system.
It protects your insulation from the torch,
allowing you to install your base
and cap sheet on top of it.
Following the installation of the protection board,
we start to install our membrane.
We will start with our base sheet,
which is torched down in this case.
Typically when torching, you want to make sure
you are torching along the roll
as well as the actual roof itself
to make sure you get an even and uniform bleed-out.
So, the cap sheet is the final layer to go on.
It has a built-in granular surface protectant
that maintains the life of your roof.
Here you'll see us installing
a tar and gravel roof system.
This system is used mainly on hospitals and schools.
Namely on school projects, open flame is not allowed,
so we opt for the hot asphalt applied roof system.
There are two systems, share a lot in common,
kind of bridge off where,
the tar and gravel roof,
you would put down four plies with asphalt,
flood coat, and gravel.
A four-ply system means four plies
of felt or membrane is ran across the roof,
one over the other,
to create the waterproof layer.
So, here we begin by installing
the underlayment board.
It literally looks like a sheet of drywall.
It gets put down in glue over the steel deck.
So, on a tar and gravel system,
usually you need some securement for the vapor barrier.
That means fully adhering it
or installing it with asphalt
so that the roof is held down and doesn't blow off.
So, installing a tar and gravel roof system
starts with the kettle.
The asphalt is pumped up through a pipe to the roof.
The asphalt then goes into the mop buggies,
which are transported to the section
of roof it's being used on.
The asphalt is heated up in the kettle
to 500 degrees Fahrenheit
and then is pumped to the roof through the pipe.
A mop is then put into the tar buggy
and used to apply the asphalt
all the way across the roof.
The rolls are then set into the asphalt
and rolled across the roof.
When mopping in rolls,
you want to make sure the asphalt
is fully applied over the roof,
so that the roll does not hit any bare spots.
The rolls are ran one after the other
across the roof, embedded in the hot asphalt
to make sure you have a well-protected membrane.
So, the flood-proofing is the felt and the asphalt.
That's what's keeping your building waterproof.
Lastly, the asphalt is poured onto the roof.
The gravel is embedded in this asphalt
to create a UV-protective layer
and finish off the system.
We go through countless hours of safety training
and installation training yearly
to ensure we're installing
these membranes safely and properly.
The longevity of the roofs definitely depends
on what material you're going with.
We have more cost-effective options
that will get you 15, 20 years out of your roof,
and then we have more intricate and stronger options
that will get you to 20-, 30-plus years.