- When repairing an adhered rubber roof, how dependable is re-seaming a 15 – 20 year old EPDM roof with current adhesives – in other words, is this a good investment to prolong roof life?
Seam Repair itself should be fine to accomplish and be dependable. To go ahead with it depends on the overall condition of the roof system along with how many seams need to be re-seamed. To re-seam a majority of seams may not be a good economic decision if other aspects of the roof system also need work; the flashings are not good, or there is a lot of wet insulation. 15 – 20 years of service life from a ballasted EPDM (rubber) roof is pretty successful, in our opinion. Isolated seam repairs would likely make the most sense.
- What is the common repair for popping nails under an EPDM roofing system?
Replacing the popping nails (assume you meant screws) would be our recommendation. Cutting and patching of the EPDM membrane along with proper screw installation by an experienced roof contractor (not voiding any warranties) would also be our recommendation.
- Can infrared be used on EPDM roofs?
Infrared can be used on fully-adhered or mechanically fastened EPDM roofs (not ballasted EPDM roofs).
Life span depends on design, construction, and maintenance. We do not design/observe many torch-down membranes. From what we hear in the industry, life span could be 10 – 20 years.
I have two roofs on campus that were over-roofed with spray foam approximately 10 – 12 years ago. In one instance, the foam has large bubbles and even holes in many dozens of locations. Fortunately, only one leak apparent inside. Any experience with how to remove this and reroof?
Our experience has been to remove the existing foam roofs and underlying roof system to the deck and to reroof. Typically foam roofs we experience are over-roof applications and the original roof is still working to some degree. Often there is trapped water between the two roof systems. We have not seen much success repairing foam roofs of this vintage. Foam roof removal and reroofing is pretty straight forward. We recommend a design, construction documents, and periodic roof observation during construction for best reroofing project results.
Rubber roofs, how long do they last?
Rubber roof life expectancy depends on design, construction, and maintenance. Properly designed, constructed, and maintained, they can range from 15 – 30 years, in our opinion. We have seen the fully adhered EPDM roofs last the longest of the three types (ballasted, fully-adhered, or mechanically fastened)