I have a 65,000 sq.ft. BUR with gravel that is about 25 years old. I have leaks in several places and believe the roof is just getting old and deteriorating. I live in a four season climate where we can get up to 100 in the summer and 25 below with snow in winter. Right now I’m looking at both products for a repair for my roof. Please send any and all opinions as I need to get this done ASAP. Thanks for your help!
Are you looking for a repair or reroof? If you were reroofing or even roofing over, I would suggest Duro-Last… they have one of the best warranties… Its a 15 year warranty with Duro-Last, not the roofing contractor that installs it. So if the roofing contractor goes out of business your warranty is still good. You just have to hope Durolast doesnt go out of business. LOL. But their warranty also covers consequential damaged from any leaks that may occur over that period of time.
Between those two, no question about it, go with Duro-Last. I’ve seen waaaay too many problems with Astec over gravel where the coating is failing. To be honest, any coating over a gravel roof is going to be bad news and I would run away from any contractor who suggests it.
Thanks for the help! I will be doing a repair over the existing BUR. There are several penetrations in the roof that were used to mount blowers that are no longer needed. The Duro-Last contractor has agreed to remove all unused curbs and patch with lumber before installing a 50 miil membrane. The Astec contractor wants to spray up around all the curbs. I think the Duro-last is the better solution. Definitely appreciate your input.
No question Duro-Last is better. Its a real roof. a coating is not.
ASTEC does not have a spec for application over gravel. If a contractor was specifying ASTEC over your gravel roof I would like to know why. For the gentlemen or lady who has seen “too many ASTEC roofs over gravel” I would appreciate knowing where those projects are. In my experience (25 years) with ASTEC we have not had our ASTEC Re-Ply Fluid applied system installed directly over a gravel roof.
We have had applications where the gravel has been removed, the roof cleaned, SPUF applied, typically a minimum of 1 1/2 inches of 2 1/2 to 3 pound foam, and then our system installed. This is truly the best of both worlds, conventional insulation, a radiant barrier and two thresholds of water proofing; the foam and the ASTEC Re-Ply System.
In this instance I have to wonder if the Durolast installation required a removal of the gravel or was laid directly on top of the gravel. In climates where snow load is an issue I would think gravel removal would be a smarter way to go. If that is the case the foam option with an ASTEC application could have been very competitively priced. Was this ever an option?
Unquestionably, ASTEC Re-Ply is not for every roof. Qualifying a roof as a candidate for the ASTEC System is the first step. A roof survey is a requirement. ASTEC warranties their roofs for material and labor for a full ten years. We do not want to take saturated roof substrates and apply a seamless watertight membrane over them. There are many roofs where tear-off is the only option.
However there are many roofs where tear-off is unnecessary. We have saved customers thousands to millions of dollars on individual roofs all across the USA, while providing a watertight, energy efficient roof that is both sustainable and renewable.
To the gentlemen who stated that coating systems aren’t roofs, I would have to say that there is a distinct difference between painting a roof and applying a fluid-applied roof membrane , reinforced at key areas, applied by manufacturer recognized contractors who have qualified the roof surface prior to proposing the project.
To answer your question, it was a decent size roofing company in Northern California where I experienced this. From looking at the pictures of the failing roofs, yes the gravel was removed, but there was no foam installed and the gravel left behind that was embedded in the tar proved to be a very bad base to install a coating over. Note that most of these were installed 8-10 years ago now and the contractor is no longer an Astec installer.
One issue that has come up recently and would apply to removing the gravel and applying foam and a coating is that in many cases it is the gravel that is providing the fire rating for the roof. This came to the forefront several years ago and many companies had to change the way they approached reroofing tar & gravel roofs.
RooferJ, I have to add that you are partially wrong. I agree that Duro-Last is a better roof, but a coating is indeed a real roof and in many situations a fantastic option that is both more cost efficient and environmentally friendly.
Then we can agree to disagree. coatings “roof in a can” and spray foams are not real roof solutions in most cases. Some guys like it because its unskilled labor and its cheap.