Beginners Guide to Complete Residential and Commercial Roofing

A functioning roof is usually something everyone is grateful for. They protect you from the weathering conditions of mother nature, some of which can be extremely harsh sometimes. This is exactly why it’s a good idea to have the knowledge of how the roof above you is assembled as well as how it works all together. The trick is really not always to know everything about how to repair and install your own roof. Instead, it’s also about keeping yourself well-informed when concerning how to find great roofing services in your location. Hopefully, this guide will teach you one or two things about all that.

Although utilitarian and simple, a roofing system’s main goal is the maintenance of the building’s watertight integrity alongside keeping the contents under it dry. In today’s wide variety of both low slope and flat commercial as well as residential roofing options, they are no longer that simple and have considerably grown in the last half century or so. This article’s goal is to help contractors, architects and building owners know which roofing system happens to be the correct one for each individual project.

Roofing Systems

There are several roofing contractors and equally several different roofing options available to you as well. All you need to do is to first figure out which one of them is right for your situation. Try the yellow pages or you can choose from one of the top roofing contractors Boise has to offer. Anyway, back to the types of roofing systems you can choose from. Hereinbelow are some of the most popular ones.

Spray Foam And Liquid Applied Roofing System

Liquid applied roofing systems include cold and hot polymer-modified asphalt, coal-tar extended urethane or single-component asphalt and two-component urethane elastomer. These liquid applied membrane roofing systems require the substrate to be rigorously prepared, which means it must be dust-free and dry with patched cracks. While the liquid applied coating is usually self-coating, highly elastic and applies easily to contoured surfaces, they still require uniform thickness as well as having low permeability.

Metal Roofing Systems

Being among the oldest roofing systems in the world, metal roofing started with bronze material such as the bronze tiles found in the ancient Pantheon of Rome. Right after bronze came lead roofing quickly becoming the most popular choice for castles and cathedrals all across Europe during the medieval times. Many low slope metal roofs found today are manufactured using corrugated galvanized steel (a zinc-coated steel sheet). Tin, stainless steel, copper and aluminum are also used in various commercial metal roofing systems.

Vegetative Roofing Systems

A rather unique roofing system is the “green” or vegetative roof. This roofing system employs the use of living plants that have, typically, been placed in tray systems on the flat roof surface’s top. Vegetative roofing systems can help provide an effective means of stormwater control. Don’t forget that, roofing membranes as bases to those systems is very important when the water tightness and integrity of the roof is concerned.

Built Up Roofing (BUR)

Popular for over a century in North America, Built Up Roofing Systems are made up of fabrics known as roofing felts as well as alternating layers of asphalt (bitumen). The felts are reinforced using either ply sheets (organic mats) or glass-fiber mats. When joined with the asphalt material, it gives rise to a strong, durable roofing membrane. The number of layers on the roof is usually implied by the number of “plies”, that means that “three plies” translates to a three-layered flat roof membrane. This type of system is normally redundant, which means if one layer gets broken, there are several others remaining that can provide immediate protection.

Mod Bit or Modified Bitumen Systems

Modified Bitumen systems include the likes of factory-fabricated asphalt layers that have been modified using a plastic or rubber ingredient which is used to increase flexibility and for added stability and strength it’s combined with a reinforcement. Asphalt (or bitumen) is a semi-solid type of petroleum and is black, sticky and viscous in nature. It can sometimes be found as a refined product or extracted in natural deposits. It is normally used for both roofing as well as road surfacing.

Even though there’s generally a wide variety of roofing systems to choose from, hopefully, the information in this article has narrowed things down for you and given you an idea of what roofing system would suit your situation best. Yes, it can sometimes seem like a daunting task picking the right roofing system, however, with all the guidance available to you these days you should do just fine.