Rubber baby buggy bumpers. I’m rubber you’re glue, what you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Rubber ducky you’re the one. Rubber roofing. What? Rubber roofing? Stop pulling my leg, rubber roofing indeed. Yes there is. If rubber keeps rain and weather off a person when worn as a rain coat or rain boots, why not use rubber to keep water and the elements out of a house as a roof?
Number one with a rubber roof is a myth. It’s perfectly fine to install rubber roofing over an existing roof. After all, it saves time from removing the old roof and in areas where the old roof is intact there’s double protection. Wrong! Whatever the other reasons, no roofing manufacturer will honor a warranty of a roof that has not been installed on a completely clean surface. Removing the old roof is a necessary step one, even with a rubber roof.
Rubber roofs are easy to self install. They come in a variety of styles of both rolls and shingles. An ideal material for large flat roofs, rubber roofing will last for years, and won’t split or crack. Rubber roofing breathes and expands in response to weather changes, so it experiences less stress than other roofing materials. In fact the first rubber roof, has been performing in Wisconsin since 1980. That’s nearly three decades.
Adhesive is used to attach both roll and shingle rubber roofing to the roof. Ensure that the roof is as clean as possible with nothing protruding which could pierce the rubber. The surface must be dry and free of oils or dirt. So make sure to blow or sweep away and dirt.
Once the base is clean, the rubber roof should be rolled out onto the area being covered and cut to fit over vents and pipes. It’s a mistake to apply adhesive before the rubber roofing is cut and shaped. Think about it, you’ll understand why. When it has been fit then apply adhesive to about one half the roof at a time, rolling it back to apply the adhesive. Apply it evenly with a roller, then give it time to become tacky.
The roofing will be nearly impossible to lift once it’s stuck. So once the adhesive has set carefully roll the rubber roofing into place. Let the first half dry for about an hour before repeating the process with the second half.
The home or building now has a rubber roof. Imagine that.
Most homes have roofing shingles, but most homeowners don’t spend much time thinking about them. Roofing Shingles provide a single layer solution to a leak resistant roof. Roofing shingles are laid from the bottom of the roof, with each subsequent row overlapping the row below it. Early shingles were made of wood and were capped at the top with a row of copper or lead sheeting. In modern shingle roofs this cap has been replaced by a row of roofing shingles that includes a plastic underlay.
In the old days wood roofing shingles were considered good. But in time modern materials such as asphalt and asbestos cement replaced wood as common materials. Today fiberglass based asphalt shingles are the most popular roofing shingle used in the United States. Wood and paper backed roofing shingles have fallen out of use due to their susceptibility to fire.
Most people have seen a special type of wood shingle, but wouldn’t be able to identify it. It’s called a shake, which is a wooden shingle made from split logs. Shake roofs were common with log cabins, and with many wood frame homes. They’re still in use today, most commonly cut on site then transported by helicopters, but it wasn’t always done that way. Before the invention of helicopters the shakes were tied into packs and transported by pack animal or even by human power. Often cut in hilly areas, they were carried down the slope with the help of a long line run from the bottom to the top. This line served as a kind of hand hold so people carrying the shake packs wouldn’t fall.
The main difference between a shingle and a tile is flexibility. Tiles are generally made from ceramic. They’re brittle and ill suited to locations where tree limbs might fall on a roof. Shingles are flexible and therefor better able to stand up to tree limbs. Wood shingles rot, while ceramic tiles don’t, but modern materials such as the asbestos base for most shingles don’t rot. Another main difference is in the shape. Ceramic tiles have an “S” profile to allow them to interlock for strength while roofing shingles are flat.
One of the more unique materials for roofing shingles is slate. Slate can be easily split into thin sheets. Such sheets, the slate roofing shingles, make for an rustic look for a roof. Slaters, tradesmen trained to work with slate, cut and install slate roofing shingles. The same qualities that make slate excellent for roofing shingles, it is fireproof and an electric insulator, made it useful for early twentieth century switchboards and relay controls on large electric motors. Imagine that, making a phone call on your roofing shingles.
