I was on one of those today. Went out to change a disconnect switch on her rooftop unit. She says “while you’re up there can you take a look at the roof (family friend in a small town so she knows that I spent a few years working as a roof consultant prior to starting my insurance, self storage, and electrical businesses). My roofer is really good and he has a contract with a company that makes coatings and a leak sealing foam meant specifically for older roofs, but he has fixed this last leak 3 times and it’s still leaking” This is where he put the magic coating (the actual leak is where the red arrow is pointing; like 15 feet from my ladder. It’s about 150 feet away, not to mention the fact that the leak is on the opposite side of that brick demising wall thats runs continuously from the basement all the way to the roof): I knew where the leak was before I even finished crawling off the ladder because there was a huge ridge there, that had 2” deep standing water in it, and which happened to be directly above where the ceiling was leaking. I confirmed my suspicion when I realized I lifted the seam cover strip and it created a whirlpool. And as far as his magic sealant foam goes: But I gotta give credit where credit is due and I’ll say that he is creative because I’ve never seen anybody come up with the idea to use install counter flashing upside down and bathroom caulk it to the side of the parapet wall. Also he is resourceful. If a 6” long washer-head will hold down a metal roof, it ought to be just fine for holding together the flashing. And even the best laid plans don’t always work out, so when you come back a few months later for a bunch of roof leaks and realize that every one of your 6” long flashing-seam anchor metal roofing screws has poked a hole in the membrane, you definitely shouldn’t replace them with 1/2” long sheet metal screws. That’s just wasting a trip up and down the ladder to get them out of the truck. Plus, what the heck are bath tub caulk and roof coatings for if not for this exact situation. And he was clearly thinking of aesthetics because he made sure to use the entire clear/tan/grey/white color palate of bathroom sealants to really make the aesthetics pop. This is not some homeowner/landlord diy and save a buck job kind of job. It’s an actual “roofing business” that she has been actually paying to repair the roofs on all of her low-slope properties for years. I’m going out this weekend to take a look at all her other roofs and one of them is a mod-bit roof and I am really looking forward to seeing his work on that one.
