Restoration done right: Why evaluation and verification matter

CCS Influencer Joe Sorrentino says the right due diligence helps contractors identify the best candidates for fluid-applied restoration and avoid costly mistakes.

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Joe Sorrentino of JoeSorrentino LLC. You can read the interview below, listen to the podcast or watch the recording.

Emma: Hi everyone, I'm Emma Richardson with CoatingsCoffeeShop.com, and I'm here with Joe Sorrentino. Joe, how are you today?

Joe Sorrentino: Wonderful. Thank you, Emma. 

Emma: Today we're talking about our August Influencer topic, which is knowing when restoration is the right option. Joe, how can contractors avoid the misuse of coatings on unstable or unsuitable substrates?

Joe Sorrentino: I think it's important to address what to avoid before the enthusiasm of what the whole process is. So I appreciate you bringing that up. And you know, surface preparation is always talked about as far as being key. However, there's another part to it, and that's verifying the adhesion in pull tests. And so in a lot of cases, assumptions will be made based on previous installations and really it's a very brief but good verification to confirm to the manufacturer and the building owner that yes, the material does adhere. And there are standard tests that the industry utilizes for that.

I think the other part to it is being very careful and not getting involved in the what ifs as it relates to latent moisture within the roofing assembly. Right? It's very important. The substrate could look beautiful, it could be cleaned, but if someone left out that verification of moisture content within the roofing assembly itself, it could cause a real problem very fast for that installation. So I think that's very important to look at.

And I also believe that you have to be very careful about working over ballast or rock. I've seen specifications in generic technologies that condone that. And I think that's very, very challenging for anybody to maintain or get any type of dry film thickness over.

The last one really is from a standpoint of new roofing materials. A rush to coat a new installation could be a problem for everybody in the long run. Typically, if there's any guidance in that regard of a new assembly, but a sustainable solution where you have a conventional roof that's possibly put down with no manufacturer's warranty, and in 36 to 48 to 60 months, that roof can then be sustained with a fluid-applied application and a sustainable warranty right out of the starting blocks. But starting too early could be a problem getting back to that substrate.

Emma: That makes a lot of sense. So to kind of kind of piggyback off of that, what roof conditions would be a good candidate for fluid-applied restorations?

Joe Sorrentino: You know, there's many, I'll try to highlight a few specific categories and then some generalities. So I'll start with high rises. High rises are typically in areas where it's very difficult to stage the project and get conventional materials to the rooftop. A very concentrated area in downtown Orlando was a great success story for a fluid applied assembly for a building owner of a large sort, one of the largest in the world. And they did the right forensics to understand that a fluid applied assembly could work. Now, they had seven roof sections. One of those seven was not a good candidate because of the excessive traffic, where it was located from the entrance, and the fact that there were a lot of pieces of equipment that could be worked on. So when you can really dive deep into high rises and portfolios for property managers and building owners, you can see a tremendous increase in your roofing square footage and what you can do within your roofing budget because of what that helps with.

I think the other part is when there are roofs that are very complex with a lot of penetrations, fluid-applied materials are very easy to install and form right on the roof, so it makes it easy for the installers, which means it keeps the cost of that project down. And in today's world, a lot of conventional materials are using fluid applied in their drains, in their flashings as their initial flashing system.

The the other part to that is today's world of solar farms on roofs. Another area where once again many penetrations, you want it easy for the installer to be able to work with the material. So that's another category. There's also the two roofs in place and a liquid applied assembly to avoid complete removal.

There's a big asterisk next to that because of what you have to do to understand both layers of insulation within that roofing assembly. And then, depending on how that fluid-applied assembly is categorized, if it's categorized as a new roof, it's technically a third roof, which, even though it's lightweight and probably could be technically and theoretically evaluated to show there's not a lot of live load being added to it, it's typically not the standard to have three roofs in place building code wise. Matter of fact, it's the big void. So that makes that two roofs in place that a lot of people looked at early on as being one that really needs better understanding.

Two areas in generality, the last two, when a corporate decision for sustainability is in place and they're a large property owner, they typically have class A, Class B, high-rise buildings. And when they can look at their entire portfolio and look at sustainability, fluid applied in the renewable warranty programs that they have becomes a very valuable asset, both in long term ownership and selling. In downtown Orlando a high-rise was sold. The negotiations for a new roof were in place and everything was done properly. They transferred that warranty over, which saved a tremendous amount of money and time on a facility to be able to be transferred, which is quite a complicated process.

The last one is schools. There are schools in Tennessee that actually do their forensic right up front and understand what roofs will be good candidates for fluid applied as they budget moving forward. The other big advantage, I was involved in Orlando on schools that were actually done while the students were in classrooms rather than the traditional we can only do it in the rainy season, meaning in the summertime. So there's advantages in that regard to show. So there are many and I'm sure people will say others as well, but those are my top.

Emma: Awesome. Thank you so much, Joe. Those were some wonderful insights. We will see you again in October. 

Joe Sorrentino: I look forward to it. Thank you.