The Unbreakable Rule of Flat roofs.

Thou shalt not roof over moisture. Any form of water, whether it be mere dampness or pools of mud, will blow apart the new roof.

Flat roofs are monolithic systems that need to flex, stretch, and stay adhered at the seams and flashings.
When they heat up, and boy do they, a contained drop of water will become excited and try to grow into a gallon of vapor, or something like that. The monolith is just that and there is no lap point for it to expand. Blisters form or an osmotic type action called migration occurs. Permeability is not a good thing for bathtubs.

H₂O is a mean son of a gun and will destroy everything you own if you don't respect it. Water gives life 
but can also kill. If you are sure beyond a doubt that no water is in your flat roof system you should not
 reroof it anyway because decompsing roofs emit gases.

Best bet is to remove all old roofing. otherwise you can look at some of the roof restoration systems 
available for smooth surface roofs. Sometimes a restored roof is better than the original one, 
especially those using butyl tape on the seams and a two coat reflective system.

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

Radiant Barrier Done Wrong

Shouting from the rooftops I do declare that a lot of homeowners have been had, badly. The repeatedly made stupid mistakes never cease to amaze me. First and foremost is the failure to follow the 300 Rule of Balanced ventilation. Roof failure will be imminent and there is no warranty. Besides your sick kids (heat+humidity+organic material= spores, or equation #2, negative attic pressure can result in radon or other gases infiltrating through the foundation), high utility bills, peeling paint, premature deck failure, compressed insulation, and general chaos and mayhem.

But my stomach churns the most lately when I inspect an attic and see radiant barrier decking nailed directly to lathe. Here's the run down. 1) Wood shingles have a low density and reduce conductivity.
                                              2) Solid decking transmits a lot more heat.
                                              3) Energy efficient decking installed over lathe makes your attic even hotter.

The inventors of Techshield, formerly called KoolPly, warned that aluminum is a great conductor. Now the brochures leave out this quality and only mention that aluminum does not emit and reflects. But it doesn't when in contact with wood. Otherwise we would just put the aluminum side upwards.

The current manufacturers tell us to remove every other lathe and a 305 reduction of efficiency will occur 9 because there is more contact with wood than when placed onto rafters spaced every two feet. They forget to mention that both plywood and OSB are strong only in one direction so that if there is about a 15" gap on the 50% removal technique, the decking will warp just like when the eight foot side is the vertical rather than horizontal side. When you remove half the lathes the decking thinks that the lathe is the rafter.

So more contact means more heat. People pay extra for a hotter attic. They pay everyone. Build more dams, power plants, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island because that is what your attic will feel like:MELTDOWN! You are better off with normal decking or wood shingles under your roof that with misapplied radiant barrier decking.

Many times you can't remove the lathe because the rafters are not on two foot centers. Why? Because when you install lathe or plank decks, they don't have to be. What carpenter would take the time for a half inch difference if it made no difference. Larry Sample said rather wisely, "What's a half inch amongst friends?"
He also said that h his house had a perfectly good ventilation system until the previous owner put in turbines. I almost fell down while I inquired as how the hell did he know that. He's a mechanical HVAC guy and understands that roofing is rocket science: Venturi, Bernoulli, negative pressure, fluid dynamics (in a simple kind of way) and String Theory. Well not actually the last one but all the others apply.

Back at the inferno, the sun shines on the roof, the heat permeates the roofing, then the deck, and is now super conducted into the lathe by the highly conductive aluminum, which as turned on you like your tonsils. I love that old Bill Cosby record.

You want vent ridge? Sure we'll do it. and we'll put in some turbines and some power vents, and whatever you want... No education going on here. Just a whole lot of baking going on.

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

The Weather and My Life

The personal experiences of my life are recorded in my mind along with the weather. Yeah I'm a nut but so are most of us. That's beside the point so hush up.

I graduated from college in 1979 and the following year it was the hottest ever here:1980. My first son was born in a year with few storms, 1985. The next year hail tore up 75062. The big car wreck was in a year of very little work, so I know it happened in 1998. I had bought the inventory of Flintkote shingles from ABC Supply for a song and dance because the company was changing names to it's new parent, Genstar, and the wrappers would be obsolete.

The year I did nothing but work was 2011 and it is spilling over into 2012 too.

My point is that many of us would never remember what year we lost an ear unless we tied the incident to our jobs or school. I can't remember what year that dog I bit ripped off my ear because I wasn't in school. i didn't start crying until my mother freaked. Then I knew I was in trouble. They put my ear back on.

When I look back on my life I tag incidents to hailstorms, tornadoes, and droughts. Even this year a few things happened.

I'd like to take this moment to thank our customers and apologize to those we couldn't get to. We couldn't even answer the phone it rang so much. there will be very few new roofs to put on after the remaining roofs get replaced, unless the skies get angry again. That is why we also do siding, window replacement, and solar. This helps insulate us from the ravages of calm weather.

My best wishes to everyone. Have a safe and happy New Year. God bless. 

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com

   

Fake Roofing Companies

google has a policy that the location or map page of a business must be a legitimate place of business. I assume, because I'm that way, that Yahoo, Bing and the others do to. years ago it was okay and I went to a seminar that showed us how to just put a comma in the address line with the city hall zip code of the city you wanted to optimize in. I thought it was okay but looking back it was deceptive.

The thought police that run these search engines have done a good job of writing rules that stop people from committing these practices. I learned my lesson. I paid dearly as did a computer geek friend, Half Price Geeks, did. He put white letters over a white background that the all seeing spiders could see but mere mortals could not. "So why did I land here in this cyberspace location?" manipulation.

The mantra today is transparency and honesty. But it ain't happen' baby. Follow this:

First go to yahoo and google, er I mean yahoo, the words "Irving Roofer."
 The first address doesn't even exist. Some other locations use zip codes for Irving I didn't know existed. They are post office box zip codes.

Now go back to Google and try the same. do a little digging and put some of the address in the search bar with the word FedEx attached. Ah ha! A postal or mailbox center. No office there. At least three that come up in Google Maps are not there. Where are they? Their websites don't have physical addresses on them either.

Now go dig around their online comments. Notice anything strange? Rhythmic comments with the same writing styles, adjectives, and punctuation errors. maybe there were six comments in a week, twice, but not in between. Coincidence? How about the fact that the commenter has only made one comment in their online history. Dig back. Look.

These skills will help you find people who are willing to falsify comments that make them look good. Maybe you can find that nothing exists about them a year ago, including BBB recognition. That is why Angie's List is growing. Her success is so great that not only will there be copycats, there will be attempts to scam her site too. they do a pretty good job but if you build it, they will come. Every time.

So do your research. dig, snoop, and listen. Why not just call them and ask where their office is. That's pretty easy. That way before you sign away thousands of dollars in commitments, you can go see them. I would.

Jon Alan Wright

Jon Wright Roofing, Siding, and Windows

1915 Peters Rd., Suite 310

Irving, TX 75061

972.251.1818 Office

214.718.3748 Cell

972.554.8090 Fax

jonwright@jonwrightroofing.com

www.jonwrightroofing.com