"Al A." wrote in message
...
Hi All,

I am looking into reroofing a low pitched shed roof on the back of my
house with rubber. I checked at a few local Home Despot stores and
local lumber\home places, none carry rubber roofing stuff. They said
"Well....Maybe we can order it in, but..." which only tells me that
they will be absolutely no help so far as installation info goes, or
if I come up short of stuff, etc.

I did some Googling around on the web. Amazing that there seems to be
only one(!) company in the US of A that markets this stuff to
the DIY market. At least on the web. There seem to be about 100 or
more in the UK, and europe but nothing else here. Hard to believe. Try
googling DIY rubber roofing, you will see what I mean.I did find these
guys:

http://frs.flatroofsolutions.com/

I gave them a call, they come across well. Lots of good info over the
phone, spent all the time I cared to talk and gave me a quote.
They are selling Firestone EDPM membrane roofing, and trying to
address the DIY crowd specifically, so they will cut to any size
in 5' increments, up to 50' wide by as long-as-you-want-it, at 44
cents/Sq.FT. Not too shabby.

One local roofing place I called will only sell in full rolls, the
smallest costing a tad over $600.00 (for just the membrane, extras
are, well, extra) with that being probably 3X as much rubber as I
need. A few others made it clear that they did not want to deal with
homeowners.

The place on the web quoted me a bit over 600 bucks based on my
ball-park sizes, but that included everything, rubber, adhesive,
termination bar for finishing the edges, the matching caulking,
flexi-tape stuff and adhesive for flashing the skylights and woodstove
flue and truck shipping from wherever the heck they are. Everything
except screws for the trim bar. That struck me as not too bad a deal.
I sprang 10 bucks for their "rubber roofing for dummies" (OK, I made
that name up) video. He is going to send along with that their
instillation book and a sample of the rubber. I will let you know what
I think when I get it and have a chance to look that stuff over.

3 local contractors gave me $2000.00+ quotes to do this roof. It is
presently done with roll roofing. I have lived here 20 years and have
replaced that roof 4 times. The rest of the roof on the house has been
fine (redone last year after 19 years, who knows how old it was when I
bought the house), but this one dosen't seem to hold up so well. The
exposure and the trees and stuff do beat on it, and the roof is very
old and a bit flexy. In any event, I would like to do this and not
have to worry about it again for lots-O-years.

A couple of questions. Any thoughts on doing rubber roofs in general?
Any of you guys done this before? I have done lots of roofing, I've
just never worked with rubber before. Any hints, or gotchas to look
out for? Anyone ever dealt with the place linked above? Am I nuts?

Appreciate any and all thoughts.

Thanks,
AL A.



Is thus stuff solid rubber or more of a closed cell foam?

We bought some of the latter material that is adhesive backed in 1/32" and
1/16" thicknesses at work a while back for another purpose and I've been
wondering if it was made for some sort of roofing application.