I just recently did my first edpm job, a small little L-shaped roof with poor drainage. All went well, but I was disappointed that at the point of the folds, there was a 2-3" strip with spots of poor adhesion. I know there was plenty of glue on both sides there. Any tips on how to avoid this in the future?
I don't do a lot of EPDM work either-so i will bow to the greater expertise of those that do-
but locally we have at least 2 different types of water based adhesive . One of them is, I think from Mulehide-it smells like elmers school glue, it's white- you can just roll it onto the substrate and then flop the rubber over onto it and broom the rubber down while the glue is wet.- It's pretty forgiving-quite a bit of fudge factor for one man to get the sheet positioned correctly- but you can get some bubbling if the sun hits the sheet and the rubber gets real hot- you can also get a slight diagonal wrinkle if the sun casts a diagonal shadow across the rubber from the corner of the building
the other type-from firestone-works more like a contact cement-coat both surfaces-let them dry-flop the sheet-slightly less initial grap so you have very minor re-positioning ability-broom it in
the first type can be a problem at the FACTORY FOLD area-where a 20x50 ft. sheet is folded in half at the factory to make a 10 ft. roll-there is a semi permanent crease their that the wet glue installation method doesn't have enough grab to flatten out
the second type of glue seems to handle it OK though if you broom it down flat or roll it down well initially.
best wishes, stephen
Thanks for the responses. I did coat both surfaces, althugh it was water-based. I think Vaa nailed my problem when he mentioned too much adhesive. I rolled it on, then brushed more on at the fold just to make sure.
I understand what you guys are referring to, but I meant after you've got the first half glued down and have the second half folded back. The spot right under where the fold was is where the adhesion was weak.