Retrofit Roofing: A Safer, Smarter Alternative - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Rodger Russ, metal roofing and retrofit specialist and industry advocate from Tremco. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to Roofing Road Trips from Roofers Coffee Shop. This is Heidi Ellsworth. And today we are talking about something that is really starting to take a life of its own within the roofing industry. And that is retrofit roofing. Really, how are we taking what we already have and making sure that it's still performing, that it is adding value and that is all about the retrofit.

So we asked the experts from Tremco to get with us today and that is Roger Russ. I am so excited. Roger and I talked a little bit before this podcast. I feel like we've known each other for years, but we've really just met. So I'm very excited. Hi Roger, welcome to the show. This is gonna be so much fun. So let's start out with introductions. Can you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about what you do with Tremco and your history.

Rodger Russ: You bet. So Heidi, my name is Roger Russ. I'm the metal business leader at Tremco. So I'm responsible for the direction of all of our metal roofing and our metal wall products. Been in the industry almost 40 years now. It's kind of crazy to think that it's been that long and started as a sheet metal worker back in the 80s and have been fortunate enough to see every side of the metal roofing business over that 40 years. And none of it by plan. just... funny how each little job takes you a different direction and gives you a little bit expanded skill set but retrofitting being one of the areas that I happen to spend a lot of time in over over the last couple decades so I'm really excited to hear that one you think it's becoming a big deal and and it's always been a big deal in my world so yeah I'm excited about

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, it really is. I I think just with the move to sustainability, people are looking at things different than they used to. Restoration is just really in retrofit, it's totally different. Before we dive into that, why don't you just tell us a little bit about Trimco?

Rodger Russ: So, Tremco, we're a major roofing manufacturer in Sealance Company. We've been around a long time, 75 years, in the different divisions of our business. One side focuses on sealance and weatherproofing, and then another side of our business is totally focused on roofing and, as we like to say, weatherproofing peace of mind. And we're big on trying to incorporate all aspects of the weatherproofing of a building.

So that can be the roof, that can be below grade, above grade, the walls. And so we have experts literally in every segment of a building. And as we like to say, we cover all six sides. And so metal being one of those areas where we need to be at the top of our game in order to be able to bring solutions to our customer that not only provide that weatherproofing piece of mind, but in today's world need to be aesthetically pleasing.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Rodger Russ: And retrofits just happen to fall right into those categories.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah, it really does. mean, so much so. Okay, let's let's go there. What I would love for you to kind of explain to everybody what is a retrofit and how does it differ from your traditional roof tear off or reroof?

Rodger Russ: Okay, so great question. So retrofit by definition basically means you're adding something to a product or an item that was not part of the original manufacturing or in this case installation. So in the case of roofing, would be we're going to add a new roof surface over the existing roof surface. And compared to a tear off where just as the name would imply, you're literally tearing off the existing roof. And then you're going back with either a like type roof or in some cases maybe even something a little bit different. So that really is the simple definition and it's really not much more than that when you're just explaining what they are.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, and I think, Roger, as you're looking at this too, there's so much talk on the coatings world about restoration. And so they call that restoration and Fluid, Tremco is so well known for their fluid applied projects. But when we're also talking about retrofit and metal, talk a little bit, because I know there's structural, I mean, by going over and retrofitting a roof with metal, you're going to be able to really do a lot for that building. So how does metal, let's talk specifically of metal retrofitting improve safety and improve the roof overall. I know that seems obvious. Yeah.

Rodger Russ: So, wow, loaded questions. So let's start with the safety aspects. So when it comes to safety, know, one, first of all, every roofing project inherently is dangerous because you're working in heights, right? One, two and as far as safety goes, I guess the best way to explain it, if you're tearing off a roof, you're opening up a building and or structure.

To potentially, you know, literally opening up the roof. So all of a sudden now, other than just the perimeter of the building, you now could have open areas that are subject to somebody potentially having to fall into. So when you do a tear off like that, quite often OSHA will require that the contractors have to wear 100 % fall protection. So leading edge is no longer just at the perimeter. It could also be in the field of the roof. So in any time you do that,

Just wearing fall protection, strangely enough, can add, you know, safety factors like tripping over safety lines and the like. But more importantly, there's more opportunities to fall through a roof. So when you retrofit, you basically leave a working platform in place. And OSHA then only requires that you have to wear fall protection at the perimeter edge. So it can make it considerably safer because you have a full-time working platform as opposed to tearing off a roof and opening up the roof to whatever might be below. So that's the primary area as far as safety goes. So the other side of that is what's going on inside the building. Even though you should obviously not have anybody beneath you when you're working, if you're going to tear off or open up a roof, but it does open up when you tear off a roof, open it up to things falling inside a building and potentially damaging either equipment, but more importantly, you know, hurting somebody inside. So a retrofit will typically eliminate that possibility. And that's where the safety factor comes in as far as making it a little bit safer.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. And when you're looking at, and I might be jumping ahead here a little bit, but when you're looking at putting on a retrofitting with new metal roof, that is also, not only are you keeping the stability of the roof that you have, you're adding structural stability to that roofing system also a lot of times as you're or to the building.

Rodger Russ: You can, yeah, absolutely. There's opportunities. And look, we could literally do a four hour podcast if you gave me the time to talk about all the different elements of retrofit. But one of the neat aspects of a certain type of metal retrofit is we have the ability to take older pre-engineered buildings and by adding new structural elements in the retrofit, it can actually add stability and structural capacity to that existing structure.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yes.

Rodger Russ: One of the companies we work with called RoofHugger has done extensive testing that basically allows us to be able to design and add structural elements that gives that building more capacity. So in a retrofit, I figure you're going to ask me this question sooner or later, you know, where do you start? And we always start with the existing structure. If the existing structure does not have the capacity, then you know, it can

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Right.

Rodger Russ: A lot of challenges and problems. the very first thing you do when you're going to do a retrofit on any building is we have to look at the existing structure and does it have the ability and capacity to add extra weight to put that new roof system on there. A new retrofit will typically weigh anywhere from a pound and a half to maybe three and a half pounds of additional dead load. So that structure has to be able to handle that existing weight and stay within the current codes. So

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Rodger Russ: Quite often, buildings were built 40, 50 years ago. The codes were different back then, the requirements were different. And so quite often, according to today's codes and an engineer might find that that building theoretically doesn't have the capacity to handle that weight. Well, that's when putting on a new retrofit with these new structural members that can actually increase that capacity, could be a huge benefit to the customer because now they're getting what they want, but also, they're not spending tons of money trying to reinforce this structure. depending on the type of retrofit you're doing, yeah, there's some great advantages to adding metal and new structural elements.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, mean, know, we, roof hugger, we know those guys, they're on the coffee shops. They are amazing. And to think of those systems together. Yeah, that's, that's a perfect system. Okay. So when you're kind of looking at this and you kind of, you, talked about it a little bit and I'd like to go a little bit deeper is when you're looking at a roof or a building, cause you need to make sure structurally it can do everything that you want to, but also looking at that roof, what are some of the consideration keys?

Rodger Russ: Great people, yes.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Considerations between deciding between a retrofit and a tear off or a tear off.

Rodger Russ: So, sure. No. So first of all, everything starts with the vision of the end user or the owner. All right. If you're even considering a retrofit, means there's usually something some wants or needs that they want. in a lot of cases, it can be aesthetics. With metal, aesthetics is almost in the forefront because of the colors that you can paint it, the slopes that you can install metal at. So it always starts there.

Once we have an idea potentially of what a customer may want, we look at that structure and one of the first things you have to do is you assess that structure. So once we, let's just say we bypass, we figure out that the structure can handle the additional weight. Now we have to look at the existing roof that's on there. We can't just automatically assume that everything's great, we can just go over it. A good example is quite often a roof will be designed or building will be built and the roof will be installed, say with a built up roof. Maybe some type of ballasted, Bermastic or, you know, not metal, but or it could even be a single ply. Well, if that roof over time has, you know, become compromised and it's wet, you can't just install directly over the top of it. So some of the things you have to do in the early going is we might have to scan that roof and find out if it's wet. And if there are, you know, large, large areas of wet, you might not be able to do a retrofit. So.

You have to take these things into consideration. You know, after we get past the weight factor, now are we able to attach through the existing roof? Now let's assume there's only a few small areas of wet and we can remove those. You still have to follow basic guidelines of roofing. We don't ever cover up or secure or roof over wet insulation because obviously that can lead to all kinds of problems. Corrosion of the deck mold, all the all those nasty words we don't like to talk about in roofing.

But once we get past that, then it's literally as simple as making sure we try and meet the customer needs from an aesthetic standpoint. And the ability to not have to tear off saves all kinds of things. When you don't tear off, one, you've got landfill diversion. Items that would normally end up in a landfill somewhere are no longer being diverted to a landfill. In some cases, you save money by not having to do that expensive tear off.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Rodger Russ: One example would be if there's asbestos. If there's asbestos, quite often doing a retrofit, you're encapsulating asbestos content. And so therefore you don't have the costly tear off and everything that goes along with having to bag and get rid of asbestos. So when I say you can really do a deep dive and go down a lot of different rabbit holes when it comes to retrofitting, you really can't. Yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah. Yeah, mean really, wow. And I love that idea with asbestos too, know, that there's different options and different solutions. So when the contractors and crews are, you know, starting to work on a retrofit project, you already talked about, you know, being careful on the roof, but what are some of the things that they should really be thinking about when it comes to that project?

Rodger Russ: So when it comes to retrofitting, one of the key things compared to say new construction, new construction, know, contractors show up, they see a metal deck or they see open structurals and everything's right in front of them. So it's very, you know, there's not a lot of hidden surprises when you cut one with new construction compared to a retrofit. Because you have an existing roof in place, the big fear is the unknowns are what you can't see. So you've always got to be careful what's underneath the roof there.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Rodger Russ: And your contractor typically has to have a little bit more attention to detail and largely because you're actually attaching through a roof and typically into a different substrate or substructure. So those contractors all have to be acutely aware of what they're screwing into and what's beneath it. Some examples might be, you know, if you haven't done your due diligence, quite often guys will find electrical conduit buried in the old roof, you know or directly adjacent to the structural where they're securing. So if the contractor hasn't taken the time to lay out where they're actually going to be attaching through the roof, they could easily take screw guns and long screws and be screwing into items that they shouldn't be. So it really does take a little bit different level of contractor or a little bit better attention to detail than just the typical run and gun type of new construction install. And as long as you have a couple of guys on the front end of that crew,

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right.

Rodger Russ: That do that due diligence, lay out the roof accordingly and you can usually avoid those types of

Heidi J. Ellsworth: That's great advice. That is great advice. Okay, you talked about earlier tenants and the impact. What is, when you're looking at metal roofing on retrofitting, how does it impact the tenants and what steps do you, what's your advice to crews and to companies on limiting disruption?

Rodger Russ: Well, mean, so the tenant retrofit, probably the biggest value proposition out of a retrofit is for the tenant in of itself. having been in the position many times to go and approach tenants to talk about retrofitting, one, first you have to educate them that what you're doing does meet code. And by giving them all the elements of the due diligence, it's always important that everything is code compliant. But the biggest thing, the value proposition for them is that it doesn't disturb their business, meaning which a retrofit were not tearing off, they should be able to continue to manufacture and or work in the space that they're in. And that is usually the best, that usually is what can drive a tenant towards retrofitting versus tear off and replace. Imagine, you know, if you're the king of widgets in your neighborhood and all of a sudden you got to quit making widgets for three to four weeks.

While somebody tears off and replaces your roof. That's assuming you stay on schedule. Or even better yet, imagine if you had to shut down the local pickleball court these days for three weeks and no one could play pickleball. That would probably cause a bigger uproar these days. I mean, really some of the biggest retrofits that I've done in my career involved country clubs where they didn't want to shut down the tennis bar for an extended period of time. And so...

Heidi J. Ellsworth: No. Yeah.

Rodger Russ: Tearing off was not even an option. And the retrofit was what was going to solve that customer's needs. So the tenants play a big part in that. And then again, we go back to the safety factor, the fact that by not opening up the roof, you're not opening up their building to consequential damages, the elements and or somebody potentially walking in an area they shouldn't and being hit by flying debris. So it really does have a big impact on the tenants.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, that is so important. I love the part you talked about, no disruption of business, because that is, there's so much that goes on that you don't want and then safety, always safety first. And I love that, that's always, Yeah.

Rodger Russ: Safety first, that also affects when you think budgeting. mean, yeah, it may cost a little more in some cases to do a certain type of retrofit where you're changing the appearance of a building, but those costs can be easily offset by the fact that the customer doesn't have to stop the business. I mean, people often don't think of those other costs associated with interruptions of business. And believe me, the business owner, that's all he's thinking about.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, that's exactly. I know that's exactly. I don't want anything to stop what's going on. So we kind of talked about what makes a building or a roof a good candidate for retrofitting. I'd like to kind of dive a little bit deeper into that. What are some of the things that really, I mean, cause it's not just the roof. It's just not looking at the moisture and everything else, but it's also the building. Talk to us a little bit more about that.

Rodger Russ: Building. Yeah, so you we mentioned earlier, the structure is first of all the primary driver, know, finding out, making sure that the structure can handle any additional weight that we might put on there. And older buildings outside of pre-engineered are usually good candidates because, you know, the saying goes, we just don't build them like we used to, right? Well, the fact of the matter is older buildings typically have really good bones, as we like to say.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Mm-hmm.

Rodger Russ: The pre-engineered world, pre-engineered metal buildings, that could be all over the board. You could have some that were conservatively built, and then you have some that, you know, the old pole barns that people say, you know, they're put up with as a minimal amount of steel as possible and they may not be a good candidate. So the structure is always the first thing we look at. The second thing you want to look at then is, you know, what are the goals of the customer? At the end of the day, sometimes, know, customers what they'd like to see, you know, their dream roof is not feasible because they have drainage problems, meaning which they can only drain water to a certain part of the building, you know or they may not have drainage areas that they can take water to. So before you design the new roof, you've always got to look at the drainage and where the water is going to go. And where can you direct it? So items like that and it all really does start with the substructure and the substrate if there's a metal deck or not and then we work from there. Then we start looking at where can we put water and what does the customer's goals are? Do they want to change the look of the building by adding steeper slope or is it still going to be low slope? And once you answer those questions then you can keep moving down the path.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, and it's, really you talked about earlier, you know, looking at the roof to make sure that there's not moisture problems or that it's wet or anything like that. But there's also moisture management. I mean, as in how are you going to making this transition to a new retrofitted roof? Where the, where's the water going? How are you handling that condensation? All that kind of stuff. Talk a little bit about that.

Rodger Russ: So yeah, again, the reason I think retrofitting wasn't as popular in the last couple of decades as it is now is there was just the unknowns. There's so many things you literally have to look at when you start building these roofs. So moisture management. So we've done quite a few retrofits over the years where literally we have changed where the water's going to go, meaning which a building was originally built

It's got a large interior valley gutter, say, that collects all the water. And of course, that valley gutter happens to sit right over all the offices and, you know, there's large snowfall accumulation. And one way or another, they can never stop this valley gutter from leaking. So, you know, the retrofit that gets proposed is to eliminate the valley gutter. You literally infill that with new structural and divert the water to different places. So...

You know, that's what you're talking about moisture management and by by taking the water literally off the building and outside the building envelope, there's no chance now for that water to leak inside the building. All snow and ice accumulation and everything goes outside the building. Now, is that necessarily an economical fix? Well, if it solves the problem at the end of day, it is, you know, as opposed to, you know, in some cases, a customer spending decades.

Just coating and trying to repair this valley gutter. All of a sudden now, no moisture is being trapped on top of that roof and it's being diverted off the roof. at the end of the day, if it solves the customer's problem, that's ultimately the end goal. Another situation where it might be an old built up roof that has interior drains. And let's just say the plumbing underneath the building and or civil plumbing.

Can't handle the water loads anymore and those drains continue to back up onto the roof and then cause problems. Well, again, the first idea is let's get all that water off the roof and outside of the building envelope. So you do a retrofit over that roof that essentially eliminates those interior drains. So you're doing more than just solving aesthetic problems quite often. And you can use retrofitting to solve moisture management problems.

Rodger Russ: Condensation, now that's another whole word in of itself that can come into everything. Condensation in any roofing project, you always have to look at dew point analysis, what type of energy savings are you looking for, what type of insulation requirements per the energy code. We could do a two hour segment on that, but I always tell everybody, say, look, if needed, we bring in a mechanical engineer.

Get their expertise to make sure we're using the right amount of insulation based on what goes on inside of that building. The vapor drive in the building is ultimately what dictates whether or not you're going to have condensation problems or not. for the sake of prudency, we always say have a mechanical engineer do a quick review, a dew point analysis, make sure you have the right amount of insulation and therefore you can eliminate any chance of any condensation.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Well, I know that Tremco is just amazing at diagnostics and diagnosing what's going on on the roof and understanding through both on the roof and through their labs. But you also talk a lot of, mean, you just mentioned bringing in engineers and also looking at engineering assessments. So.

Kind of talk about that diagnostic and that process. And when you do need to bring in engineers, whether it's for, like you're talking about moisture or might be weight or structural integrity.

Rodger Russ: So first of all, we like to stay in our lane. And we know what we're really good at. And analyzing and diagnosing the problems is our strong suit. So we get into that and we go down that path. But quite often on projects, as you've alluded to, you sometimes have to bring in other levels of expertise. And part of that is not to do not over promise and under deliver.

And so we know how to analyze the products, the different materials that are out there, moisture content and the like. But there's a reason there's mechanical engineers who design air changes and the such. So one of the things Tremco is very good at, we have our services side of our business, which allows us to basically general contract any type of roofing project. So we can literally take total control of a roofing project where if we have to bring in these outside engineers, mainly because liability and culpability, no matter what we do these days, legal becomes part of everything we do. And there's more litigation in the roofing world than there is in all aspects of construction. So we always want to do our part to avoid that. So that's why we know when to bring in the right folks. So you need a certain type of engineer to assess the structure. And they do what they do best.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right.

Rodger Russ: When we use our general contracting services, we can bring in that third party engineer for a customer. They can assess the building, put their stamp on it and then basically they own that part of the design. It's the same thing with a mechanical engineer. A mechanical engineer can come in and they can assess what's going on inside a building. They can test the relative humidity, figure out how much vapor drive is potentially going to permeate into the insulation or into the roof surface.

And they can own that part of the design and they can put a stamp on it and tell us exactly what needs to happen and how much insulation. Therefore, at the end of the day, our customer is basically got one hand to shake, you know, Tremco general contracting services so that they know they're getting their engineering assessment. They're getting the proper design from the mechanical engineer. And then of course we do our part, which is putting all the weatherproofing pieces together in one package. So.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Rodger Russ: But it does take an army sometimes, and it does take a team to get the right design. Otherwise, every Billy, Bob, Harry with a ladder and a truck would be doing what we do. So we're fortunate we can bring all those services together in one package.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Right, yeah.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah, that's amazing. Okay, so one of the things and we've been talking about the retrofit roofs and we've been talking about metal, but I would like to just, as we kind of close this out, talk a little bit about why metal is a preferred material for retrofits and what options are available to suit different building needs. mean, kind of talk that over big picture.

Rodger Russ: So, all right, metal, of course and it's near and dear to my heart. I mean, I come from a steel town. My high school mascot was the Joliet Central Steelman. So I think it was fate for me to end up just, you know, here we are almost 40 years later and I'm still talking about metal. the versatility of metal is what makes it, you know, the best product. So strangely enough, know, retrofits have been going on for decades. I mean, I was doing retrofits in the 80s, but...

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. Yeah.

Rodger Russ: It wasn't as prevalent because the knowledge wasn't there for everybody else. And the versatility of metal is what makes it so great. When I say versatility, the ability to pretty much cover any type of roof surface. We talked about encapsulating asbestos earlier and asbestos type panels. You can go over built up roofs. You can go over single ply roofs. You can go over, you know, shingle roofs. You know, we've got systems that allow us to go directly over shingles. So the versatility of metal is one of the first things. And its structural capability is the next. We can design for pretty much any type of wind uplift that's out there for the coastal regions and the like. But we can also design for those heavy snow loads in those areas where snow and ice buildup is a big deal. what you design in Florida is going to be very different than what you design in the mountains of Utah. So metal can meet both those needs. Then bring in the versatility of color.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Mmm.

Rodger Russ: The one big thing that has continued to develop in the metal world are coatings, the paint film coatings. And what used to be a simple 20 year warranty in the industry can now be a 40 year paint film warranty. So the fact that the materials are gonna last longer than any other material out there is another item that makes it very exciting. And then that brings in life cycle costing. At the end of the day,

Heidi J. Ellsworth: Yeah.

Rodger Russ: If you actually look at the entire life cycle of the roof, that's where the savings come to the owner, is the fact that they can install a roof that's gonna last what they anticipate to be at least 50 years, as opposed to replacing a roof every 20 years. So when you factor all those things in, and then the fact that you can pretty much make it any color you want, based on whether it's your company logo, school color or just something that the customer thinks is a pretty color. We can pretty much paint metal any color that's out there in the spectrum. So when you factor all those items in, that's really what makes metal the desired material for retrofitting.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I love it. love it. So for everyone out there who is interested in learning more and getting into doing more metal retrofits, how can they get involved with Tremco? What do you recommend?

Rodger Russ: Well, so first of all, for the contractors out there, if they're looking to do retrofits, one, start looking to hire those skilled mechanics, you know or teach the guys, you know, the few extra skills that they need in order to be good. You need to have some good sheet metal workers. And most importantly then for the contractor, they need to align themselves with manufacturers that have those test-improved systems. That's where they're going to get the support and the education and how to do these things.

It's you know, there are architects and consultants out there that that understand this business. But at the end of the day, typically when you read the specifications, it almost always falls back on the manufacturer to provide a proven tested system that is code compliant. Therefore, the manufacturer ultimately has to educate and or carry along the contractor so that one, they both stay out of trouble. So those contractors should align themselves.

With manufacturers that have those tested systems and those manufacturers can then typically provide the training that they need in order to become proficient at doing retrofits. So, Tremco obviously being one

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I'm the right one. Yes, yes. And you can get all this information and find out more about it on the directory on Rufus Coffee Shop for Tremco and also on Metal Coffee Shop where you're gonna find all their information about the metal options that Tremco is offering. Roger, wow, that was a lot of information. Thank you so much.

Rodger Russ: My pleasure, enjoy talking about it.

Heidi J. Ellsworth: I know, I love it. I've learned so much today. So thank you. We will have you back. Cause like you said, there's a whole lot more that we could be talking about. So we'll do this again. Thank you so much again for being here today.

Rodger Russ: Thank you, Heidi, appreciate it.

Outro: Thank you and thank you all for listening. This is the kind of information that can really expand your business into different directions and solve a lot of the problems out there, including questions about sustainability, performance and durability. So check it all out on the Tremco directory, find out more information and a lot more information on Metal Coffee Shop about those metal retrofits. Also check out all of our podcasts under the Read, Watch navigation.

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