Roof coatings go global

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn how coatings have grown from being a too often forgotten part of the industry to the global market standard they are today. 

Coatings are a huge area of growth in the roofing industry due to the benefits they offer both contractors and building owners. But they have not always been seen as such a valuable part of the roofing industry. In this CoatingsTalk webinar, Karen Edwards spoke to Greg Hlavaty and Hal Leland of Western Colloid to discuss their experience with coatings and how they have seen this segment of the industry grow over the last decade. 

Greg was introduced to coatings at an early age, helping his dad, who was a roofing salesperson, with wholesale distribution for a variety of manufacturers. From there he started working for a coatings company, which is actually where he first met Hal. Hal explained, “After I got out of college and headed down to San Diego and started surfing, I needed a job, so I went to work with Greg Hlavaty.” 

He continued, “We started working on the chemistry with our coatings and our assemblies and our systems back at Thermo Manufacturing in San Diego, California, which was wonderful.” The duo’s paths then split again, with Hal heading more towards codes, standards and testing and Greg focusing on distribution, manufacturing and application, but they were reunited when they both found their way to Western Colloid.  

Today, the industry is not the same as it was when the two met in San Diego. Greg shared that the biggest shift he has seen is the industry is the perspective of coatings, “If you talk to some people, they would call it a roof band-aid. It's always been looked at as a band-aid in the industry. It has grown to be something more substantial than that. It is roof restoration.” This shift, which has mostly been in the last decade, is due to a rising awareness of the benefits of coatings.  

Greg explained, “A lot of coatings became accepted because they are reflective and they're a way to take a non-reflective, non-energy efficient roof membrane and give it some energy efficiency through reflectivity and emissivity. They can take a cap sheet roof or an asphalt, smooth asphalt roof, many forms of roof, even certain types of single plies like EPDM and what have you that have no energy efficiency of their own and add that to it.” 

This shift began in California, but it is much larger than those origins now. Hal explained, “I work with the Cool Roof Rating Council and we just sent one of our board members to India. We flew him out there and he met with several code officials out there. And if this can help anyone, it's going to help in India where the sun is beating down, they don't have any money. This is now a global effort and industry.” 

Read the transcript, Listen to the episode or Watch the video for more about the growth of the coatings industry and where it stands today!