Understanding the why, when and how of roof recoatings

By Emma Peterson. 

Roof coatings offer a great option for restoring and maintaining roofs more effectively. Learn some of the basics in this article! 

A decade ago, the coatings sector of the roofing industry was fairly limited, with a focus on a few reflective coatings. But this has changed in the last few years and now there are more roof coatings getting applied than you can count! In this episode of CoatingsTalk, Chris Huettig of KARNAK joined Heidi J. Ellsworth to talk about how restoring and recoating roofs can help contractors and owners; both economically and environmentally! 

Why should you recoat? 

One of the big reasons to choose recoating as your restoration option is that it is less wasteful. Chris explained, “We're not ripping off a roof down to the deck, taking all that material and throwing it into a landfill. We're taking what's there, we're refurbishing it. We're extending its service life, which just helps keep the waste in the world down to a minimum.” This means it is cheaper for both the building owner and the contractor. When contractors have to dispose of materials to landfills and such, it costs them a lot of money. By limiting the amount of material going into the landfill, it is saving them that money and time. Additionally, roof recoatings typically use fewer materials than entire reroofs. This means less shipping in product and paying to move product around! 

For the owner, a roof recoating offers a more energy-efficient option that saves them money in the long run. Chris explained, “With our reflective coating systems, we're reducing the amount of heat transfer into the building. We're able to reduce the effects on this surrounding environment and the internal one.” This keeps the building itself cooler, lessening internal air conditioning costs, and helps keep cities cooler in general, limiting the urban heat island effect.  

When should you recoat? 

Choosing when it’s time to recoat a roof is based on its condition and where it is in its lifecycle. Chris explained that roofs younger than 10 years old often don’t need full recoats, at that point in their lifespan the focus is more on roof maintenance. After that, roof recoating becomes more of a focus as you work to extend the lifespan of the roof. Chris explained, “The work done here is going to be more than on the maintenance side, but the goal for this is to get it back to focusing on maintenance rather than recoating. And through that restoration work, most of the time you can achieve that and get that done.” 

The other factor to consider getting a recoatingis the warranty on the roof. Chris explained, “If there was a warranted coating system in place, let's just say it was 10 years and it's getting towards the end of its life, we would probably do a roof evaluation. And if everything is in place, we can apply another coating, on top of what's there and get another warranty of the same or equal or longer length based on what they do.” This is a great way to extend the life of the roof continuously and economically. 

How do you learn more about recoating? 

Even with all the benefits of recoating, there is still a fairly large learning curve for contractors as it has only gotten popular as a reasonable option fairly recently. There is a lot of information available and some of it can be conflicting and confusing. This is why Chris and KARNAK have designed training and education sessions to help contractors sift through all the options to find the right products and know how to apply them. He explained, “Something as simple as cleaning can be confusing. If I ask three people what cleaning means, I'm going to get three different answers. So those are things we needed to hone in on and really train people, get very specific on this so they know exactly what they need to do because cleaning and preparation accounts for almost 70% of a coating failure is related to that.” Luckily, there are great resources from organizations like the Roof Coating Manufacturers Association (RCMA), the National Roof Contractors Association (NRCA) and distributors/manufacturers like KARNAK. 

Read the transcript, Listen to the podcast or Watch the video to learn more about the why, when and how of roof coatings!