Painting the roof - 06/12/2020
You're probably thinking, why did he add this to his ham radio web site? Well, The shack which, is located in my house, is part of my ham radio hobby. So, I consider it a ham shack upgrade!
Last year when I cleaned out the gutters on my house, I noticed some of the gravel which, is supposed to be on the shingles, were coming off. This year when I cleaned the gutters, there was a lot more! So, I made the decision to do something about it. The shingles themselves are elastic and in pretty good shape but, I knew that, would not last long the way they are heating up in the summer.
I started doing some research into how I could prolong the life of the shingles. I spoke to a few guys I know, that are roofers and they all wanted to sell me a new roof. Well, I figured there has to be a solution somewhere out there and I kept searching for it. While I was chatting with a contractor friend, he recommended I call a guy I had completely forgotten about. The fella is now retired but, was a roofer for many years and is an old time skilled pro.
After giving him a call, he came by the house and took a look around. He told me what I had thought about the shingles and came to the same conclusion that they are in pretty good shape. They are not brittle and will easily bend and go back into place. I asked him what would be the best course of action and he said, "paint it"! He told me to get a product made by Black Jack called, " Elasto-Kool 1000", it is a White Siliconized Elastomeric roof coating with a 10 year warranty. I was only able to find it at Lowes building supply. The Elasto-Kool comes in a 5 gallon bucket and cost $75.00 per bucket which, equates to $15.00 per gallon. It has a coverage rate on porous surfaces like, shingles or roll roofing of 50-75 sq. ft.
I figured the square feet of the house and added 10% for roof pitch and set out to Lowes for everything I would need. I bought 6 buckets of the black Jack product, a couple 3/4" roller naps that actually look like mops, a good roller handle and headed back to the house to start prepping the roof. Last year, I had taken some chlorine and water and applied it to the roof with a non-metal pump up sprayer because there was a lot of algae on the roof. An ongoing problem with roofs that start to loose there gravel is heat. My AC unit would run constantly and it drove my electric bill up a ton! The gravel on roofing shingles is to help keep the shingles cool. Once the black tar underneath starts to show, the sun is just going to make it hot as blazes and this is not good living in Florida!
Since, I had chlorinated the roof last year and hosed it off good. I figured after inspecting it, all I would really need to do is clean off the stray leaves. If you have algae on your roof, or even dirt for that matter, you will need to get it off the roof before coating or the paint will not stick! Pressure cleaning is recommended by the manufacturer but, since I had cleaned it last year and killed off the algae, the last thing I wanted was to do was, knock off more gravel. So, I grabbed my trusty leaf blower and cleared the roof!
You will need an empty bucket, a roller pole and a bucket screen if, you do not have one which, I did. I started rolling out the roof at the top and worked my way down applying 4 foot runs at a time and going around the roof in a circular motion until, I got near the bottom. Once the paint drys completely I will turn around, standing on the dry paint and finish the bottom areas. Make sure you have an old paint brush to paint round stuff that sticks up out of the roof. I used a red brick to keep my bucket from tipping over.
06/15/2020 - So far, the AC unit is cycling at 77 degrees F. and before painting would only cycle at 84 degrees F. When I say cycling, I mean coming on, reaching the set temperature and shutting off. The attic, where my air handler is, was typically 186 F at 1:00 PM before painting and is now 124 F at 1:00 PM and I haven't even finished painting all of the roof yet. I am impressed at the difference just one coat of this stuff has made. I can tell it will take a second coat but, this one will get me through the summer, and I am sure my electric bill will be a lot nicer than, the past couple of years. I won't bore you with many more details right now. Have a look at the photos below to see the difference.
The photos below shows how far I got with 4 ½ buckets of paint and 2 days of very hot work.
06/16/2020 - Well, I am almost out of paint at this point and went back to Lowes to get two more buckets. I am pretty sure my slope percentage of adding 10% is a bit off. LOL Almost everything at this point has one coat of roof coating except for the bottom area under the oak tree on the left side of the house and half of the porch roof in the back of the house. Today it was very nice out and was great for painting on a hot roof. The outside temperature was 84.6 F. The attic temperature is 89.3 F and the ambiant temperature inside the house is 76.7 F right before the AC kicked on which, has been set at 75 F all day. Since 5 am this morning and the temperature set to 75 F the AC unit has only kicked on 9 times by 5:16 PM and before painting, it would run all day set to 84 F.
I will have to get another bucket of paint to finish this project and will have a bit left for touchup painting any spots I missed. I will make plans to add another coat of this roof coating to the roof in the fall when it cools off a bit. The photo below shows how much is left on the part of the house roof. If I had not run out of paint, I would have been finished today. Oh well, there is always tomorrow!
