Mr Roofer

It seems that the malevolent minority have been hard at it defacing Joomla based websites. We were attacked. Please see this page which replaced the home page for Rooftherm briefly for less than a 1 minute until security measures built in turned it off and restored the real home page. We have monitoring of the web site files that automatically restore back ups if an unauthorised change is made. This page also plays music so before clicking for this page either turn your music off or down!

Make of it what you will but in the current world political climate this clearly is not helpful and conducive to acceptance and understanding. The commercial damage to Rooftherm was non existent but other businesses that do not have the same level of security installed on their web sites may have been badly affected and damaged so this is not a victimless crime and a crime it is.

If we were paranoid we might even start believing that the competition are employing hackers to break competitive sites but that would be below most of our competitors save for one or two we know about who stoop to various shenanigans to try and gain competitive advantage. For example, we know one company that buys and registers competitive web site names with different domain endings than their competitive rival (info, org, com etc.) and then use redirects to their own site when these competitor domain names are typed in the web browser. I believe this activity is actually illegal and constitutes a Trading Standards offence but it does seem to have stopped these cowboys who no doubt import the cheap non fire rated polyurethane foams with illegal (in the UK) blowing agents that destroy the ozone layer.

I was reminded yesterday by a very clever commercial customer that investing in roof insulation in an industrial building is a no brainer decision. It literally costs the company concerned nothing!

Apparently interest free loans repayable over 4 years can be arranged to cover the full cost of installing polyurethane spray foam roof insulation so long as it can demonstrated that the potential energy savings over 5 years are equal or less than the investment cost. Hence, a commercial company can have roof insulation installed using polyurethane spray foam without increasing their current buildings cost, a ‘free investment’ if you like since the loan interest is free and the repayments are paid out of energy savings.

In my experience, most pre 1980 industrial units have inadequate roof insulation. The roof in these building is the biggest source of energy loss as expensive heated air is lost through the typically asbestos or steel sheet roof. Sprayed polyurethane is also an excellent foam spray seal that gets into all the nooks and crannies and seals the roof against air leakage, very important under the new 2006 Building Regulations.

Here at Rooftherm we specialise in spray foam polyurethane for industrial roof insulation. There is nothing as commercially effective as polyurethane foam insulation. Glass wool insulation is much less effective per depth and polyurethane foam can be installed in one third of the space needed and produce better results.

The new 2006 Building Regs now require lower U values for roofs. Air leakage in buildings is tackled for the first time under the new building regulations as this can be a major source of energy loss in a building. Minimising and preventing air leakage is easy with spray applied polyurethane foam as this will make buildings be relatively air leak proof. Sprayed polyurethane foam is also very quick and easy to install retrospectively with the only business disruption being the time taken to make cups of tea for the foam insulation installers!

Rooftherm can provide further details and do an energy efficiency assessment of pre 1980 industrial units. These units can often have the roof insulated as a ‘free investment’ as this is usually where the biggest returns are to be made to justify the investment cost. The investment cost is paid out of savings; the loan is interest free (qualifying businesses, SME’s with no dilution of ownership) and payback is typically within 3 to 5 years so savings thereafter feedback to the bottom line.

After a bit of an absence I am back. How I have missed polyurethane foam!

Something passed across my desk yesterday by way of a customer email in the form of “have you seen this web site”. It never ceases to amaze me the rubbish that gets printed on the internet. My customer had entitled his email “Muppets from roofing hell” and you’ll see why shortly.

From a company, advertising with the full support of Google on their Adsense network, a company with no real address and no name given of the person who runs the business and using its internet design company’s P O box number we get:

“… employing tools and techniques to ensure your roof is repaired to a quality standard set by British Standards …”

Firstly don’t we use tools and not employ them? And just what is the quality standard set by British Standards? Reassuring mumbo jumbo to the unsuspecting if you ask me. Complete rubbish in fact.

But there is more. “Class 0 (higher than statutory Class 1) coatings”. Where did that come from? There is nothing statutory about Class 1 or all the sellers of DIY spray foams would be in prison (they are not). Reading the rest of the site is not recommended as more gems are in store. By the way and in passing, there is currently no Class 0 foam polyurethanes on the UK market and to achieve class 0 another material is coated onto the polyurethane.

Moving on to more important things than web sites written by unsophisticated muppets, about a month ago we had an enquiry from a customer with a domestic asbestos roof with the asbestos tiles laid in a diamond pattern. At risk of repeating what I have written elsewhere, there are probably no domestic asbestos roofs left in the UK that are worth renovating and spray seal foam bonding. The reason is because most of these roofs have passed their sell by date with deteriation in the asbestos to the point that the tiles have become porous. Warning signs are a whitish stain on the inside (indicating porosity) and curling edges on the outside, usually moss infested too.

Anyway, without bothering to offer polyurethane foam roof insulation I offered a new roof clad in Ludlow plus tiles to match the neighbours. The customer was taken aback and suggested I think again and quote for renovation with spray foam explaining that 2 other spray foam companies had already done so. I politely pointed out that if that was the case he already had his answer irrespective of price of which company to place his trust and business with. After explaining to him the true state of his roof and why spray foam sealing would be a waste of time he duly agreed not to proceed down the renovation route and today he awarded us his roofing contract. We will dispose of his asbestos tiles by using a licensed asbestos contractor, renew the roof and spray foam the new tiles with 100 mm polyurethane roof insulation. And guess what, as it turned out, the company with the mumbo jumbo web site was one who had recommended spray foam renovation no doubt quoting “British Standards” as they did so.

This brings me back to where I started, if only more people who ply their trade in the roofing and insulation business actually knew what they were talking about then they would not bring the roofing industry into such disrepute that programs of the genre “roofers or builders from hell” or as my customer prefers “Muppets from roofing hell” would be needed.

It was interesting that we had a service call today from a customer that we renovated a roof for and applied roof insulation with polyurethane spray foam about 6 months ago.

At the time we explained to the customer that unless he was prepared to drop ceilings then we would be unable to guarantee that his slates would be bonded in skilling areas - areas where the ceiling board is up against the roof rafters and there is no way to satisfactorily spray the slates in these areas. What we did was our best to shoot controlled amounts of foam down into these areas to insulate and catch slates as best we could. Inevitably, the longer the skilling area the more difficult it becomes to ensure foam gets to all the right places and fully bonds to all the slates.

Now it was important to the customer not just to have roof insulation but to also have the roof bonded with polyurethane spray foam since the roof was 100 years plus suffering with nail fatigue. Basically, the nails were all practically rusted through and slates were beginning to slip in ever greater numbers each year. The customer needed a permanent fix and less cost than a re-roof. Polyurethane spray foam offered a low cost way to achieve this.

We quoted and won the work but also told the customer in writing that we could not guarantee that no slates would slip in the skilling areas unless he was prepared for the ceilings to come down. Understandably the customer did not want the mess and hassle of taking down and then reinstating ceilings. So, 6 months after we completed the work we are back this week to re-fix a slate that has slipped. The customer was very happy however since we had not pulled the wool over his eyes in the first place and he half expected that a few slates might indeed slip. Not only was he happy but he also gave us his sister as a recommendation who also called the same day. So a slipping slate resulted in a recommendation as well!

The moral of the story? Honesty keeps everyone happy and not labouring under false expectations and customers are happy to recommend you.