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ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
POLARHIDE and LEAKS?
POLARHIDE and HEAT?
POLARHIDE AND HAIL?
HOW IS
POLARHIDE’S SEAMLESSNESS AN ADVANTAGE?
WHAT IS POLARHIDE’S WARRANTY?
WEIGHT PER ROOF SQUARE?
POLARHIDE and LOCATING LEAKS?
POLARHIDE AND ADHESION ?
POLARHIDE’S FLEXIBILITY?
POLARHIDE AND FIRE
POLARHIDE AND STANDING WATER AKA “PONDING WATER” OR “BIRDBATHS”?
POLARHIDE AND DURABILITY?
EASE OF INSTALLATION?
WHICH ROOF SURFACES ?
TRIED + TESTED?
Polarhide is impervious to water. Polarhide can be installed under water or on a wet roof.
Polarhide is impervious to heat thereby ending Thermal Shock the main cause of roof leaks.
Polarhide’s 1393 psi Tensile Strength enables it to stop 2.5 in hail impacting at 80-MPH
Polarhide’s adhesion is the envy of the industry.
Polarhide bonds to a surface better than surfaces bond to themselves. Concrete is one example.
Polarhide bonds structurally. Water cannot travel laterally in a structurally bonded ply.
Polarhide’s standard Warranty includes a full Warranty against Ponding Water damage.
Polarhide adheres to all roof surfaces – incl. EPDM - so watertightness is assured regardless of roof type.
Polarhide lasts a very, very long time. Polarhide oxidizes at a rate of 1 mil every ten years.
It takes 100 years for natural oxidation to degrade a 10 mil thick Polarhide coating to zero.
One mil is one thousandth of an inch or one third the width of a human hair.
The closer a coated surface gets to to ambient air temperature the better the coating.
Polarhide operates within 5 degrees of ambient.
Polarhide brings your electrical consumption down at peak usage times usually when the sun is high in the sky. When your peak usage is depressed the utility company adjusts your overall rates downwards.
If air temperature on the ground is 100 degrees, roof temperature will be between 150 and 300 degrees. Texas roofs, for example, hit 200 degrees one hundred time a year. A Polarhide coated roof will keep your roof temperature between 30 and 100 degrees lower than an uncoated roof.
Polarhide is intrinsically highly insulative because it is based on a chemical family highly resistant to heat transfer of any kind. Heat simply cannot get a grip on a Polarhide surface.
Polarhide’s molecules resist being agitated by solar heat-energy making it ideal for protecting a roof against heat.
Polarhide is designed stop heat flux across any surface to which it is applied.
Polarhide contains Titanium Dioxide the best coating additive for reflecting heat.
Polarhide high solids-content includes abundant ceramic spheres to further strengthen its heat resistance.
Polarhide’s insulation is less than one on a scale of 100 where zero is
maximum insulation possible.
That is why we talk about Polarhide being impervious to heat
In independent laboratory tests Polarhide stopped 2.5 in hail fired repeatedly from a custom made bazooka at 140 mph impacting at 80mph. The two coated surfaces tested, metal and foam, suffered severe and permanent indentation but Polarhide taking the first and full impact of every round suffered no breach in coating integrity. The test frame (wood 2x4) holding the metal plates to which Polarhide was adhered was also permanently damaged. Even the testers were impressed. One said something about this being “desirable”. An experienced engineer witnessed a hail shower impacting on his Polarhide coated Duro-Last roof which he had recently coated to increase his roof skin’s toughness. He said that the hail “had no impact. It just bounced. It was an impressive display of Polarhide in action”
How is POLARHIDES SEAMLESSNESS an advantage?
Many roofs have membrane surfaces of one kind or another. Membranes are laid down in rolls that are overlapped and sealed either by heat or adhesive. If you have a membrane roof such as Duro-Last, Sarnafil, EPDM, TPO, mineral capsheet, rolled felt etc these seams are a problem for you. Why? Because they are well known leak pathways into your roof system. Water flowing across the roof is stopped at each seam, giving rain, acid rain or UV (magnified through acid rain) the opportunity to breach the integrity of your roof surface by causing the overlapping seams to detach. Once water gets under a membrane it can move laterally throughout the roof and you will not be able to source the leak. Lap adhesive will leak out from under seams exposing the adhesive to the sun. This adhesive alligators in the harsh sunlight. Water runs through the cracks in the alligatored adhesive providing channels for water to run under the seam.
Polarhide a cold applied (roll or spray) liquid, cures to a seamless membrane with dramatic heat resistance.
Money Saving Thought – Can’t afford a new roaf or retrofit at this time? Coat your seamed roofs with Polarhide to eliminate the seam problem and postpone installing a new roof for 20 years.
Polarhide’s durability is legendary which is why we can confidently offer a 20 yr warranty. No Ifs, Ands, Or Buts. No extra charges.
We also include a standing water warranty (ponding water aka bird baths) in our 20 year standard warranty at no extra charge.
We also offer a LIFETIME roof warranty. This involves a proprietary installation technique that takes advantage of Polarhide’s physical robustness and a proprietary technique using synthetic rebar embedded in the coating. It is more expensive than our regular offerings but it can be laid down on an existing roof with “better than new roof “ results. It is still less expensive than a tear off and replacement with any of the usual roofs - bitumen embedded felt, Mineral Capsheet, BUR, EPDM, Duro-Last, Sarnafil, TPO or the like.
Gravel weighs in at an average of 400-500 Lbs per roofers square (100 sq ft). That is 4-5 lbs per sq ft! Imagine the force acting down on your roof infrastructure. Now imagine you have a black roof acting as a heat sink absorbing solar heat through your roof all the way to the roof deck. Solar Heat and tremendous weight acting over a large mass produces expansion, contraction, softening, and warping of roof supports leading to shortened roof life and constant leaks.
A gallon of Polarhide weighs 12 lbs. and it covers a roofer’s square (100 sq ft) to full performance specifications. Even doubling the thickness of coating to say 2 gallons per square, weighs no more than 24 lbs or 4 ounces per sq ft. Add in our robust heat protection and you can see why we can offer you a powerful solution for your roof surface and roof infrastructure while extending the life of your roof by decades.
Membranes are oftened fastened to a roof by special fasteners spaced from 6 inches to a foot part. Often, roof membranes like EPDM are held in place by ballast rocks. Water gets underneath the membrane in either case and travels unimpeded across the roof.
It is not easy to find some leaks. When a leak drips on your desk it appears to be dripping from directly overhead. But the source of this leak may be in the roof 100 feet or more away from where it appears to you. Finding leaks is the hardest and often the most expensive part of fixing leaks.
Polarhide bonds structurally - molecule by molecule. Water cannot travel laterally through structurally bonded ply so, with Polarhide, a leak is right where the breach occurred. Ease of finding leaks is one reason that Polarhide reduces your roof maintenance costs.
Polarhide bonds to all roof surfaces. The bond is renowned for its strength. For example, Portland cement bonds to itself at 300 psi. Polarhide bonds to concrete at least at 1300 psi. This means that removing Polarhide will also remove the concrete to which it is attached. The same applies to asphalt, metal, plywood, shingle etc.
After a 500 hr weatherometer test Polarhide was found to stretch fully backwards onto itself without cracking and returned to its original dimensions with ease. Polarhide stretchs 400% and return to its original dimensions easily.
Only a very few weeks had passed since we had finished a 5 acre metal roof system. A fire in a manufacturing facility directly underneath one of the metal roofs we had coated had brought the underside of the roof to 1400 degrees twisting purlins and beams across eight thousand sq ft of roof.
A red hot roof did not ignite on the outside because Polarhide’s fire control ingredients worked. Polarhide was reduced to a white ash in the center of 1400 degree heat impact for about a square foot. Surrounding this center, Polarhide was carbon black for about 800 sq ft (10% of the burn area). No flames or embers were seen within this scorched area which is consistent with national lab tests that stated “no embers of any kind were seen” during the Spread Of Flame Test. Polarhide’s fire suppresants prevented the roof from igniting and kept the fire from moving to other buildings. Polarhide is spec’ed to survive 800 degrees. But true to her exceptional form she survived 1400 degrees in a live fire test! Our client asked us to recoat the roof after the new roof was installed.
Latex, acrylic, and elastomeric coatings are rarely warranted beyond ten years and often only warranted for 5 years. There is a good reason for these short term warranties. Latex was originally designed as a water based interior house paint. How can it survive on a roof at 200 degrees, a not unusual temperature in Texas, Arizona or other sunbelt states. How can it survive standing snow when it is water based to begin with?
As the water evaporates in water-based coatings during cure and afterwords, adhesion is weakened and UV and acid rain do the rest. Latex is usually installed at 6-8 thousandths of an inch for a finished job. Latex oxidizes rapidly - 1 thousandth of an inch every year. It is gone after 8 years! Rarely can these so called coatings be used for waterproofing because the water dissolves any water based product it comes in contact with over time.
Polarhide degrades through oxidation too, except it takes ten years for Polarhide to lose one thousandth of an inch ( a mil) and it is applied 12 mils dry in one coat. Technically, Polarhide degrades to zero in 120 years. We have only been around 50 years so we can’t prove this yet but the science of it is clear.
Polarhide is an immensely stable chemical product. It is inert to most chemical reactions to be found on a roof. Microrganisms (mold etc) cannot get a grip because the acid they use to penetrate a surface are not able to overcome Polarhide’s PH, inertness and molecular stability. Acid Rain and UV cannot overcome Polarhide’s chemical stability either.
Because of Polarhide’s low permeability and powerful adhesion to foam it is an excellent topcoat for foam roofs because it keeps UV away from the foam and forces trapped water downward not upward into the ubiquitious foam blisters.
One of the greatest advantages of Polarhide’s chemical structure is that solar heat cannot agitate the ultra stable molecules so roof heat can’t get a grip on the roof in the first place. Beats insulation hands down because insulation on the underside of a roof assumes that heat gets through the roof first. Polarhide doesn’t allow the heat to get to the roof let alone through it.
POLARHIDE AND STANDING WATER AKA “PONDING WATER” OR “BIRDBATHS”?
Standing water is a major issue for the roofing industry and its clients. Standing water can strip a mineral capsheet roof skin of its protective granule cover in a very short time. We have seen mineral granules in drifts against parapet walls on less than ten year old roofs.
Once the mineral protection is gone from the roof surface the rolled felt underneath is exposed to the weather. Standing water will make short work of rolled felt. Soon the roof’s integrity gives way.
Essentially what happens is this: Standing water acts as a magnifying glass focusing UV light ( a surprisingly corrosive agent) on to the glue holding the granules in place. The acid rain or carbonic acid in rain degrades the glue further until the granules break away. Now the standing water and UV from the sun focus on the rolled felt which is much softer and easier to degrade.
Polarhide is impervious to water. This is why we offer a 20 year standing water warranty with our standard warranty. We often demo Polarhide by coating a potential clients roof through standing water. Polarhide out-wets water and can therefore displace it. Polarhide cures fully underwater. Polarhide cures under water equally as well as in air. Maybe better. So we can coat in water, through water, and withstand water. But Polarhide is impervious to heat too (see above HEAT) so UV is also blocked. A robust solution to your standing water problems.
Stir well. Allow to ingest. Spray, Roll, or Brush on. Cures/drys to walk-on in hours. One coat is all that is needed for metal roof application. For BUR with gravel needs two coats with weave after gravel vacuum/wash. For EPDM, TPO’s, elastomeric membranes, weave seams and single coat the remainder of the roof . For sound roofs with say 4 ply fibreglass skin, coat and weave wherever standing water stains were evident and around sumps etc. Or if in serious doubt due to age of roof, double coat and weave. These are just examples and ideas. Your roof may well have unique conditions which we cannot know but Polarhide is designed for very very tough conditions so it can most likely handle your roof.
We know of no roof surface to which we do not adhere. That includes all membranes, all rubber like roofs (e.g. EPDM), all metal, all wood, concrete, BUR, Asphalt, Mineral Capsheet, Rolled Felt etc.
Polarhide has been protecting roofs since 1959. Many of the roof types out there today did not exist when Polarhide started out. None has improved on Polarhide. The latests developments in roof technology are not impressive. Many are water based of which a roof will make short work. Other roof skins are black so your utility goes up 20% -50% as our energy supply dwindles. The scientist who invented Polarhide is our lead R+D and technical specialist to this day. There are very few roof issues he has not experienced. He provides much otherwise lost knowledge about roofing and existing roof surfaces to our company and through our staff to you.