You can read the entire saga prelude of getting the roof on the Previously... page. Here I'm focusing on labelling the pictures with progress and notes of interest.

We chose Kansas City Roofing Service, LLC to do the work. They have been fantastic! Making sure we got what we wanted, helping with the insurance company, being sure that safety is job one, doing the job professionally and not rushing through it.

Ours is the first residential application of the TPO Everguard product by GAF in the Kansas City Area... which is to say on peaked roofs as opposed to the more common commercial low or no-slope application.

Preparation is key, as is a good crew. Shannon (Supervisor), Randy and Mark are the primary roofers and others have been added as needed.

Before any 'work' was done, safety harnesses, ladders, scaffold etc. were put in place.

Jerry got the 'cushy' job of painting the metal flashing and vents on the ground. And that's AOK cuz he worked hard to get us the roof in the first place.

It looks like they are are putting white TPO on the roof, but it is actually Light Gray. When you see the Light Gray against the Bright White version, you will see the difference (see the sample rail weld farther along).

The crew told me that when they apply the Bright White, they need sunglasses to see what they are doing, the light is so brightly reflected. With the Light Gray, they did not need sunglasses, but thank goodness it is still a 'cool' roof qualifying color!

The crew removed the metal from the roof as they worked on each section... that way there was less concern about rain on the rest of the roof.

Unfortunately for us, rain has been an on-going delay for this project.

We knew that this being the first time KCRS would be doing an application of this material on a sloped roof, it would also slow down the progress.

We are very happy that Shannon and his crew concentrated on doing the job safely and correctly rather than rushing through it.

During the first rain delay, the crew started the process of 'beefing up' the roof of the back porch. We discovered that the beams were about 3 feet apart and that is not adequate for the crew to be walking on top of (for one thing).

So they removed the cross members... lower left corner of the picture to make room for adding additional beams so that the porch roof would meet code.

The membrane comes in rolls that are cut to size on the ground and then carried to the roof as needed. (The gray you see in the picture is actually the back of the product.)

The rails (shown to the right of the cut rolls here) won't be put on immediately. Instead the crew will move on to the other sections laying out and applying the adhesive, etc. This will allow any air trapped under the membrane to escape and any glue to be cleaned off before applying the rails.

Here is the metal removed from the first side and the vent holes are exposed.

The crew discovered that our flue pipe was a problem during this stage. The previous owner was supposed to have fixed that flue pipe (see the Energy Rating for details) and it turned out that all they did was wrap a piece of sheet metal around it, which left the hole in place and we are very lucky that there was enough ventilation to keep any carbon monoxide from coming back into the upstairs bedrooms.

We had the flue pipe replaced by an HVAC expert. (Thanks Aaron!)

You can see that the crew starts by putting in the metal flashing and then the first strip of membrane is glued in place at the lowest edge.

A VERY SIMPLIFIED description of this application follows:

Each section of membrane is positioned so that is straight and then part of it is moved out of the way so that the contact cement (adhesive) can be applied to the substrate (in this case plywood and/or OSB) and to the underside of the membrane.

Both are allowed to dry before easing the membrane back into place.

Then the other portion of that section is moved aside so that the adhesive can be applied to the other portion of the substrate and underside of the membrane... left to dry and then eased into place.

At that point, a roller is used to removed air bubbles.

You can still see where the membrane overlaps at this point, but you won't be able to see it once it is heat welded... which is what Randy is doing in the pictures below.

Here is Shannon cutting the membrane and placing one of the roof vents in place. They then added a layer of membrane around the edges and those were also heat welded to seal them.

Once the first side was covered with membrane, the crew was able to start removing the second side.

They decided to start with the second story gable because they needed to wear harnesses there. Most of the rest of the roof did not require them to wear harnesses, which did speed things up some.

Since they had some small pieces already at this point, they went ahead and took care of the 'eyebrow' over the bay window.

The fascia boards are also being replaced there.

This day turned out to be windy, which slowed progress tremendously, so they welded each section as they went to avoid potential wind problems.

This gable has the steepest pitch, but is not as high as the second story, so they used the ladder and didn't need their harnesses.

Not sure if you can see it, but just to the left of the rope hanging down (above the butterfly bushes) there is glue that needs cleaning off before the rails are applied. I only point this out because this is common and they have a solvent to remove it.

So, now they are finally in the area where we had rain coming into the house (over the windows to the left of the front door). And they found that the previous owner, when they had enclosed the original porch and added the current porch, did not put plywood all the way to the new porch roof. So the metal was only attached to the rafters in those places.

So, Shannon and his crew repaired the problem areas and redecked the entire section to be sure that there was a solid surface for the membrane to adhere to.

Now that you know the process, I don't need to explain what they are doing to the front section in these two pictures.

Everyday before they would leave, they put tarp over the areas where the metal had been removed... even if it was just for overnight and no rain was expected.

Good thing, too, because we not only had unexpected rain, but a great deal of condensation, too.

The back porch had to be reinforced (as mentioned previously) before they could work on the the back side of the house. So you can see the new beams here.

Next the added OSB on top of the beams because the membrane needs to be glued to something.

You can see the flashing and edge strip in this picture taken from my office window.

You can also see the pile of metal that is accumulating (in the upper left corner of this picture). Once all the metal is removed, we'll call the salvage company hired by the insurance company to come and get it.

Now, this is the usual application for a single-ply membrane: on a no/low-slope roof. So this section went very quickly.

And here is the back porch, all done.

And wow, there is a lot more light in my office because of that reflective surface! And it doesn't added heat with the light.

In the meantime, the guys from GAF had been out about a week before this and had taught the crew about putting the rails on the roof so that it will have the appearance of a standing seam metal roof.

Here is the practice rail that is the Light Gray color of our roof against a Bright White piece of membrane. You wouldn't have guessed that the roof is that color from all the pictures, would you?

The rail has an adhesive backing and on a no-slope roof, that would be all you'd need. But on a steep slope they have the crew do a hot weld at regular intervals along the rail. (See the extra line near the bottom on the left side?)

One thing I was being anal about was making sure the crew knows they need to be sure the rails all face the same direction. And yes, they knew that.

Hurray! the rain finally held off for a few days and the crew worked a weekend to get everything finished.

So I was able to contact the mortgage company and they sent an inspector who signed off on the job.

I contacted the insurance company and they had me send them the final invoice to prove that we had the roof replaced.

We received the checks from our escrow account and the insurance company on the same day.

The salvage company was contacted and came out to pick up the pile of metal.

And here it is all finished. If you didn't know the roof was light gray, you'd never guess, would you?

The rails really help the aesthetics by adding texture.

Right now its "The Iceberg House" until we can get it painted. At least we're doing a little bit to help the polar bears!

Thanks again to Kansas City Roofing Services LLC and GAF! We couldn't have done it without you.

We asked Jerry if they would do it again (considering all the problems we encountered) and he said, "YES!" Because now that they've done it, they have an idea of what to look out for and can do it faster the next time.