Last week I had to put in a new flat roof, a traditional three ply system with hot mopping tar.

They have this hot burning kettle on the driveway, dripping tar. The hot tar comes out of the pipe and fills up a bucket, then they carry the bucket up to the roof to be mopped.





Is this outlet a 2" cast iron contraption? I bet it clogs a lot.



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It will Definitely "clog" when the tar cools off.

should have got some of that tar..
nothing better for patching cracks in cast iron pipe.

Not a lot of tar being done any more. Rubber has pretty much made it obsolete. Years ago, we did 4-ply and gravel, if the customer wanted longevity. Nasty stuff to work with. If you get it on you, the first reaction is to grab it, but that takes the skin off. We were taught to spit on it...isn't that lovely.

If you want "nasty" do a " hot pitch" roof in the summertime.

well technically this is a 4 ply.

One ply of base sheet, then hot mop two layers of fiberglass, then finally a top sheet of bitumen. I hope that buys me another 15 years.

I suppose a 5 ply job might include feathers? I remember cold patching tears on a tar roof, usually the hottest day of the summer.

when i worked at the navy yard they had fuel for the big ships called JP6.
it was as thick as roof cement and the only way it could be made to flow was to heat it with steam pipes inside the "fuel oil heaters".
anyway, if you got any of this fuel on you it was redicuolusly hard to remove. if you got it on your clothes, you just threw them away.
anyone working on a JP6 system got "dirty money". 10 cents an hour more than a regular first class mechanic's pay which was 3.25 an hour. (circa 1966)

ONe of our plumbers worked inside one of the storage tanks for that, and in the process got a serious skin irritation/infection.

You clean it off yourself with gas, or diesel. We used to buy old uniform from a thrift store. One dollar for a shirt, and 2 for a pair of pants.We did a rather unique job, insulating and putting 4-ply roofs on tanks in refineries. It was a cold application, but we use to have to heat the pitch, or low-slope, in cold weather.

i remember a worker falling into the drydock and dying.
seven other workers were fighting over his lunch...

quote;You clean it off yourself with gas, or diesel.

I believe they said he had "hydrocarbon poisoning" which those solvents would just add to the problem,.

Paul, when you say rubber you mean TPU and PVC roofs?

I was deciding between those and the traditional hot mopped roofs and guess what out of the five estimates I got only one does TPU/PVC the rest were the old styles. The TPU estimate was 30% higher then the rest. I was going to go with TPU and showed the guy the other estimates. Whats weird is they immediately lowered their numbers to match the other estimates.

Then I read a report somewhere that says most TPU and PVC roofs fail because of nail pops from the roof deck, puncturing the plastic membrane, so they recommend the deck to be screwed down instead of nailed down. I end up not going with TPU because I found only one roofing company in my area that would do TPU for residential, if they go out of biz I have no provider that can repair it.

I was on the roof most of the day and the tar odor and something in them irritated my eyes and they were tearing a bit.

In the late 80s I was in New York working for the highway department inspecting road construction in the summers, smelling asphalt all day was no fun, and they also have this big truck that sprays a coat of tar over the asphalt as the final top coat. You get that on you its not coming off, and I ruined a couple pairs of shoes stepping onto tar asphalt gooey mess.

Honestly sum, rubber came out after I was out of that. I don't know much about it. I've done some single-membrane, burn down, modified bitumen. I kinda like the smell of asphalt myself. They have profiles of metal roofing that you can lay on virtually flat roofs. They will survive a hurricane. The first thing to fail is usually the roof, and then the domino effect kicks in.