SPF

Dick West has enjoyed so much success in the spray polyurethane foam (SPF) arena, he can't be faulted for getting a little bored with the status quo.

"Turn it yellow, turn it gray, walk away," West says of SPF. "It will do everything but take you to lunch on Sunday."

Far from complacent, West, the president of West Development Group (WDG) in Lagrange, Ohio, is taking a new approach to SPF commercial roofing applications. His company has developed an environmentally friendly silicone roof technology (System 14) that eliminates petroleum-based solvents and turns obsolete ethylene propylene diene terpolymer (EPDM) roofs into valuable components.

"We had to make a silicone that was fluid ... and contained no solvent," West says. "Well, it hadn't been done before; not one that was sprayable, at least. But we did it."

The result is a product that West says meets his three criteria for sustainability: environmentally beneficial; economically viable; and functionally equivalent. Any product that adheres to all three is a "slam dunk," West says. One that doesn't is a "flash in the pan."

West references an 11-building, 385,000-square-foot re-roof involving the Berea (Ohio) City School District as his best endorsement. "These guys did it all," he says.

For starters, WDG's solvent-free silicone was used as a base coat on 369,000 square feet of soy-based SPF. This eliminated the atmospheric release of 3,000 gallons of solvent — enough petroleum to drive a car around the world three times.

"Imagine what they'd do if I went down to the BP station and pumped 3,000 gallons of fuel onto the road," West says. "They'd arrest me, send me to prison, and say, 'See you in 20 years.' But we do that on a roof every day when we put solvent-based coatings down. There's no need for that."

Some of the solvent-free silicone used on the Berea schools was produced with 20 percent recycled EPDM — a WDG-patented process (Roof-to-Roof) that adds necessary physical properties.

"We took (the EPDM), granulated it, cryogenically froze it, and incorporated it into the silicone," West says. "But EPDM is not compatible with hydrocarbon solvents. It swells up and gets ugly. If the silicone isn't solvent free, we couldn't put EPDM in it. But because it is solvent free, the two get along great."

The 15-year-old EPDM used in the silicone had been taken from Boyle County schools in Kentucky and processed in Ohio; in turn, WDG later recycled 10,000 square feet of EPDM that had been removed from the Berea schools.

Attaining an Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Class A fire rating on the roof system was a "struggle," West says, because of the varied types of EPDM roofs.

"UL said, 'Well now, hold on, how do we know which roof you're going to use, ballasted or mechanically attached?' " West says. WDG volunteered to undergo testing with ballasted EPDM, knowing the system contained the least amount of fire retardants and would cover other EPDM systems with higher fire ratings.

"We passed with flying colors," West says.

The cumulative effect of WDG's technologies can result in unprecedented Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) benefits, West says.

"You're trying to get as many LEED points as you can from all aspects of building," he says. "But typically what a roof contributes is only the heat-island effect. That's it; maybe regional manufacturing as well, if you're lucky."

But with the silicone/EPDM roof system and soy-based SPF insulation, LEED credits, West says, could be earned from:

• The heat-island effect — the system qualifies with a reflectance of 80.67 percent and emissivity of 0.94
• Recycled content — the insulation is greater than 10 percent post-industrial, and the membrane is 16.5 percent post-consumer EPDM
• Rapidly renewable resources — the insulation contains greater than 10 percent of 5 percent soy, which is regionally harvested and processed
• Construction waste management — 16.5 percent of the membrane is recycled EPDM recovered from roof demolition and diverted from landfill disposal
• Good practices – the membrane is solvent free; the roof system is sustainable; and the silicone is the second-most abundant element on earth and recyclable.