Al Singleton of Alvin Singleton Roofing Contractors, Sarasota, Fla., thinks he may have honed in on a replacement system that will be his long-term alternative for building owners who don’t elect to step up to the new roof requirement.

That narrative, in some fashion, is a conversation played out across the country virtually every day of the year by contractors and owners who both realize they have to come to some workable compromise before the roof in question completely gives out. There are numerous restoration alternatives available, but Al Singleton of Alvin Singleton Roofing Contractors, Sarasota, Fla., thinks he may have honed in on a replacement system that will be his long-term alternative for building owners who don’t elect to step up to the new roof requirement.

“We found a soup-to-nuts restoration system from The Ruscoe Co. in Akron, Ohio, that we think is going to do everything we need and then some,” Singleton says. “It’s roughly a third of the cost of a new roof, comes with a substantial guarantee, it’s a snap to install and the top coat is white.”

Singleton is an NRCA member, a director of the Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Association, and a member of the Sarasota-Manatee Roofing and Sheet Metal Association. “Conversation throughout the groups continues to focus on the new Energy Star ratings as well as the requirements coming out of the Chicago Energy Conservation Code, plus the review from the Cool Roof Rating Council,” he explains.

The Chicago code and Energy Star both require 65 percent reflectivity, while the Ruscoe product provides 84.3 percent. “We’ve made materials for roof repairs for years,” explains Paul Michalec, Ruscoe president, “and in 1996, we started marketing our polymer-based Roofing Restoration product in a silver color. The performance was fantastic. It was something a contractor could brush on for small projects or it could be sprayed for larger applications.”

Michalec says the company saw the trend toward white coatings coming. “About a year ago, we perfected our all-polymer, Ruscoe Cool-White top coat and started combining it with the original product as our primer …. The system goes down easily, will not delaminate in ponded water, bonds to virtually every roofing substrate that we know about, remains flexible during wide temperature fluctuations and building movements, and actually fills in thin seams.”

Singleton can attest to the product’s ability to fill in the cracks, though he uses the company’s tapes and sealants for larger problems. His company recently bid for a 200-square replacement at Rip Van Winkle Lanes, a bowling alley in Sarasota, Fla. When Singleton reworked the numbers using the Cool-White Restoration system, it came out to exactly one third of the cost.

“We put down the modified bitumen on the building about 20 years ago and it was time to do a new roof,” Singleton explains, “Our contact there, Don Johnson, the full-time maintenance guy, was on the phone with us pretty regularly asking for another patch here or there.”

Singleton had been talking to Andy Dowd, an independent sales rep, who had been pressing him to try the Ruscoe system on a substantial project. “The timing was right and the pricing was certainly attractive to the building owner,” says Singleton.

Michalec and the Singleton Roofing crew worked hand-in-hand on this first project in the Sarasota area. Singleton went back to the job site about six months later, “And the roof looks just like it did when we finished,” he says. “There was ponded water in several places and the Ruscoe Cool-White material was just exactly like it was when it first cured. It really is pretty amazing stuff.”

“We’re in the process of analyzing the electrical bills from the bowling center and the results are dramatic,” Michalec explains. “Compared on a month-to-month basis, pre and post the Cool-White material installation, there’s an energy-use reduction across the board. We can’t say that the building owner is going to pay for his new roof with his energy savings, but he is going to take a serious bite out of that cost every month with his significantly smaller bills.”