I know the henry brand is good and has been around a long time. Anything comparable or better for less money?
Yeah, it felt weird writing it out, but I guess I'm wondering if the henry stuff has an inflated price because of the name, and if there's comparable quality for less money.
The Henry stuff is on the cheap end of the spectrum
Henry is on the low end of materials. Look into GAF & Karnak for professional grade.
Henry About the lowest option available is a ten-year term. To get four or five excellent years out of it is rather fortunate.
The best isn't cheap, cheap isn't the best.
The Henry items are a great value for the price.
GACO Flex
I like GACO. Great product highly recommend. From what I can see GACO is about $300 a bucket vs Henry is about $350
We do a lot of silicone, a lot of the advice I’ve seen in the comments isn’t great. The top brand that we sell is tropical 924 high solids silicone. It’s a high quality, cleaner finish than other silicones, and is reasonably priced depending on who you get it from. I wouldn’t use sherwin Williams or gaco or anything sold at Home Depot/lowes. You’ll want to go to a roofing distributor and buy real stuff not the watered down crap they sell. AWS is a good company but they private label others stuff. Tri built is private label as well. You can certainly put silicone over acrylic, all the primers mainly are acrylic based. Silicones are certainly recoatable. But yes silicone attracts dirt much like any white surface/membrane. But silicone picks up dirt easier than other coatings. Warranties also aren’t worth the paper they’re written on and if this is residential the warranties won’t cover them, might get a material warranty but doubt most manufacturers care about your tiny roof…if you need anything please feel free to reach out. You’ll want to follow the specs/application guidelines. You’ll need to wash the roof really well…but follow the application guidelines and you will be okay.
Really appreciate the response. It's a large commercial building owned by my father in law. Probably around 3000ft². It's had henry elastomeric put on it about every 7 years for the last 40 years. Built in 1908. I'm seeing a lot of talk about coatings not lasting, and that you're better off replacing the roof and going with TPO. $20k+ is above budget. The roof has a slight slope, so I guess acrylic is ok, but I was looking at the 20 year life of silicone vs 7 year of acrylic. Silicone is 3 times the price, but last 3 times as long. Is it worth it in your opinion? What would you suggest? Thanks again.
I think silicones worth it. Acrylic is okay but it’s designed for pitched roofs. Anything 4/12 or steeper I’d consider using an acrylic. Acrylic will fail at areas that pond water and a lot of their flashing details are problematic when you 3 course them…I always suggest using a ureathane FG because it provides a better system with less vulnerable points to keep it simple. Acrylic and TPO lose about 1 mil of thickness per year silicone does not lose thickness. Yes, you should be able to get 20 years out of a properly installed silicone system. Prices obviously vary but $43 a gallon for high solids silicone vs. $20 gallon for an acrylic but coverage rates are different. You use a lot more acrylic because it doesn’t have the same waterproofing and longevity (deteriorating at 1 mil per year). Standard coverage rates for the most part are 2.5 gal/sq for silicone and 5 gallons a sq for acrylic. Both are 20 year systems. Usually prices are pretty similar once contractors factor in labor per each pass required.
The truth is id probably get a certified and qualified contractor to install it for best results. And nobody knows the longevity of TPO, they’ve had a lot of different formulas that have all been extremely problematic. The newest formulas are so new they have no idea if they’ll live the entire warranty length. So, you’re kinda rolling the dice with TPO and the average life expectancy from the NRCA says 8-10 years for 60 mil TPO.
I don’t see the value in a TPO roof being worth it with it being substantially more expensive than a coating system. Plus, you’d be punching a lot of holes in good metal to overlay it with a TPO system that after the life has been served will require a coating or tear off then meeting insulation and code requirements. But that’s just my professional opinion. Been doing this awhile and TPO can work, but I’ve also seen a lot of failures.
I think all of this goes to show you that the most important piece is the contractor installing the system which isn’t always easy to vet.
Let me know if you have any other questions
I typically use Gaco or tri-built i like certain things about both of them better than the other i kind of base who i pick depending on the job but have only used both of those.
Tri-Built 💪🏼
There are no “cheap silicone” coatings. If it’s cheap the silicone amount in the product are compromised. Do it once and forget about it. The old saying, “You get what you…for.” rings very true here. Good luck, be well.
GACO
Like a few of the guys here have said, I’ve had a lot of success with Gaco as well!
Henry’s tropical. Home Depot has the silicone coating, white mastic and polyester rolls for a full roof coating. Make sure you pressure wash and prime first or coating will peel.
Ok, henry tropi-cool seems like a good option, thanks.
The roof has lots of acrylic coats, and has been fully patched. Only thing left is to pressure wash clean. Is there a product you recommend for that? And is it necessary to prime with something after cleaning, before spraying on the silicone? Thanks for the help.
I would clean with TSP.
https://www.amazon.com/Trisodium-Phosphate-Heavy-duty-Degreaser/dp/B098PGM45Y
Friend. Grab some 30-Second Clean. Also look into marine products for waterproofing Iykyk
Umm you can’t put silicone over acrylic 😂
Pretty sure Gaco S4200 can be applied over acrylic. Or maybe it’s the other way around to protect the silicone. Idk they said in the training that there silicone will stick to silicone products which seems wrong. Whatever they wanna warranty I’ll do though.
S4200 uses S4271 primer. Primer is acrylic.
Actually now that you say that I think Karnak might have a primer as well
I’ve got a 20 yo bucket of snow coat I’ll selll you. Just dip a bed sheet in it and flop her down flat
When researching silicone roof coatings if felt like they get embedded with dirt easily and you can't reliably re coat over silicone. So I have never used the product.
Henry 10 year is about the cheapest you’d want to go. You are lucky to get 4-5 good years out of it
We have been installing silicone coatings for 15+ years the best silicone in our opinion is progressive materials. It is not the cheapest, you could look into getting silicone from Sherwin Williams brand that is cheap but again it isn't one we would recommend or use.
Momentive(GE) - enduris great quality and you don’t need to mix it before applying it. Also great warranties available.
Gacoflex is decent but needs to be mixed and several coats are needed.
Sherwin Williams does a decent one as well, equivalent to the GACO product.
GACO Roof requires 2 coats. GACO s20 and s42 are one coat products
Gaco, GE, Tropical, Certainteed Surecoat.
Best and cheap do not mix when it comes to silicone roof coating. GACO makes the best in my professional opinion and it isn’t cheap
Mulehide is my personal favorite.
Check out Karnak 502 or 298. These are rubberized coatings with superior elongation and tensile strength. The physical properties make these coatings better for applications over metal. Will be cheaper than a high solids silicone coating as long as you find it locally in stock.
The best isn't cheap, cheap isn't the best.
American weather star. Best combination of performance and cost
Sherman Williams makes some great roof coating products. Worth looking into them. Comes with a warranty as well.
I did not have a good experience with SW Tundra
Tintable also
Check into American Weatherstar, I’ve had great experience with their coating systems.
No silicone, its shit for outdoors. Normal outdoors caulk.
Not caulk, but roof coating, many 5 gal buckets of it.
Didn't see the coating in the title.
Now, you seem old enough to know that “best” and “cheap” almost never go together, right?