Your Guide to Choosing the Right Roof Coating - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Bill Baley from C.I. Services. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Intro: Welcome to the Ask a Roofer podcast, where all your roofing questions find their answers. Your hosts, Megan Ellsworth and Lauren White, peel back the layers of the roofing world to reveal the knowledge, tips and FAQs you've been curious about. From shingles to skylights, metal to asphalt, we're here to demystify the system above your head. So, get ready to ask, learn and explore the fascinating world of roofing one question at a time on the Ask a Roofer podcast.

Megan Ellsworth: Hello, everyone. My name's Megan Ellsworth here at askaroofer.com.

Lauren White: And I'm Lauren White.

Megan Ellsworth: And this is the Ask a Roofer podcast. Welcome back. We are so glad to be chatting with the one and only Bill Baley today.

Bill Baley: Oh, boy.

Megan Ellsworth: Hi, Bill, how are you?

Bill Baley: Hello, good morning. Doing really good.

Megan Ellsworth: We're so excited to be chatting with you and learning all the things, roof coatings and everything. Let's just dive right in and have you introduce yourself.

Bill Baley: Sure. Okay. I'm Bill Baley. I'm president of CI Services, we're located in Southern California. And our business has been around for 32 years. I started this 32 years ago as, really, a service maintenance business. Just kind of grew from there, and here we are doing coatings and re-roofs of all types, so everything's good.

Megan Ellsworth: That's awesome. Yay!

Lauren White: Very cool. Let's just start from the beginning. What is a roof coating?

Bill Baley: Well, people always want to call them different things, but really, it's just a paint, a monolithic membrane, basically. It's more advanced than paint obviously, although that's where it started, that's where its history came from. But it's got elastic components to it, which gives it its ability to stretch and move. And of course, they resist UV exposure. They do a lot of good things, actually.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Lauren White: Awesome.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's great. We've been chatting with the Cool Roof Rating Council a lot and learning about that, so listeners know about the white versus the different colors and the cool roofs versus not-cool roofs. What are some advantages and disadvantages of some of the common types of roof coatings available?

Bill Baley: Well, when you look at all roof coatings as a whole and what they do out there, it has changed so much. I remember when I started in this industry 40 years ago, the only coating that was out there was really aluminum roof coatings, because we were pretty much only working with built-up roofs. I would say 80% of the marketplace was that. And aluminum roof coatings did their job at that time, but that was kind of your only option. And then things changed. And as we progressed and people advanced the coatings out there, they developed them to be stronger and more solid, which gives it thicker and more flexibility and more weatherability and the ability to reflect, which turned into the whole Title 24 stuff, keeping roofs cooler.

And renovating dying roofs, that's really what it's about. The advantages really are you can take old roofs or you can take previously coated roofs and restore them and keep them going. I think that's the part, for me in my business, has been the best part, is the renewability of it. You can take a roof and just extend its life. You can go from something that was expected to last 15 years and now you're moving into the 20, 25 year range, because you've kept it coated. A lot of advantages to it.

Materials are easy to get, they're available. In the last couple of years when we had so many material hang-ups where people couldn't get product, coating was usually available, you could find it. And it saved us in a lot of projects with customers. So I was glad that we could do that. And then disadvantages, and I'm kind of rushing through it, but disadvantages, a lot of people don't like coatings for various reasons, but I think the biggest reason is it doesn't hold up as well as let's say a brand new membrane. But the only reason where it doesn't hold up is usually potting water or people are applying it wrong, didn't do the right prep. But if you do all those things, you got a good system. And like I said, it's renewable. You keep it going.

Lauren White: Once you pick which coating or decide which coating that you want on your roof, what does that application process look like? You talked about the prep process too and how important that is. Can you walk us through that?

Bill Baley: Yeah, absolutely. I'll start there. Actually, the first thing is weather. People sometimes think, "Well, you know coating will go down just as easily in any condition as regular roof membranes," but not true. So you want to make sure that the weather allows. And where we're at in southern California, the biggest killer of roofs is the sun, because there's so much of it constantly. In other parts of the country, in the east and the north, you've got expansion, contraction because of the temperature differences.

But when you're going to put a coating system down, the first thing is number one, if you can do it 72 degrees and dry, that's perfect conditions, but that's the first step. The second step is the prep. So cleaning the roof off, getting it repaired properly before you're going to coat it. Coating should be something that just covers up problems. It should be something that protects the roof system. So you want to fix the problems first. So, get in there, clean it really well, get all the contaminants off, do your prep work, fix all the issues, prime it so that you have a good adhesion of the coating that

you're going to put down and put it down and it can be sprayed or it could be rolled. It's kind of up to you.
Megan Ellsworth: Wow. So what are some signs that a building's roof may need a new coating or maybe a new roof altogether?

Bill Baley: Okay, well yeah, those are kind of two separate things. So if there's an existing coating though, like I said, it is renewable, so you want to be able to keep doing that. And we have a lot of customers that have been working with us for decades, and some of the roofs they have, we've been coating every eight to 10 years, using an acrylic coating and every eight to 10 years redoing it. And it's simple. You go back up there, you check everything, same type of prep process, touch it up, prime it and go again. And boom, another eight to 10 years. So what you're looking for when it's time to do that next layer of coating is you want to take a look around, see what's going on. So there's going to be areas probably where you've got some peeling, there's going to be areas where maybe there's some cracking. You're going to look for chalking. Sometimes you go up on a roof and you can literally take your fingers and wipe it on the roof and come up with white fingertips, right? That's not good.

Megan Ellsworth: Good to know.

Bill Baley: Yeah, coating system is just wearing away. So the whole idea of recoating is to prevent that, right? So when it starts reaching that condition, you want to recoat. So, in that case, a good power wash would clean all the chalking off and you get the roof prepped and put the next coating on. Now if it's existing roof that hasn't been coated, again, you're kind of looking for the same things. You're looking for how much damage, does it look cracked? Does it look dried out? You take a core cut, is it brittle? In those cases, sometimes the roof is too far gone and a re-roof is needed, because coatings can't save everything. They can just kind of extend the life of something that's kind of hanging on. But if you determine that roof is just really beat, it's time to replace it. But if not, if you're just seeing some surface cracking, if you're seeing some worn areas, some things that can be patched and repaired, that's a good candidate and that's telling you time to put a coating on.

Megan Ellsworth: So, kind of an additional question. So as a building owner, they're not probably getting up on the roof that often. So what are some signs from under the roof that they can look out for, that maybe it's time to get a new coating?

Bill Baley: So, a couple of things as an owner who never goes up on the roof, that they can determine it. I mean, people think, oh, they have no idea. Well, number one is, make sure you've got your roof on a nice maintenance program, because that'll tell you a lot, right? So as an owner, and if you're working with a decent contractor, you want a contractor that's going to give you an update. So when they do the maintenance, not just, "Yeah, we did your maintenance, we're out of here," but how about a nice photo log to follow up with that, right? That says, "Here's what we did, here's what we found, here's what we fixed."

Owners rely on that. That's the only way for them to know. Second thing is if they're experiencing leaks there, obviously something's going on there, and if I was an owner, I'd want someone to look at it, but then show me what the problem is. Even if it's just on their phone, just show me what you found up there. And then the third thing is really, if they have an existing coating and it's getting kind of aged, after a rain starts, if they start seeing a white streak running down from their downspouts across their parking lot, that's a good sign your coating is wearing away pretty good. So sometimes you can tell a lot without ever going up on a rooftop.

Megan Ellsworth: Okay, that's good.

Bill Baley: If that helps.

Lauren White: Yeah, absolutely. And how often should an inspection like that happen?

Bill Baley: Well, we do a lot of repair and maintenance programs for our customers. That's kind of like part of our stable of offerings. And one of the things we always tell customers is, as soon as you put a new roof on, you should be starting maintenance. And when a roof is brand new, the first five years or so, I'd say once a year, having someone up there just to clean the debris out, make sure your drains are open, make sure all the little caulking details and things like that are in place. And then after that, as the roof's aging, we always recommend twice a year.

And in Southern California for us, that time of the year would be like May and October. You want to get it prepped before the storm season hits, and then you want to check after the storm season hits. Sometimes we'll do a maintenance before the storm season. When we come back after the storm season, there's branches, somebody's air conditioning panel is blown across the roof. I mean, you'd be amazed what you find up there after the storm season. So that's why we always recommend twice a year.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow, awesome. Wow, this is great information.

Lauren White: I know. And so, when a building owner is looking for the right contractor, the right partnership with their contractor, what are some things that they should be looking for in that contractor?Bill Baley:

Well, I think most building owners have so much to do that they tend to overlook all the needs of their building. So it just becomes one more expense item on their list of things they have to pay for. So owners are very careful not to overspend, but they got to be careful not to underspend. And that's important, because just hiring the cheapest guy on the street is not always the best way to go. You want to make sure that you are protected as a building owner, because of the huge amount of liability working with someone who's unlicensed, untrained, wrong equipment, doesn't have a safety program. Those are scary things for a building owner that they sometimes never consider. But I've been a building owner and I don't take those kinds of chances, because why hang that on you? It should be hung on the contractor. It's very easy for someone to hunt down contractors that they're looking for, because the Internet's full of all that information.

You guys broadcast it all the time. Hire the right contractors. Does that guy belong to an association? Is he involved in his industry? Does he carry the insurance? Can he make the building owner additionally insured on his policy? Does he have the right equipment? If it's a coating project, does he have the right type of spray rigs to do that kind of work? What's his safety record like? What's his crew like? Do they show up in uniform or they just show up wearing their Metallica t-shirts? I've seen it all. So there's a lot of ways for an owner to find the right contractor. They just have to ask and check.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Wow, that's so true. So besides for people going to AskARoofer.com to find out this information, how would you suggest a building owner ask a contractor? What kind of certifications do you have? What qualifications do you have? How would they breach that subject?

Bill Baley: Well, a good contractor would never be afraid of those questions.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, exactly.

Bill Baley: So, if I was a building owner looking for a contractor, I would start maybe with the internet to see who's in my area, make a few phone calls and part of those phone calls would be some of those questions. Are you insured? Do you belong to any contractor associations? What's your experience with coating products? What manufacturers do you work with? And then once you get some of those answers, set up a meeting, have the contractor come over, have him bring you your certificate of insurance, have him bring a copy of their license, cover your bases. It's not that hard.

And any good contractor will never be offended by that. They'd feel good because they're like, "All right, this guy wants to work with quality people. I'm a quality guy. Let's jump in on this one," right? Versus, what's your lowest number you can give me? That's not a great question for contractors.

So anyway, I think it's very easy for an owner to find those questions out. Plus, with a manufacturing community out there, manufacturers know who the good contractors are. If an owner is going through the internet or magazines and says, "Oh, I really like that coating," call the manufacturer. Ask them, "Who do you have in my area that can help me out?" And get a couple names and get some quotes.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh yeah, that's great. That's great advice. And go to Askaroofer.com.

Bill Baley: Absolutely.

Lauren White: Great. So when people are looking, people are more, I feel energy conscious, wanting more sustainable options, etc, which coatings provide. But how does the initial cost of a roof coating compare in the long to those long-term savings for energy bills and maintenance expenses, like we've been talking about?

Bill Baley: Yeah, yeah, yeah, good question. One of the beauties of the whole Title 24 program was that it makes total sense. So if we've got all these heat islands we're creating, as the cities get bigger and bigger, being able to reflect some of that sunlight instead of it being absorbed into roof systems makes sense. Now, I grew up in Chicago, so in those areas they don't necessarily like to coat their roofs, because in the winter, having a black roof helps to melt the snow and ice and keeps the snow buildup down. Those are good reasons for that. But I think in the summer times, those people are just cooking at the rooftop level, right? In southern states, Southern California, I'll keep using that as an example, because that's where I'm at, but we have huge heat islands and if we don't cool the roofs down, the amount of heat absorption is gigantic. So it really does cause a huge rise in the amount of air conditioning and the cost of air conditioning. So by cooling down a roof system, by coating it, you can greatly reduce the cost of keeping that building cool.

I should say, one of the things we've done with coatings that has helped owners out, if they couldn't coat the whole roof, was to coat kind of like an eight-foot-wide square around an air conditioning unit. Why? Because that would lower the ambient temperature just around the AC, where it's pulling in the hot air. So even that little bit can make an AC unit even more efficient. So you can imagine doing the whole roof, how much more efficient that roof is with your air conditioning system. So that does help. So, if you also have a roof that you've been wanting to renovate or restore or keep going, starting with coating is a great way to go. You can patch, you can fix, but then when you end up coating it, you've now extended the life of that roof. So your actual cost outlay for that building keeps getting reduced every year, because the cost of coatings can be, especially re-coatings can be really affordable. So cost per square foot just continues to lower if you stay on a program like that. Does that answer your question or?

Lauren White: Yeah. Yeah, it does. Absolutely.

Bill Baley: Okay, good. Good. All right, good.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, I mean, that's just interesting about the AC unit I think, because what huge energy suck AC units are, and heating units and all that jazz. So even if you can lower that just a little bit, if you can't do the whole roof doing that area, so that's really smart. I know you kind of are just talking Southern Cal, because that's where you're at, but what are the other various climates that impact the selection and performance of roof coatings? Where do you see roof coatings more popular? Like you said, Chicago, it's more like black roofs, vice versa. So what are the different various climate impacts to roof coatings?

Bill Baley: Well because roof coatings have changed over the years. I mean, the advancements are huge. Like I said, when I started the industry, aluminum coating, that was all we had. And then people started painting the roofs just with regular house paint. Seriously. I think a lot of that was starting to happen. And of course that doesn't hold up, but then all these manufacturers started creating more and more quality type products. And then we had silicones, and the urethanes, and polyurea. I mean, there's so many offshoots of the first coating we ever had, and it's become such a big amount of names and companies you can use.

It's like, how do you sort through? Well, you have to first decide what do you want and what are you after? Are you after extreme long-term performance? Are you after protection against chemicals? Are you after protection against weather? You have to decide, well, you want the menu now is huge. You can pretty much narrow it down to exactly what you need to protect and how you want to protect it. And then the costs of course come into play. So you start with your basic acrylic coatings.

They're water-based, so they're cheaper because of that, but they don't perform as well as the silicones and the urethanes out there. Those products are beefier. They hold up longer. And the easiest way to distinguish between an acrylic and silicones, and urethanes, and such is acrylics don't really waterproof, where silicones and urethanes actually do waterproof. So acrylics are great for protecting a roof from the sunshine and from the beating that they take in the sun. And they work great as a protective coating over emulsions and other systems like that, asphalt systems. So you can restore a roof using a cold asphalt like an emulsion and then topcoat it with an acrylic. That's an extremely popular system, because now you have waterproofing plus protection from the sun.

Whereas if you want to do just purely silicone on urethane, you don't require that emulsion system underneath. You can just put that over an existing roof system, assuming it's in good enough condition to do so. So you've kind of got this whole span of things you can do. But temperature plays a huge role no matter which one you're going to use. It plays a big role with acrylics, because since water-based, you can't do it in the cold. If it gets below, you start hitting the 40s and stuff, now you've got to worry about freezing. And if a coating freezes, it's not going to work. You're going to have problems with the coating. It's going to crack, it's going to separate from the surface. So that's a problem.

You also don't want to put coatings down on a deck or whatever you're spraying to, if that's at freezing or if that deck's been sitting all night long and it's freezing cold, and even though the temperature's now 48, 50 degrees out, you start spraying coating onto a deck that's been that cold and your coating system's going to fail. So you got to be careful about it.

So yes, coating can be used all over the country at certain times. You got to be careful. So this is where the argument comes up between re-roofing and coating, where people say, "Yeah, but you can't do coating here at this time of year." Well, you can, but your window might be only four hours in the day that you can actually apply it. So if you can stagger that out over eight days, well, maybe you can get the coating job done and it works out great, but if a contractor doesn't pay attention to that, then it's a contractor fault, not the fault of the product. So, you just have to know what you're working with, read the directions, talk to the manufacturer, make sure you're doing the right prep, make sure you're listening to what they're telling you about the temperature and you should be fine. So it can be used everywhere, under certain conditions.

Megan Ellsworth: All right, love it.

Lauren White: Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Are there any special considerations for people who live in regions that experience extreme weather, like extreme cold, heat, hail, stuff like that?

Bill Baley: Yes. Again, you want to depend on the coat you use for those conditions. So where Texas, where there's a lot of hail, for instance, they've got good temperatures for installing coatings, but sometimes the hail impact can destroy a basic acrylic system pretty quickly. I've seen it destroy silicones. I've seen it destroy urethane. Sometimes that's where you move into the polyureas, where you've got these two-part component coatings that have to be mixed and put down, because they end up being like Teflon. They're very tough, very resistant to impact, very resistant to the scraping and things like that. But of course, you pay for that. So those costs can be three or four times what it might cost you to put down a good urethane or a good silicone or even a good acrylic system. You've got to understand what the budget is going to allow you to do. But yeah, there's pretty much an answer for everything on the menu.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. It's really a buffet.

Bill Baley: It really is. What's your budget? What are you trying to accomplish? That's really what it is.

Megan Ellsworth: Welcome to the roof coatings buffet.

Bill Baley: Very true.

Megan Ellsworth: So, kind of going off of that, what innovations and trends are you seeing coming into the market right now that could influence further development and application of roof coatings?

Bill Baley: Well, on our end, as far as what we do, we're pretty basic. We've got our spray rigs and we do spray foam roofing as well. We kind of know what equipment we like to use, and our guys know the equipment we like to use, and it's fairly basic, but I would absolutely switch to other type of equipment if it did the job that I'm seeing some of them do right now. I know there's some new spray rigs for metal roofing, which makes a whole lot of sense, because metal panels have the standing seam ribs on them on the standing seam panels. And if you're going to coat a roof like that, you've got to get that rib coated on both sides and underneath. And sometimes that's really hard to do manually, because guys are trying to spray around everything as they work, and it slows them down, and you got to go back and check it all.

And sometimes hand coat a lot of things. And I've seen some of the new rigs out, I'm not trying to use brand names or anything here, but where these self-moving or self-powered rigs can go along and they've got little wands sticking out and they spray underneath the ribs and stuff. Very cool designs. Those are really neat. So if you're doing a lot of metal roofs like that, getting one of those type of rigs, to me, that's the way to go. But you've got to determine can you use it all the time if you're going to invest in it? Now, I would definitely invest in it if I did a lot of roofs like that. So you have to kind of look at what's out there. But those are the type of things that are coming along that are saying, "Hey, here's a better way to spray this. Here's a better way to prep your materials. Here's a better way to get it on the roof. Here's a better way to get it out of the cans or out of the totes or whatever you're using."

So those things are really good. I think that's helping move this stuff along, and getting more and more owners to look at coatings and go, "Oh, that makes sense. I like that." So that's a good thing for our industry. The other thing is, in Southern California and I don't know how many other states are starting to feel this or get there, but there was a new assembly bill passed here that requires an R10 isoboard roof insulation on the deck. So if you're going to rear roof, if you're going to rear roof a building, they're requiring you to put that on there now.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh, wow.

Bill Baley: Well, you can imagine how many owners went, what?

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah.

Bill Baley: Because adding an R10 isoboard to the cost of a rear roof that you were just planning to do an overlay on, for instance, can get pretty pricey. You can raise the price of that rear roof by up to 40% or so. So a lot of owners were like, whoa, whoa, I don't want to do that. I just want to keep my roof going. Well, all of a sudden, boy, here's the coatings guy standing in the background going, "Hey, I can help you."

Because it doesn't apply to coatings, right? It only applies to re-roofing. So that's where you see the growth of coatings in that condition going up exponentially, because it's an opportunity for someone to get their roof system back in the dry and performing again, without having to go through that extra cost. So some of those things are starting to happen, which I think it's a good idea to add the insulation board to a roof like that. I think California's making a good decision with that, because it does help, again, with the whole cost of air conditioning in Southern California. But again, building owners don't always like to absorb that cost. So it's good to have an alternative. And coatings is a really, really good alternative.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, and I mean also, if they are still looking to lower their energy costs, like looking at a cool roof coating situation and you're still kind of getting same bang for less buck.

Bill Baley: Right, right. You're not quite getting the same thermal value out of a coating versus an isoboard, but you're still doing good. And the key there is you're still keeping your roof alive. And that's the key. If you're adding 10 years of life to it, hey, it's not as wonderful as a 20 year or 25 year warranty from a manufacturer perhaps. But hey, if you can keep hopping along every 10 years, that's not a bad way to go.

Megan Ellsworth: Exactly.

Lauren White: Absolutely. Is there anything else that you think building owners should know about roof coatings for their roofs?

Bill Baley: I think they don't look into it enough. I think they see it sometimes as just a cheap alternative. And I think that's the wrong approach. I think they need to ask questions on what type of coatings are out there, and how can I solve this problem I have? Because you can't take it an acrylic coating and put it on all roofs and say, okay, it's going to perform well. Especially if it's a restaurant where you have a lot of grease, if it's a hospital and you've got tons of things that are spraying out, God knows what.

If you've got an industrial property where there's a lot of oils and a lot of chemicals being dumped on a roof, you have to be careful about what you're telling an owner will work. But there are products that will work. And I think that's where owners fall down, is they don't ask the question, can I get this situation dealt with? Is there something that will protect me from this happening? And there usually is. Again, it all comes down to cost and what's possible, but there's a coating out there to help you with just about every situation.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. I love it. This has been a great buffet. It's been delish, and I hope everyone out there listening has been taking notes. Bill, thank you so much. This has been so fun.

Bill Baley: You're welcome. I enjoyed it. Thank you.

Megan Ellsworth: You can come back to the buffet anytime.

Bill Baley: Okay. I will.

Megan Ellsworth: Perfect. Well, Lauren, I've learned so much. This has been great.

Lauren White: I know, I know. Lots of great takeaways. So thank you, Bill.

Bill Baley: Good.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, absolutely.

Bill Baley: Glad I can do it.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely.

Bill Baley: Thanks for the time.

Megan Ellsworth: Yes, thank you. And everyone out there listening, make sure you are subscribed and follow and hit the ring, the little bell, so you get notified every time we upload a new podcast. There are lots more coming, so keep your eyes and ears peeled and we'll be seeing you next time on the Ask A Roofer podcast.
Well, that was informative. It was a buffet of knowledge, and one last buffet reference, and I love Bill. He's so sweet.

Lauren White: He's great, yeah.

Megan Ellsworth: He's the best.

Lauren White: Very fun. Lots of knowledge, easy to talk to.

Megan Ellsworth: So easy to talk to. And I feel like I learned a lot about coatings, and one day if I'm a building owner, I'll be ready and excited to re-coat my roof.

Lauren White: I know, I feel like coatings kind of get confused sometimes with different applications and products out there. And I mean, we have a whole site, Coatings Coffee Shop dedicated to it. But like he was talking about, there's so many different options out there and so many different big names, urethanes and all of those that can get a little confusing, and what's the best option? So I really liked what he was talking about, asking the right questions, doing your research and homework as a building owner, but really getting into a good conversation with your contractor before you start that partnership and trust them with your roof.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, that's huge. And it was great to hear the questions that, don't be afraid to ask your contractors when you're inquiring about starting this process. And then also, like you said, CoatingsCoffeeShop.com, everyone out there listening right now, go and check out if you are just confused on what is a coating still, go to CoatingsCoffeeShop.com and we got you. We'll tell you all the different coatings of the coatings buffet and all the different resources that you can access for free on CoatingsCoffeeShop.com. So go check it out.

Lauren White: Yeah, absolutely. And the alternatives to, if you don't want to coat your entire roof.

Megan Ellsworth: Oh yeah.

Lauren White: I thought that was so neat. I wouldn't have even thought of that for coating around an AC unit, to help its output and not put as much stress on it in those hot months. I would've never thought of that. And so, there's so many alternatives that your contractor can help you with and think through, brainstorm ideas with you to come up with the best solution that fits your budget and achieves your goals of, I want my AC unit to run more efficiently.

Megan Ellsworth: But I don't want to redo my whole, I don't want to coat my whole roof. Yeah, that was great. That was such a good little tidbit of advice, and that just made me think of the Cool Roof Rating Council too. So, if people out there are listening and you don't know what that is, the Cool Roof Rating Council is an association, and they work to reduce heat islands and promote sustainability and cool roofs, and it's just really cool. So if you want to learn more about how to make your roof a cool roof, you should go to their directory on RoofersCoffeeShop.com and find out more, because that's really interesting. And yeah, I think that's so cool, the AC unit.

Lauren White: Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, just sustainability and energy efficiency is on everyone's minds as we move forward. And if you're looking to re-roof or put a coating on, it might as well be something that is energy efficient and helps your bills. It's not just about the world. We want that to be better too. But it helps your budget as well.

Megan Ellsworth: In this economy, we will take anything.

Lauren White: Absolutely.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Well, Lauren, this has been a great podcast. This has been so fun.

Lauren White: I know, I know. I'm glad that we had Bill on to teach us about coatings.

Megan Ellsworth: Me too. Well, everyone out there, thanks for listening. And Lauren, sayonara.

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