Really big day #3: EPDM

Just as with the laying of the steel and the pouring of the cement, DW has been looking forward to the installation of the EPDM* since before the project started. He chose to have it delivered and installed as a single piece – that’s one sheet of rubber that is 100 feet long by 25 feet wide! One advantage is that there are no seams, and the whole point of EPDM is to keep water from touching the cement. But the real reason is that he expected it to weigh about 3 tons and be rolled out in dramatic fashion.

*According to Wikipedia: EPDM is Ethylene Propylene Diene Monomer. Its main properties are outstanding heat, ozone and weather resistance. EPDM is used as a covering to waterproof roofs. It has the benefit that it does not pollute the runoff rainwater.

I got home from my 7 am yoga class just in time to see the boom truck lifting the roll of EPDM up towards the roof. (Today is my one-year anniversary of weekly yoga classes - thanks for getting me started, KC!)

The roll was somewhat smaller than expected - the sheet is not quite as thick as DW expected - although it is a full 60 millimeters thick, it only weighs about 3,000 pounds. And, although the sheet was delivered extra wide with the intent to be cut down to size on site, it was also folded in half longwise, so the roll was not the full width of the roof.

As for the installation, the pictures wil speak for themselves.


One last surprise: the EPDM covers not only the floor of the roof, but is also flashed up the sides and over the parapets. Everything that was grey cement is now black rubber.