KenC wrote:Hi Ron,
Thanks for posting, your build looks great. May I ask what you skinned the exterior with, I like the claen whit look.
Ken,
We used a flexible material called "TPO" Thermoplastic Polyolefin manufactured by a company called GenFlex. This standard commercial and industrial building roofing material. Genflex has great website with all kinds of product information. I filled an electronic request on their website and they sent me product samples and information. There are several other manufacturers of this type of material.
TPO is documented in other builds on this site and that is where I got the idea to use this on our tear. There are pros and cons, we have not had the tear operational long enough to give you a first hand recommendation.
I can tell our thought process for using it and how the installation went. We chose it for several reasons (1) available in white, I think I read somewhere that white actually reflects heat better than alum or stainless? So it will be cool in the summer. (2) Ease of installation, cutting it was a breeze, we tried gluing it on with contact cement, it looked like crap, it bubbled on us with 4 hours, then we used something called etherna bond double stick tape around the perimeter and it worked like a charm. (3) Cost, cheaper than alum or stainless. Additionally, we searched around and it took a few weeks, but we got some left over rements from a roofing contractor and glue for around a 100$.
If you do a site search here for TPO you can find some other builders that used it and ask them what they think now that they have had it in use for a while. We are happy so far. I will post some more pics of the TPO install on our build album and send you a PM.
ron