Coating for shingle roof?

[Kev]

Looking at putting a coating/sealer on the roof to help with the heat in the summer.The shingles looked good a year ago and there seems to be a leak or two.There isn't any pitch to the roof at all.How should go about doing the roof? Are there any particular product I should use? Should the shingles even be covered? Thanks

[DCDiva]

I sound like a broken record,opps CD lol but metal is the way to go fixes the leak,many colors but recommend the light colors--they have white,light tan,light grey the energy star is by the ones that are great to reflect the sun, they come in 3 ft wide x the lenght needed-we did ours last summer and it was 2.18a ft--you would only need to add furing strips or 2x4 to the roof and then attach the metal roof--very DIY--you order the metal cut the lenght you need so you just install basicly-- you over lap a little and screw many screws--if you want to increase the pitch you could by graduating the size of the wood strips you use but with metal the rain/snow just flys off the roof with very littel pitch so you should be ok--you could even add foam insulation betwwn the strips befor you add the metal--it has raised seams to vent out heat too---as you can tell we love the metal roof we installed it was so easy and light weight--another plus and if you want to add on to a metal roof it is so easy to do vs a shingle--plus I think it would be hard to coat a shingle roof it would take more product

[1987Commodore]

You're not going to accomplish anything by coating the shingles. They will be difficult to coat, you will not be able to seal leaks on shingles with a coating, and anything you manage to put on them will not last long. Save your money for a proper re-roof. Go with a lighter color shingle or metal. I had my roof re shingled a few years ago. Switching from dark brown to light brown made a difference. Stay away from the real light white color shingles. They will look bad in no time.
If I had known then what I know now, I would have used metal over foam. The price of shingles has gone up along with the oil price.

As an aside, color makes a great deal of difference as far as heat absorption goes. I built my storage shed with OSB. When I was painting it white, I took my infrared thermometer inside to compare the difference between a newly painted panel, and the adjacent, as yet untouched one. Both were in full sun on a hot summer day.
Within minutes of applying the white paint to the exterior, the white panel was 17 degrees cooler than the unpainted OSB next to it.

[Greg]

You can do a search I know this has been discussed a few times in the past, I think the general opinion was it just a cover up of the problem.

Greg

[JD]

From what I understand from my roofing supply companies, a white elastomeric coating can extend the life of the shingles, merely by protecting them from UV rays. But all leaks should be addressed and repaired before applying the coating.

I have also seen cases where elastomeric put on shingles was causing leaks. The stuff was painted on pretty thick and this particular home had settle out of level quite a bit. This created a wave effect on the shingle, which stretched the elastomeric to it's breaking point. So there were areas where there was this 1/4" gap from the dried elastomeric ridge and the bottom of the shingle that it used to be painted to. This was causing sideways movement of the rain which resulted in leaks.

[150baker]

Kev if you have no pitch or very slight pitch look at EPDM. It is a ruberized material that comes in sheets. They fuse the seams. Make sure they do vent the roof cavity. Shingles are warranted down to a 2/12 pitch. Some shingle mfg require a min of 2.5/12 pitch.