Ridgeline Roofing & Solar is proud to be restoring the roof of the Caney Kansas Historical Society Museum, a structure filled with history—and recently, hail damage. Located in the heart of Caney, this building features a traditional hot mop roofing system with a 180 mil granulated cap sheet, which has seen its fair share of Kansas weather.
What We Found:
This roof, like many hot mop systems, was installed using a base sheet layered with 600-degree asphalt tar and then topped with a granulated cap sheet. While these roofs typically last 8 to 12 years, this one has clearly suffered from hail impacts that caused compression fractures across the surface. These fractures compromise the roof’s waterproofing—especially at the seams where layers are bonded together with hot tar.
The Fix: Polyglass Silicone Roof Coating
We’re prepping the roof now for a Polyglass 95.1 silicone coating, which offers a modern, cost-effective solution that revitalizes older systems without a full replacement.
Benefits of Silicone Coating:
✅ Seamless Protection – Bonds across the entire surface, eliminating weak seams
✅ Hail-Resistant Flexibility – Protects against future impact with durable, flexible material
✅ Reflective & Energy-Efficient – Lowers summer cooling costs with UV reflectivity
✅ Insurance-Friendly – Can often qualify as a “new roof” after hail or storm-related perils
✅ Cost-Effective – Usually less than half the cost of full roof replacement
Tim Yates, our lead roofing expert, notes that many insurers hesitate to cover hot mop roofs, but understanding the science of hail fractures and tar bonding has helped Ridgeline successfully advocate for full coverage on behalf of our clients.
If your building has suffered storm damage or you’re dealing with an aging commercial or residential roof, we’re here to help.
Hear Tim’s Thoughts
Video Transcript: "Good morning. Tim Yates, Ridgeline Roofing and Solar. We're in, Caney, Kansas today getting ready to do a silicone coating on this roof. Got a little bit of prep left to do, but I just wanted to talk about this roof a little bit. This roof had, some pretty big hail hit it and it is pretty obvious when you look at the cap sheet on it how bad the hail was.
So, this is a hot mop roof of course it's just like, kinda like Shawshank Redemption when they were up there mopping the roof, they had a kettle on the ground, they were taking the tar and putting it up on top of the roof, same deal. I mean, this literally has tar underneath this cap sheet, everywhere on the roof so all you do is put a base sheet down and then mop it and, it's usually about 600 degrees. You can always tell if a roofing company tried to do a good job because when you get these seams that have tar pushing out, you can buy a bucket of granules and go back and granulate that to where it actually makes the roof look, this part has been pretty granulated, makes the roof look a little nicer. So this is a hot mop. It's got a 180 mil granulated cap sheet on it.
And with the hail damage, it's, just kind of getting towards the end of its days. These roofs usually come with an eight to twelve year warranty depending on the manufacturer. They're not bad roofs, but the problem and I've won this argument with insurance companies before. The problem you get with this is when you have hail hit a roof, and it has, you know, the the compression fractures in it and you go back here and there's you got about a three inch span right here of where this actually bonds to the cap sheet below it. So if you're putting tar in that bond and you get a compression fracture on top of that, then it's likely gonna leak in the seam.
So that's how we usually combat that with insurance companies that are denying these types of roofs. So anyway, high of 82 today and, we're gonna do some spraying. Have a good day, everybody."