Sometimes the most important advances in sustainable materials can happen using some of the most ordinary products. Cover boards have been used with flat roof systems for decades, starting with hot-mopped and torch-applied asphalt systems to protect the underlying roof from damage during installation. However, when single-ply roofs started to gain market share, the demand for cover boards started to decline. Part of this trend away from cover boards was driven by the observation that single-ply roofs may not require a cover board to assure installation success; but some of the movement away from cover boards may have been a result of manufacturer specifications that didn’t require the use of a cover board to obtain a roofing warranty.
As we started to learn (or perhaps re-learn) that cover boards offer advantages for all flat roof systems, the use of cover boards began to grow and now has become a common practice. It’s easy to understand this trend when you take a look at all the benefits modern roof cover boards offer: