ERP - Environmental Risk Professionals

Improper Installation & Water Intrusion

Roofing contractors can face environmental exposures from several sources, including installation or repair work and various hazardous materials used. Mold growth could result from improper installation, fitting, or sealing work to new or existing roofing or from the exposure of raw materials to weather elements. Roofing materials can contain engineered woods, asphalt, silica, or other chemical components emitting hazardous fumes or dust when applied or manipulated. Other materials commonly used, such as adhesives, sealants, and coatings, can be toxic, hazardous, and flammable and pose environmental liability in their use, storage, transportation, and disposal. Jobsite wastes can contain hazardous materials, such as asbestos and silica, requiring special handling and disposal procedures.

Toxic, Flammable, Hazardous Roofing Chemicals

Roofing operations involve using various materials such as adhesives, solvents, sealants, coatings, and polymers that can be flammable, toxic, and hazardous. Accidental spills and leaks at the storage location, during transportation, and at the jobsite may cause third-party exposures and cleanup. These materials can give off toxic, hazardous toxins or fumes that can be drawn into the building and ventilation system. Flammable products may result in a fire that spreads and releases other contained materials and produces hazardous vapors.

Asphalt Fumes & Health Effects

Asphalt is used in roofing products and systems such as shingles, polymer-modified bitumen membranes, built-up roofing systems, felt underlayments, and various coatings, sealants, adhesives, caulks, and primers. When asphalt is heated, fumes can be generated. The health effects of short-term exposure to asphalt fumes include irritation to the eyes, upper respiratory tract, and skin. Longer exposure may lead to headaches, nausea, and fatigue.

Spray Foam Roofing Hazards

Spray-on roofing applications, such as spray polyurethane foam (SPF) products, contain chemical components, including isocyanate and polyol blend. Improper application, entrance to building ventilation systems, and over-spray can create third-party liability exposure due to inhalation and skin/eye absorption. Spray foam chemicals may also be an endocrine disruptor. Cutting or trimming the foam as it hardens can also generate chemical-containing dust. Protective surface coatings are also applied that can contain urethane, polymer, or thinners. Spray application of the coating can also pose an inhalation hazard, and leaks or spills of the materials can reach open drains, soil, and surface waters.

Engineered Woods & Chemical Leaching

Many of the engineered woods and sheathing contain adhesives for binding wood fibers. These chemicals include formaldehyde, urea, phenols, melamine, isocyanate, and urethanes. When storing wood products at the equipment yard or jobsite, exposure to rain, moisture, or flooding can cause these compounds to leach into surrounding soils and shallow groundwater. The leached compounds can also migrate off-site through stormwater run-off to nearby surface water or drainage systems.

Airborne Wood Dust, Combustible Dust & Fire Byproducts

Sawing, planing, drilling, and other abrasive manipulation of wood materials generate airborne particles. These impair air quality and expose third parties to inhaled particles containing organic allergens and toxic chemicals in engineered and chemically treated wood. They may also reach levels of combustible dust hazards. Fires involving these woods will release additional airborne particulates of heavy metals, cyanides, dioxin-like compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Crystalline Silica Dust from Tiles

Dry cutting, crushing, drilling, or blasting of cement and stone roofing tiles can generate dust containing hazardous crystalline silica. When not controlled, large amounts of dust could create on-site and off-site inhalation exposure to third parties.

Asbestos in Older Roofing Systems

Asbestos may be found in older structure roofing materials such as tar and asphalt liquids; felt and underlayment; caulking, mastic, and sealant; cement-based shingles; flashings and vents; and flat-sheets and corrugated asbestos roofing. Removing existing roofing during repair or renovation work can disturb existing asbestos and cause an airborne release of inhalable fibers, resulting in serious health hazards or fatal diseases such as asbestosis, lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other cancers.

Improper Waste Segregation & Hazardous Disposal

Improper segregation of waste materials may lead to commingling hazardous and non-hazardous waste, leading to improper disposal. Jobsite waste may contain hazardous materials such as asbestos, crystalline silica, and lead-based paint, which require special disposal procedures. Materials containing chemicals, adhesives, solvents, and sealants may also require special disposal procedures. Improper disposal procedures, waste container breaches, or releases during transportation to the disposal facility can result in environmental cleanup and tort liability.

Contracting operations performed “by or on behalf of” the insured

Contracting operations performed at a jobsite

Third-party claims for bodily injury and property damage

Third-party claims for cleanup

Defense of third-party claims

First-party emergency response costs

First and third-party transportation pollution liability

Sudden and accidental coverage for owned/leased locations

Mold, legionella, bacteria, and fungi

Non-owned disposal site liability

Lead and asbestos

Loading and unloading

Silt and sedimentation

Natural resource damage

Claims Scenarios & Examples

Work was performed on a roof at an air traffic control center. An adhesive was being applied to the roof, and fumes from the adhesive traveled into the air conditioning system. Complaints of the chemical fumes caused the evacuation of the building, sent a woman to the hospital, and required a hazardous materials inspection of the facility. The Federal Aviation Administration had to limit flights into the airport.

A school hired a roofing contractor to complete roof repairs. During the repair, the contractor used polyurethane foam and several layers of elastomeric protective coatings on the roof. After completing the work, employees and students began to suffer from respiratory problems from the materials’ vapors. Thirty employees and students sued the contractor, alleging negligent application of the foam and elastomeric coatings and exposure to hazardous vapors.

Six types of mold were discovered on the roof of a newly built county jail. A jail inspector claimed that the roofing contractor employees left rainwater on the roof and lacked efficiency. He also claimed that several leaks had been found, four of which were recurring. One of the senior project managers at the architecture firm that built the jail said the leaks were likely from unfinished flashings on the roof.

After receiving several health complaints from teachers, a school discovered that 23 of their 25 rooftop ventilation fans were inoperable, creating poor ventilation and indoor air quality. Due to the health complaints, the school had to hire an environmental consultant to test for mold and faced $1M in roof and ventilation system repairs. The school turned to the roofing contractor, who had worked on the building over the summer, to be held accountable for leaving the ventilation fans inoperable.

A construction company was found to be improperly handling and storing hazardous paint and roofing waste. The company had allegedly transported two 55-gallon drums and one cubic yard box that held paint-related and roofing-related hazardous waste to one of their construction yards. They agreed to pay the Environmental Protection Agency to settle allegations.

A general contractor was overseeing the installation of a new roof for an office building and shopping center. The mishandling of the roofing materials caused a chemical reaction that emitted fumes into the office building. A $400,000 property damage and loss-of-use claim was filed against the contractor.

When replacing the roof at a residential property, the roofing contractor did not connect the dryer exhaust vents properly. Because of this, moisture levels increased and resulted in mold growth, which also caused the homeowner to become ill. Mold remediation, third-party bodily injury, and legal defense costs ensued.

A roofing contractor was working on a hot tar roof, and the fumes from the tar kettles and treated roofing surfaces went into the building through the HVAC system and caused irritation to employees inside the building. Employees became concerned and sued because coal tar pitch is a potential carcinogen. The roofing contractor was held liable for releasing potential carcinogens into the building.

A roofing contractor was hired to remove stones from a roof, patch all bad sections, and seal it to finish. The roofing company used a roofing-tar sealant, a skin irritant that is harmful or fatal if swallowed. The contractor expected the sealant to harden within 24 hours; however, days later, a rain storm washed the sealant off the roof, into the downspouts, and then into the city’s sewer system. It continued to migrate and eventually ended up in a large lake. The State Environmental Protection Agency contacted the roofing company, which then worked with an environmental contractor to clean up the sealant in the lake. The contractor’s CGL insurer declined to cover the cleanup costs due to the policy’s Total Pollution Exclusion.

Roof-tarring operations were done on a building that included a nursing home. Building occupants complained of headaches and nausea from tar fumes that entered the building through the ventilation duct. Several senior citizens experienced respiratory distress. The roofer was held liable for $75,000 in bodily injury claims.

Contractors

Roofing

Environmental Exposures May Include: