Soybean growers have you covered. Your home’s roof, that is.

According to a study by Ohio State University, about 80% of U.S. home roofs are made of asphalt shingles, and industry estimates put the annual replacement of those shingles at 7%.

Industry estimates also say about 12 million tons of asphalt roof shingles end up in U.S. landfills each year.

Soybean growers to the rescue, or at least checkoff dollars, which have aided in development of several soy-based roofing rejuvenators. When applied to asphalt shingles, the treatment restores flexibility to shingles that have become brittle over time, prolonging the roof’s life, keeping shingles on houses, and out of landfills.

The Minnesota-based Agricultural Utilization Research Institute and the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council recently hosted a demonstration at the home of Brad and Rochelle Krusemark of Sherburn in Martin County.

“The exciting part for me is that Brad and I are farmers, and this is using a product that we grow — it’s soybean oil,” says Rochelle Krusemark, who has been a director on the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council for 10 years. She also previously served on the United Soybean Board.

This product was developed in part by the checkoff funds collected by those organizations from Krusemark and her fellow producers, and research was originally done by Ohio State University.

“As farmers we said, ‘Well, our checkoff has invested in it, and we wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we didn’t say we believed in it by putting it on our home,’” Rochelle says.

The shingles on the Krusemark home overlooking Fox Lake are 18 years old, “but still look like they have good life,” she says, and they would like to prolong that lifespan, she adds.

Harold Stanislawski, AURI business and industry development director, was instrumental in getting RoofRestor, a company based in the Richmond, Va., area, to make the trip to Minnesota for this application demonstration.

“We knew the soy rejuvenators were out in the marketplace, and there was interest in Minnesota, so we put together a proposal to the Minnesota Soybean Research & Promotion Council. Our goal was to do a review of soy rejuvenates, understand product options, get information out to people and do demonstrations to increase utilization in the state.”

Luke Meyer, general manager of BioBased Spray Systems LLC based in Sidney, Ohio, applied the RoofRestor product on the Krusemarks’ roof. Applied with a spray wand, the solution goes on white and dries clear, restoring the natural color of the shingles.

Restore shingle life

According to Brian Ahladas, president of RoofRestor, the benefit of applying the soy-based asphalt shingle rejuvenator product is that it “restores oils to the shingle that have been lost to evaporation; and in doing so we restore the shingle’s flexibility, the granule adhesion and waterproofing of the shingle material, making the shingle last longer so it doesn’t have to be replaced.”

Though such roof treatments are relatively new to Minnesota, Ahladas says their local authorized dealer in the Richmond, Va., market has already treated close to 750 homes since 2020, and the product overall has been applied to thousands of roofs across the U.S. and parts of Canada. Each treatment will last at least five years. “A good analogy is it’s like a moisturizer for your roof,” he says. “If you don’t let the shingle material dry out, it won’t break down at the rate that it otherwise would.”

Ahladas adds that the soy rejuvenator application costs about one-fifth the cost of a roof replacement.

“The current culture is, you put a roof on and wait for it to die,” says Aaron Wavra, a dealer for Roof Maxx of Jackson, Minn., which applies a product similar to RoofRestor. “And you either replace it at a great expense — or you hope that your insurance company covers it for you.”

Wavra looks at the soy rejuvenate application as simple maintenance for your roof, “let’s say a replacement cost would be $20,000, and you spend 20% or less on these treatments to maintain and that lasts five years and you can do it three times. You can almost double the life of that roof for significantly less money than a replacement.”

He goes on to tout the benefits of using soy oil in such products, saying soy oil is more durable in its integrity when compared to petroleum-based oils.

Roof Maxx participated in a similar AURI demonstration in the Thief River Falls, Minn., area earlier this year.

It is estimated about 10.5 bushels of soybeans are being used to make enough product to cover the 5,300-square-foot Krusemark roof, and Ahladas stresses the impact wider spread applications could have on the environment and U.S. soybeans. “If our local market of Richmond, Va., already has 750 treated roofs and is growing rapidly, extrapolate that to the United States and you’re talking millions and millions of square feet of asphalt shingles that can be saved from landfills — and also the soy oil benefits to soybean farmers.”

Stanislawski adds to that, wishing for growth in Minnesota. “If I had a personal goal, I’d like to see the compounded annual growth rate of soy utilization products in roofs expand 15% growth a year and get shingles to last longer and keep them out of landfills — mission accomplished.”

For more information, visit roofrenew-va.com and roofmaxx.com.