School May Use New Roofing Tech to Speed Up Project

Info Tech  > Featured News >  School May Use New Roofing Tech to Speed Up Project
0 Comments

Some businesses and other organizations aren’t concerned about the immediate costs of installing metallic roofs, which may or may not be difficult to absorb for them. They care about the long-term roof maintenance and repair costs that they’ll almost always get with roofs made out of almost anything else. A “hole in roof under shingles” can lead to a bad leak that only gets worse, causing more problems for anyone who relies on that building.

If you have roofs made using most materials, you may always end up looking for any hidden signs of a roof leak. It’s exhausting enough to do that at home. If you have to keep up with that at a school or other large building, it can be even more frustrating.

People with asphalt shingle roofs at home may eventually need to know how to repair a porch roof, or they’ll need some quick assistance from a roofing professional. Being able to “repair garage roof” may also become just as necessary. You see lots of asphalt roofs on homes for a reason. Metallic roofs are more popular in commercial buildings and other non-residential ones. Their immediate costs are often high, but metal roofs are better at maintaining themselves than most others.

 

Man Repairing Leaking RoofFire Lake Elementary school in Alaska has a serious roofing issue. According to the Alaska Star, they have had consistent leaks for years, but new roofing technology may help fight this issue once and for all.

Mike Nero, who is a facilities director in the Anchorage School District, says that the ongoing issue with the elementary school’s roof is caused by the way a sloped metal roof connects to a flat rubber roof along the roof’s length, which is trapping water and ice.

“Where that termination happens, the snow falls off the roof, and when it melts on the rubber roof, that ice builds up and it sort of creeps underneath the metal, and when it gets inside it leaks.”

The school district is now considering trying to use the advances in roof technology to solve their issues. This would advance the project’s timeline and avoid forcing them to replace the entire roof.

It is this alternative that has the district’s maintenance and facilities department nodding their heads and attempting to evaluate the design of the project over the next few months.

If this use of different technology seems like it will work, they would put a silicone sealant where the roofs meet, along the entire length of the roof. They would also install snow breaks on the metal roof in order to prevent snow from melting and falling onto the flat part of the roof. This could be their solution to the ice damming.

“There’s also Heat Trace, and things we could do that keep it from freezing and backing up,” Nero said.

Heat Trace refers to cables that can be placed on the roof to regulate temperature, and they are often used on commercial and industrial buildings. The current timeline for the project had the roof construction beginning next summer. Being able to use this new technology however, will change their entire timeline.

“If that’s a viable solution,” Nero said, “We could very well have that repair done before winter.”

Voters passed a budget in April of $945,000 — $283,500 of which is devoted to the design of this project, while $661,500 goes to the construction.

Advances in roof technology have been coming quickly in recent years, the school’s metal roof being evidence. Metal roofing is much more durable in the long run than traditional products, in addition to being eco-friendly, according to Rismedia.com. Traditional products are currently contributing 20 billion pounds of waste to American landfills.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *