Roof Retrofit Reduces Energy Consumption and Noise Levels in Warehouse!

From Buildings.com

Audio America's metal office and warehouse building in Riviera Beach, Florida was aging. The building was 15 years into its life, and its metal standing seam roof was showing signs of aging. A few leaks had started to appear along with the minor rust spots that most metal roof panels eventually face.

While the building was not particularly large, the footprint is only about 30,000 square feet, it is a distribution center for millions of dollars of consumer electronics equipment. Water is not something that consumer electronics are made to handle, so when the building's roof started to age and leak, the owner, Tony Aniano, wanted to get it fixed quickly, and permanently. After all, the inventory is expensive and sensitive.

We did not know whether to replace or recover the roof, and I did not want a messy process. I also wanted to add some insulation to try to keep some of the Florida heat out of the building, and I needed a system that would hold up to the winds here," said Aniano. That's when he called Rainbow Professional Roofing of Davie, Florida.

For Rainbow, the process was straightforward and simple. The crew of six installed an EPS (extruded polystyrene insulation) between the flutes of the old roof surface. The EPS was two-inch thick and 12-inches wide. Next a layer of DensDeck was installed over the entire roof surface to provide a solid and flat substrate for the membrane.

The combination of flute filler insulation and DensDeck gave the roof an R-15 insulation rating. This was very important to the owners, because the building houses both an office and warehouse sections. And the warehouse is not air-conditioned, so quite a bit of heat transfers into the building envelope through the roof.

By adding a white 45 mil, reflective, Stevens EP roofing membrane, Rainbow Roofing was able to considerably reduce the amount of heat transferred into the building. Stevens EP meets the Energy Star Roof Products guidelines, reflects nearly 80% of the sun's rays, and can help to reduce the company's cooling costs.

Typically with a Metal Retrofit System the membrane is mechanically attached directly into the building's purlins using Stevens Purlin Fasteners and a barbed metal seam plate. However, because the deck was 22-gauge steel, the membrane was mechanically attached directly to the metal pan of the deck using Stevens XHD Fasteners.

"The new roof eliminated a ton of outside noise," said Aniano. "The building was like a tin can. Before we put the new roof on the building, you could hardly hear yourself think if you were in the warehouse during one of our famous Florida downpours. Now, the only way to tell if it's raining is to look out the window. Noise is not a factor at all."

One of the more challenging portions of the job was a parapet wall that runs across the center of the building. The wall, which joins the warehouse section to the office portion divides the building internally, and extends more than 10-feet above the surface of the roof. To deal with that, the Rainbow Roofing crew mechanically attached a plywood layer to the wall, and fully adhered the Stevens EP membrane up and over the parapet wall. Best of all, the job was completed in five short days.

"We are very pleased with the Stevens Roof and the job that Rainbow Roofing did for us," said Aniano. "Rainbow Roofing did a very professional job and delivered a first rate installation on time"

Buildings.com, May 2002

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