Sustainable Roofing

The importance of sustainability for the roofing build-up extends from the multi-faceted role the roof plays in a buildings design. Foremost, the roof provides a protective covering from the elements, hence the importance of ensuring that each part of the roof's design does not permit water ingress. Secondly, the roof as part of the building envelope has a thermal management function maintaining a consistent U-value and limiting heat loss.

However, there is a third role that many flat roofs provide, which is as a convenient, external space to accommodate a great variety of building services. It is within this role as a building services plant area, that the primary functions of waterproofing and thermal management may become jeopardised by poor installation methods.

Installation methods that cause damage to the roof include:

1. Penetrative support methods for services that require thermal bridging and complex detailing that are prone to leaks and heat loss.

2. Poor load management of the support method, and hence damage to the roof build-up

3. Support methods that do not allow future roof maintenance access for re-roofing or roof repairs.

The Roof-Pro System eliminates these issues, providing specifiers, and ultimately the building owner, with a sustainable roof system that can also be used to support building services without jeopardising its primary functions. Our free-standing, non penetrative, support bases avoid difficult weather-proofing details around structural upstands and steelwork, and hence Part L and thermal bridging issues.

Our design team will work the project team to design supports to manage the support loads within the acceptable limits for each roofing system. This will include the deck itself, insulation compressive strength, and requirements of the roof membrane.

By providing building clearance under all the services, Roof-Pro supports also facilitate future roof maintenance access. Hence, even phased re-roofing or patch repairs can be conducted under our roof supports without the need to decommission building services. Decommissioning of services to re-roof can result in a very large bill and inconvenience for the building owner, and ultimately increase the lifecycle costs of the building considerably.

The Roof-Pro System provides a flexible and efficient solution for supporting building services without penetrative supports. Specifying Roof-Pro to professionally design your roof services supports will provide many long-term advantages and cost savings for the building owner over traditional penetrative methods.

Lifecycle costs are an extremely important part of the building equation, and hence being able to maintain and extend the life of the roof can provide significant benefits.

For more information please contact our local Technical Sales Manager.