Logistics Create Challenges on Metal Roof Installation for Kentucky High School

When the design for Logan High School in Russellville, Ky.When the design for Logan High School in Russellville, Ky., called for metal panels measuring 161 feet, 2 inches in length, the decision was made to roll form them on the job site. Photos: Morin, a Kingspan Group Company
When the design for Logan High School in Russellville, Ky.

When the design for Logan High School in Russellville, Ky., called for metal panels measuring 161 feet, 2 inches in length, the decision was made to roll form them on the job site. Photos: Morin, a Kingspan Group Company

The design for the metal roof on Logan High School called for panels on one side of the roof to measure more than 160 feet. That posed logistical problems, to be sure, but the project proved there’s more than one way to deliver roof panels.

Morin, a Kingspan Group Company, recently introduced an onsite roll-forming process that runs panels to the eaves, where they are gathered and stacked for installation. Logan High School in Russellville, Ky., was the first project that put the method to the test. Panels on one side of the roof were 46 feet long, while panels on the other side measured 161 feet, 2 inches in length.

According to the company, the on-site process offers the benefit of producing panels of almost any length without lapping them. This is especially useful when restrictions on the length of delivery trucks and their loads do not allow for panels to be delivered via truck.

On this project, 89,000 square feet of SymmeTry Roof Series panels in Regal White were installed. “For the longer panels, we had 11 men on the roof,” says Basil Slagle, production manager and roll former operator for Morin. “We also had three separate scissor lifts between the roll former and the eave, with men on them to guide the panels to the roof because that’s as close as we could get with the roll former.”

The SymmeTry Roof Series is a mechanically seamed structural roof system that is both symmetrical and hydrostatic by design. Slagle produced 18-inch wide panels with 2 1/2-inch legs from the 22-gauge, pre-painted Galvalume.

The start of the project was delayed by heavy rains, notes Slagle. “And that Kentucky red clay, if you’d walk on it wet, you’d sink into the clay up to your shin. They had trucks with four-foot tires getting stuck in the wet clay.”

Tough Field Conditions

When the rain stopped, Slagle got to the jobsite on a Monday and realized he would not be able to drive his 10-ton vehicle into place. “They had to build us a 300-foot gravel road so we could pull the machine into place, get it where we needed it to be,” he says. “We finally got set up that Thursday morning.”

Eastern Corp. installed the roof system

Eastern Corp. installed the roof system, using crews ranging from 12-17 workers at a given time. Panels for the shorter side of the roof had to be transported over the ridge and stacked by hand. Photos: Morin, a Kingspan Group Company

Once the roll former was in place—about 100 feet from the roof eaves—the three scissor lifts were rolled into place in line between the roll former and the roof edge. Slagle then ran a “sacrifice panel” to use as a bridge, of sorts, from the roll former to the roof. Panels going on to the roof would slide across the sacrificial panel to the roof, where crew members would carry them to a staging spot on the roof. The sacrificial panel, almost 100 feet long, was eventually recycled.

Slagle ran the shorter panels first so crew members could haul them across the ridge to the opposite side of the building. Then the longer panels were produced and set up on the near side of the building. The Regal White panels were all covered with plastic film to protect them from the red clay on the boots of the installers, who had to walk on the panels to install the batten over the seams. After the battens were installed and seamed, the plastic film was removed. (Failure to remove the plastic film in a timely fashion will eventually lead to damage on the panels when the film is removed.)

“The installation went great,” says Nancy Mullins, senior project manager for Eastern Corp., of Norcross, Ga. “We had anywhere from 12-17 crew members at the site at a given time. The challenges were the logistical hurdles like getting the scissor lifts in place and getting the panels to the roof and stacking them.

On this project, 89,000 square feet of SymmeTry Roof

On this project, 89,000 square feet of SymmeTry Roof Series panels by Morin were installed. Photos: Morin, a Kingspan Group Company

“We install all the panels and then come back to install the seam cap and do the seaming. We always wait to make sure everything is where it needs to be, in regard to any penetrations. We really had no issues.”

After the panels were in place, the battens were installed and seamed around the 2 1/2-inch legs of each pan. The battens were cut to 46 feet to match the panel length for the shorter roof. To batten and seam the 161-plus foot panels, the battens were cut to 81 feet and lapped near the center. Slagle ran panels for four buildings at the school, one attached to the main school building and three outbuildings still under construction.

Eastern also installed 1,100 linear feet of a snow retention system, the iBeam from Sno Gem. The iBeam is installed near the eaves on both sides of the roof, with the longer panels hosting a second row nearer the center of the roof.

TEAM

Architect: JKS Architecture, Hopkinsville, Ky., JKSae.com
General Contractor: A&K Construction Inc., Paducah, Ky., AKconstruction.com
Roofing Contractor: Eastern Corp., Norcross, Ga., Easterncorpus.com
Metal Roof System Manufacturer: Morin, a Kingspan Group Company, Morincorp.com

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