Patent Application
20080196231
This invention relates to the methods of construction for residential and business building roofs with any pitch, single or split, flat or steep, with a continuous interlocking wind resistant metal membrane.
Roofing projects where the building design includes a change in the pitch of the roof, a “slope break”, present special difficulties for many roofing materials. This is especially true for long-panel metal roofing systems, where such a change in slope will usually require cutting the pan at the slope break, or require the use of two separate roof panels with a flashing at the slope break.
Many different flashing techniques and sealants have been employed by metal roofing installers over time to deal with such a change in roofing angles, with varying degrees of success.
The state-of-the-art flashing techniques often fail in extreme weather conditions when water blown by high winds penetrates flashing details at the ridge cap, valley, fascia, and slope break, because the flashing is not continuous and interlocking In particular, flashing techniques at slope breaks that rely on sealants to prevent water penetration will fail over time as sealants are weathered and age.
The present invention involves a field-proven technique that will allow the installation of roofing panels and ridge caps onto a roof with a split pitch in a single, continuous length without the need to cut the roofing panel. Roofing panels and ridge caps are installed from ridge to eaves with continuous double-lock standing seams without cuts or seams, thereby creating leak-proof conditions. The continuous nature of the double lock seams is crucial, because joints along the seam would permit water or wind to work on the seam and eventually split it open.
The typical roof in a high wind weather condition is degraded and eventually destroyed because one or more roofing panels and or the ridge cap are lifted off of the structure. When this happens, the entire roof is quickly peeled off of the building and the rest of the building is exposed to the weather. By eliminating the entry of water and wind under the edges of the roof panels and ridge cap, the roof will survive heavy hurricane force winds.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a standard American-style roof with eaves, pitched or flat, straight pitch or split pitch, or plantation style, resistance to winds of extreme force by forming a metal membrane of continuous interlocking flashing. With roofing panels, the present invention will confer resistance to all winds, not depending on thru fasteners or flashing with caulk.
All details of roof split pitch, valley, ridge cap, fascia are unique and new to the roofing industry because roofers have not been equipped to produce continuous panels and all other flashings in one piece, including ridge caps, valleys, soffit flashings, fascia cap, on site.
The objective of the present is to provide a methodology for assembling sheet metal roofs in such a manner as to minimize or eliminate leakage and susceptibility of the roof to wind damage.
A further objective of this invention is to make the methodology easy and cost-efficient to use.
A further objective of the present invention is to allow the methodology to be implemented with hand tools or power tools with hand tool finishing.
A further objective of the present invention is to permit all steps of roof manufacture using this methodology to be performed on the roofing job site.
The method implemented by the present invention is intended to make waterproof and windproof seams between roof panels 102 and the roof ridge cap 103, where the roof ridge cap 103 is comprised of a male 104 and a female lock 105 panel. The present method is also used to assemble roofs from collections of roof panels 102 by means of producing double lock seams 115.
The length of the male lock panel 104 and female lock panel 105 is indeterminate, and can be of any reasonable length along the ridge of the building. The present invention method includes the step of manufacturing the roof ridge cap 103 on the building site to be as long as necessary to reach from one end of the building roof ridge to the other, comprised of two continuous pieces of metal, the male and female lock panels 104,105. The next step is to form a double lock seam 110 connecting the male and female lock panels 104,105 by double folding the mating edges 120,121 of the lock panels 104,105.
The width of the male and female lock panels 104,105, running from the mating edges 120,121 of the lock panels 104,105 to where they encounter the mating edges 130 of the roof panels 102, is set by design.
As shown in
In
As shown in FIGS. 4,5, and 7, where double lock seams are not possible, S-lock seams 150,151,152 are used to bind metal to metal. As with the double lock seams 110,115,143 shown above, the S-lock seams are made in single, continuous lengths where possible.
While the foregoing describes a preferred method, variation on this design and equivalent methods may be resorted to in the scope and spirit of the claimed invention.
