Not applicable.
Not applicable.
Various roofing products have been designed for use as an environmental barrier layer on the roof deck of buildings. Some examples include asphalt sheets and shingles, wood and stone shingles, composite shingles, and metal panels and shingles. Most of these products are used on sloped or pitched roofs, although asphalt sheeting is commonly used on horizontal or low-pitched roofs as well. Metal paneling can be advantageous because of its relatively low cost of manufacture and speed of installation on a roof deck as compared to other roofing products that require a large number of individual shingles to be installed to cover a roof. For instance, a single metal panel may form a portion of a roofing course or row and may have a footprint as large as two, three, ten, or any number of conventionally sized individual shingles. Various textures and embossed profiles can be stamped into metal panels to give metal paneling a more natural look. Also, metal panels can be painted any desired color and coated with certain substances so that the panels maintain their appearance over a long period of time and avoid the degradation of natural materials, such as wood.
One drawback of traditional metal paneling, however, is that such paneling does not achieve the look of more narrow individual shingles. While relatively large sections of metal paneling leave fewer gaps for air and water to penetrate the underlying layers of the roof deck, as compared to individual shingles, metal paneling is often criticized for presenting a “tin roof” look that is not aesthetically pleasing. It would be desirable to provide the stability, low maintenance characteristics, and ease of installation of metal paneling in a product that replicates the look of individual shingles.
A panel-type roofing member is provided with a main body region bounded by a periphery. The roofing member may be fabricated from sheet metal or other materials. The main body has a top surface and a bottom surface, and the periphery provides a butt portion, a upslope portion, and opposed first and second side portions. Extending from the first side portion to the second side portion are a number of raised profile sections generally separated from one another by elongated shadow channels. The raised profile sections may be formed into an irregular pattern where some areas are raised more than others to give visual depth and a natural material look (e.g., stone, wood shake, slate) to the roofing member. In one aspect, a stamping process may be used to form the raised profiles. The elongated shadow channels form valleys between laterally adjacent raised profile sections and generally have a darker coloration than the such raised profile sections to delineate visual breaks in the continuous panel that resemble gaps between adjacent individual shingles. A transverse shadow line may intersect the elongated shadow channels near the upslope portion of the periphery to combine with such shadow channels to surround individual raised profile sections and give the appearance of individual shingles. Fold over cantilevered legs may be formed at the butt portion and the upslope portion of the periphery to attach with additional courses of panel-type roofing members moving vertically up a pitched roof. In a similar fashion, additional fold over cantilevered legs may be formed at the first and second side portions of the periphery to attach with additional panels in the same row moving laterally across the rook to complete a given roofing course.
In the accompanying drawings, which form a part of the specification and are to be read in conjunction therewith and in which like reference numerals are employed to indicate like parts in the various views:
A panel-like roofing member 10 of the present invention is shown generally in
When laid upon a generally planar section of a roof deck, the top surface 14 of the roofing member 10 is exposed for viewing. Formed into the top surface 14 are a series of raised profile sections 26 that visually represent individual shingles. The raised profile sections 26 extend front to back on the top surface 14 generally from the butt portion 20 to the upslope portion 22 of the periphery 18, and may be arranged with respect to one another according to any desired pattern. For instance, the raised profile sections 26 may be in direct lateral alignment between the side portions 24 as shown for the embodiment depicted in
A series of elongated valley-like channels 30 are formed between the raised profile sections 26 on the roofing member top surface 14 to achieve separation between the sections 26, as can be seen in
The roofing member 10, in one method of manufacture, may be stamped from a piece of sheet metal. For instance, the roofing member 10 may be impressed from the direction of the bottom surface 16 with a male die tool while the top surface 14 is in contact with a female die tool, to shape the raised profile sections 26. Each raised profile section 26 of a given roofing member 10 may have the same die pattern or different die patterns. In either case, the die may provide an irregular textured look to the raised profile sections 26 to produce a different surface shading effect in different regions of the sections 26 depending on the direction of light reflecting off of the roofing member 10. In one embodiment, the stamping creates the raised profile sections 26 as rectangular stone or slate-like “shingles”. The distinction in coloration between the raised profile sections 26 and the elongated channels 30, as well as the shadow line 36, may be accomplished by various methods. For instance, the elongated channels may be painted or otherwise coated with a pigment that is darker than pigments applied to certain regions of the raised profile sections 26. Preferably such coatings should be resistant to temperature extremes encountered by metal roofing products that are generally highly thermally conductive. Various UV coatings and rust inhibitors may also be applied to the roofing member top surface 14 to protect the pigments from environmental degradation.
The periphery 18 of the roofing member 10 includes fold over cantilevered legs 38 that are used to interconnect adjacent members 10 laterally across a course and to additional courses upward or downward from the current course to create a roof covering system 100 as illustrated in
The roofing member 10 may provide any number of raised profile sections 26, such as two, three, five, ten, or any other number. In one embodiment, the number of raised profile sections 26 and overall length and width of a given roofing member 10 is selected to provide a roof covering section that is easy to handle upon a roof deck but large enough to provide significant installation time savings over individual shingles having sizes that are the same as each individual raised profile section 26.
The roofing member 10 of the present invention provides a roof covering system that is less burdensome to install on a roof as compared to conventional individual shingles, but provides the appearance of an individual shingle roof covering. Since certain changes may be made in the above invention without departing from the scope hereof, it is intended that all matter contained in the above description or shown in the accompanying drawing be interpreted as illustrative and not in a limiting sense. It is also to be understood that the following claims are to cover certain generic and specific features described herein.