Brian Pallasch - IIBEC’s Leadership in Understanding Roofing Drainage

By Colin Sheehan, RCS Reporter. 

After a startling discovery of a longstanding roof drain design misconception, IIBEC is sharing the knowledge engineers, architects and contractors need to know. 

In Season 3, Episode 50 of Roofing Road Trips, Heidi J. Ellsworth meets with Brian T. Pallasch, CAE, CEO/EVP of IIBEC. This episode is a follow-up to a previous podcast: Stephen Patterson and Madan Mehta - Unprecedented Change in Roof Drainage Design, which you can listen to here. In this episode, Brian and Heidi will continue the discussion on the shift from an incorrect roof drainage design that has been the industry standard for 70 years. 

Brian has been with International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants (IIBEC) since 1983, when the company was still Roof Consultants Inc (RCI). Since Brian’s start in the building industry nearly 40 years ago, he’s witnessed some major changes in the industry and IIBEC as a company, mainly their shift of focus to building enclosures. 

“Hence the reason why we decided to make that [name] change a couple of years ago,” said Brian. “Our folks were working on what we like to say, all six sides of the building. Whether it's waterproofing [or] exterior walls, [we make sure] that water and air doesn't get in or out." 

The RCI IIBEC Foundation funded the prior edition of the book, Roof Drainage, written by Dr. Madan Mehta and Stephen Patterson, as well as the second edition, which was supported by industry members and many people at IIBEC 

“They came to us and said, look, this book was published some number of years ago and things have changed,” said Brian.  

Besides the shift in roof drainage design, the rate of precipitation has also changed, with some areas receiving more rain than usual, or more intense and frequent rains. This affects how roof drains are designed and for certain buildings, depending on their surrounding climate conditions.  

"We saw some instances in the last couple of weeks where people are getting nine inches of rain in a couple of hours,” said Brian. “As a result, we do need to make sure that the roofs are able to withstand that and can get the water off as quickly as possible and in a safe fashion.” 

The reviews for the updated edition of Roof Drainage have been very positive and architects, engineers and contractors alike are appreciating the extra knowledge that allows them to continue performing at the highest standards.  

“One of the things that we should all focus on is having our local chapters work with local roofing contractor groups to do seminars on roof drainage and how we do that,” said Brian. “They put this book together in such a manner that it's trying to bring everybody together to have a discussion about how we do proper roof drainage on structures.” 

Listen to the entire podcast to learn more about the second edition of Roof Drainage and for information on a few seminars Dr. Madan Mehta and Stephen Patterson did on the topic.