Quality matters: Reducing risk while improving performance

By Jenny Yu.  

Learn how new approaches to tapered insulation and membrane technology are helping contractors work more efficiently. 

Building owners and roofing contractors face a variety of challenges when it comes to long-term roof performance and effective water management. During a recent conversation with The Coffee Shops™, Austin Kulp, senior product manager of membranes, and Tim Rood, tapered department manager for Versico Roofing Systems discussed how product innovation, education and labor-saving technologies are helping address some of the industry's biggest challenges. 

According to Austin, building owners are placing greater emphasis on roofing system quality and long-term asset protection. "One of the things we hear the most is: quality matters,” Austin said. “They want to ensure that the roofing system that they're putting down is going to perform to the expectations and protect their assets at the end of the day.” 

To meet these performance expectations, Versico developed tapered polyiso extended panels, an innovation designed to reduce the number of insulation layers required in traditional tapered systems. In a conventional 1/4-inch-per-foot tapered layout, contractors often install multiple layers of fill insulation beneath tapered panels as roof elevations increase. Extended panels increase the amount of taper built directly into the panel, allowing installers to use fewer fill layers while maintaining proper drainage design. 

"We created what's called an extended panel system, which offers more tapered and less fill," Tim explained. "If it's going down in adhesive, that's huge. Adhesive can be expensive, so if we can reduce the number of layers of glue, the amount of squares applied, you're going to win bids, and it's going to be a lot quicker to put down as well." 

Beyond insulation design, Versico is also focused on reducing risk and improving installation quality through membrane innovations, including 16-foot TPO with SeamShield, a factory-laminated protective film designed to keep TPO seam areas clean until contractors are ready to weld them. By combining wider 16-foot TPO sheets with SeamShield’s seam protection, the system helps reduce the number of seams while protecting them from jobsite contaminants such as dirt, oil transfer and adhesive overspray, improving weld consistency and reducing the potential for installation errors.  

"By going to a 16-foot-wide sheet, you can reduce your seams by up to 60% versus a 10-foot sheet. Less seams and less risk from water penetration,” Austin stated. “SeamShield gives peace of mind that that seam is properly addressed, because it's factory-cleaned prior to welding.” 

Both experts believe the future of roofing system design will continue to focus on labor savings, risk reduction and installation efficiency. "A lot of our innovations are aimed at minimizing the time it takes to install the entire roofing system," Austin said. "It's also directly tied into risk mitigation." 

For Tim, education is central to achieving those goals: "The more the contractor, the more the rep, the more the architect knows, the easier everyone's job is.” 

Learn more about the latest roofing innovations from Verisco Roofing Products!