The next big opportunity in wind uplift protection

By Jesse Sanchez. 

The growing case for stronger rooftop equipment attachment in today’s wind conditions. 

As wind events intensify across the country, Anchor Products is urging the roofing community to look beyond the membrane and focus on the equipment that often drives loss. On this episode of the Roofing Road Trips® podcast, Anchor Products’ Southeast regional manager, Harley Coleman, told host Karen Edwards that vulnerability to wind uplift is not confined to hurricane-prone coasts. While he lives and works in Florida, he stressed that every region has its own baseline risk. He stated, “I would say that it is applicable to every region and in the last couple of years at Anchor, I've certainly come to appreciate the impact of wind on regions outside of just the Southeast.” 

Harley pointed to the shifting footprint of severe weather. “If you look at a map of Tornado Alley, it is fascinating to me,” he said. “Back in the early 1900s, it's literally two or three states. And if you look at it now, it's almost encompassing 50% of the United States.” 

At the same time, rooftop equipment itself has evolved. Taller, lighter HVAC designs behave differently in high winds than the squat units many buildings were originally designed around. Harley said that in many markets he visits, “those units aren't attached, they're just floating.” 

A recent incident in Texas represented that risk. “April of this year, Dallas, Texas had just an afternoon thunderstorm,” he said. It was not a tornado, just a severe storm with 65 mile per hour winds. On one large facility, “we had a facility there that had a 15,000-pound unit that toppled off its curb and rolled across the roof,” Harley said. “This unit is 80 feet long, 10 feet wide.” 

The unit happened to roll in the same direction as the bar joists, which helped prevent a structural collapse, but the outcome could have been far worse. In response, the owner engaged Anchor Products to help redesign the attachment approach. “We went out and did a forensic walk on the roof, took some notes on the field conditions that were present and we put together a package using our U2400 anchors with our cable tie-down kits,” Harley said. An engineering partner validated the design against local codes and the damaged unit was replaced with a properly secured system. 

That one event is now driving broader change across the site. Harley shared that the owner is “putting together a proactive plan to remedy the rest of the units that weren't impacted by that directly but are sitting on the roof in the same manner as the one that blew off.” 

Harley expressed that real progress will require collaboration among roofing, mechanical and other rooftop trades, along with better specification language that calls out positive attachment from the start. 

Listen to the podcast to learn more about how smarter rooftop attachment can boost safety, meet today’s wind demands and open new opportunities for contractors!