At the corner of Woodward and Jefferson in downtown Detroit, the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center houses courtrooms, city offices and the mayor’s office. It’s also famous for the statue that abuts it-Marshall Fredericks’ bronze statue “the Spirit of Detroit”-or, as it’s also known, the Jolly Green Giant. Recently, at the same time the statue was being refurbished, a splash of green was added to the building’s rooftop in the form of a garden roof.
The late fall and winter mark the season when the roofing and construction worlds are introduced to all manners of new materials, systems, accessories and equipment. The editors of Roofing Contractor like to follow up by sharing some of the items with which we have been most impressed.
Roof hatches are frequently used to provide safe and convenient access to and from rooftop areas in commercial buildings. These products allow service personnel to gain access to the roof for maintenance and facilitate the installation or removal of large pieces of equipment into or out of a building.
Roof replacement is an expensive proposition for building owners and facility professionals. Material costs have escalated for material manufacturers, making replacement costs as expensive as ever. The result is professionals in charge of roofing are more proactive in seeking the most cost-effective means of meeting their roofing needs.
Bill Buehl has come a long way since he started in the roofing industry with a used truck and a gutter machine while he was a student in college. At the time, he had an eye on a career as a fireman.
Designing and choosing a sustainable roofing system is not a new idea to architects. Garden roofing systems give architects another avenue of design while providing building owners the best of all worlds - beauty, innovation and energy efficiency.
In early October of last year, Congress/former President Bush signed the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, virtually ensuring the continued health of the solar roofing industry through 2016. Solar-powered roofs qualify for a 30-percent federal tax credit (directly reducing the property owner’s federal tax bill) as well as a five-year accelerated depreciation.
Roofing isn’t the easiest of trades, and each roofing project presents its own challenges. The installation of a traditional roofing system can be summarized, albeit simplistically, as the installation of the insulation, membrane and, possibly, surfacing, followed by the installation of all of the flashing work necessary to complete the roofing installation.
Increasing raw material costs, higher landfill tipping fees, legislation to restrict disposal of construction materials - and an architectural community that demands the lightest environmental footprint achievable - all are leading toward the mainstreaming of post-consumer recycling and the day when specifiers routinely call for recycling of roofs at the end of their service life.
Since 1913, Rice Fruit Company in Gardners, Pa., has distributed fresh fruit throughout the United States. As the largest apple-packing facility in the eastern half of the United States, Rice has developed a reputation based on quality and high standards.
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