PHP Roofing Blog

Every facility manager has budget constraints, and that means you have to make some choices about priorities. Decisions often lean toward “tyranny of the urgent” – you need a new roof, you need to repave the parking lot, etc. Things like launching sustainability initiatives and becoming LEED certified can seem like a luxury…but they aren’t.

Your building’s low-slope roofing can’t be all that complicated. After all, just about everybody has one…right?

Not exactly. Even low-slope roofs come in an astounding array of options. And, if you weren’t directly involved in the design and planning process, you might not know much more about your roof than what’s visually obvious. But you really should get to know your roof better, so let’s make some introductions.

We tend to take the sun for granted. We don’t really think about how powerful it is until we feel the painful effects of a day at the lake. But the sun actually produces far more energy than we give it credit for—or take advantage of. It’s been said that enough energy pummels the earth every day to power the planet for an entire year.

Sticking a few pipes on a rooftop sounds pretty simple. But, as any good architect or building engineer can tell you, there’s a lot more to it than that. Inadequate supports can result in sagging, vibration, excess movement, and even pipe collapse. That, in turn, can cause extensive damage, incurring both repair costs and, depending on the severity of the damage, work stoppage. That’s why the design of rooftop supports is such an important part of any commercial building plan. There are a number of things to consider, each of which could change your final specifications. These are a few of the most important factors:

It’s the bane of construction experts and architects alike: fitting as much as you can into a space that’s much smaller than what you really need. When your available space is non-negotiable, your only option is triage. In other words, you have to make decisions between the “nice” and the “necessary,” which means prioritizing things like roof supports, roof walkways, and other types of equipment and piping. 

Everybody knows TED. Just like Facebook, Adele, and Star Wars, TED is everywhere. The challenge is finding the good stuff, the diamonds that are buried among thousands of uploaded videos. We’re going to help you out with that. If you’re an architect, you absolutely have to watch these three TED Talks. They’re guaranteed to inspire you to see your work – and possibly your whole career – in a different way.

Climate change has become a hot topic over the last few years – it seems to always be in the news – and we’ve heard a lot about how rising temperatures will affect our world. But we’re just now beginning to understand the specific implications for different industries. The roof construction industry, in particular, has some work to do to accommodate a warming planet. That work falls into two categories: risk mitigation and environmental impact.

Most professions involve some sort of lifelong learning, but for many fields, continued education can be mandatory. Architecture is one such profession. Architects have to periodically renew their licenses – typically every one to two years – and most states have established Continuing Education requirements as a condition of renewal. In addition, the AIA requires Continuing Education for its members regardless of state requirements.