Allen Coldrake, director of marketing and technical services at Carlisle Construction Materials, discusses the advantages of an induction installation method for EPDM roofs
One of the many advantages of specifying an EPDM roofing system – for the roofing contractor, the main contractor and the client – is the speed with which it can make the structure watertight. At Carlisle, thanks to our vulcanisation factory in Mansfield, we can produce Hertalan EPDM membranes up to 30m in length and in various widths up to 20m, which often means that the roof can be covered with a single sheet. This enables the roof to be fully covered by the membrane within a matter of hours, protecting the roof build up from water ingress while the project is completed.
Finding ways to reduce the length of the programme and keep labour costs down can provide roofing contractors with a significant advantage when bidding for work. And if those solutions can be combined with improved consistency, installation integrity, safety and sustainability, the roofing contractor can join the dots between quality assurance and speed of installation, building on the service life and performance benefits that EPDM roofing membranes are well known to offer.
The innovative solution to achieve these advantages during the construction phase and throughout the service life of the installation is induction technology. Deploying equipment that heats a specially designed steel fixing using magnetic radiation, the Hertalan Induction System enables rapid and consistent installation, using a fixing layout devised to meet the specific roof design and wind calculations.
Fast and simple installation
Suitable for use on new build or refurbishment projects, heat induction can only be used with ‘clean’ EPDM systems such as Carlisle’s Hertalan, as the chalk used to separate the material in rolls of other EPDM products prevents the technology from sealing the membrane to the metal fixing.
Our technical team uses wind load calculations to determine the number and location of plates required and these are laid out as a grid on a technical drawing as part of the technical specification. A single pressure plate can be used in each fixing location for both the insulation and the EPDM membrane or, if the layout for fixing the membrane requires fewer plates than the insulation, standard fixing plates can be used for the insulation-only locations.
The plates used to install the EPDM roofing membrane using the Hertalan Induction system have a special coating, which becomes tacky when the plate is heated by magnetic radiation and solidifies again when it cools, achieving a secure bond.
All the metal plate fasteners are installed prior to the EPDM membrane being laid onto the roof, and the roofing team then simply utilises the lightweight induction device at each location to create the firm bond. As the induction equipment heats the plate using magnetic radiation, it is not …….