Soprema builds on success New roof doubles as research site by Paddy Tennant
Soprema has increased its western Canadian presence with a new cover board manufacturing facility, built adjacent to its original plant in Chilliwack, BC. The project took a year and a half to complete, from pre-loading beginning in September 2011 to its opening in February 2013. “It was a $7.5M investment in total, including the building and machinery,” says plant director Paul Boileau, “with 27,000 square feet inside for indoor warehousing and the new production line, plus 90,000 square feet for the paved outside storage area.” The architects were CHP Architects of Chilliwack; the general contractor was Teck Construction of Langley, and the roofing contractor was Homan Roofing, also of Langley. The roof, inspected by Wells Klein, now carries a 5-year RoofStar guarantee. Blair Bennett, Soprema’s BC Regional Manager, describes the assembly as a “conventional roof” consisting of steel deck, Sopravap’r vapour barrier, insulation assemblies adhered with Duotack in two layers, Sopraboard, Sopraply 520 base and three separate cap sheets in different areas: Soprastar HD GR; Sopraply Traffic Cap 560 Grey; and Sopraply Traffic Cap 560 Black. Researching roof materials The new roof is actually serving another purpose – that of test site for Soprema’s own materials. “We took this opportunity to use the roof on the new plant as a research platform to answer some questions that the roofing industry has been asking for years,” said Bennett. “We partnered with Roxul and RDH Building Engineering to conduct a study looking into the performance of different roof assemblies. “We constructed three separate roof areas, 4,800 square feet each: • Roof type 1 – one layer of 2.0" polyisocyanurate insulation and a top layer of 1.5" polyisocyanurate with a Sopraboard; • Roof type 2 – a base layer of 2.0" polyisocyanurate insulation with a top layer of 2.5" Soprarock DD Plus; and • Roof type 3 – a base layer of 2.5" and a top layer of 3.25" Soprarock DD Plus. “All roof areas were adhered with Duotack, and all of the roof assemblies have an average R-value of 21”, he notes. Bennett says SMT Research fully instrumented the assemblies with sensors that will collect data on temperature, heat flux, relative humidity, performance of reflective cap sheets in comparison to 10
Above: Homan Roofing crew adhering the first layer of Roxul DD Plus to Sopravap’r with Duotack using a multi-bead applicator cart. Below: adhering the second layer of Roxul DD plus to the first layer. Each zone has sensors built in at every different layer, from the underside of the deck to the underside of the membrane. The sensors are all linked to a central computer for monitoring. Photos: Soprema
standard cap sheets in a semi-rigid protection temperate climate zone board composed of a and movement within the mineral fortified asphaltic assemblies from nine core formed between two separate data points. saturated fiberglass “We will have our first sheets. full year of data in Boileau says September 2013,” he Sopraboard is designed says, “and we anticipate to be used as a substrate a published paper for the material in flat or lowfirst quarter of 2014. slope roofing. “It can be “We look forward to installed over wood, rigid research papers on our insulation or as a recover findings being presented sheet over an existing at major industry events roof surface, which is to throughout North be re-roofed.” America,” he added. “Sopraboard is Soprema and SMT compatible with modified Grand Opening: Charles Bindschedler (son of owner Pierre-Etienne Bindschedler), Joelle Bindschedler (Charles’ mother in from have an agreement for a bitumen and B.U.R. Strasbourg, France) and Paul Boileau (Director of Operations, Soprema Chilliwack) stand before plaque dedicating “Charlie’s Line”. two year study, says roofing systems. Modified Charles completed three months of training at the Chilliwack facility and had the new production line named in his honour. Bennett. “We have an bitumen roofing systems option to continue with can be torched, for Soprema’s customers? Bennett lead times and to reduce shipping the study longer since the sensors mechanically fastened or adhered points to “a BC made product with costs by replacing Quebec-made can have a service life of five years with hot asphalt or cold adhesive better inventory response times and product with cover boards made in or more.” directly to the board surface. It may no delay in shipments to our western Canada.” Serving customers closer to home Western Canadian customers.” also be used with self-adhesive The new facility is dedicated to What does the new plant mean membranes,” he adds. Boileau concurs, citing “improved the production of Sopraboard, a SPRING 2013
ROOFING BC