b'In Search of Benchmark Temperatures Iby the EF5 tornado thatiped out 95% of Greensburg, KS, in May nspiredw2007, and another tornado alaterdamaged their own office yearthat building in Manhattan, KS,Roofing began aring Roofs Diamond"CoveGreen"to support the continual development of sustainability. campaign The campaign goes well beyond "storm chasing" tactics; its missionisto mitigate climate change by expanding the role of the sustainable roof. To do this, the contractor first set out to define the phrase covering roofs green."Iteasy for us to overreact to Secretary would have been of Energy Steven Chu\'s call for all roofs to be white or to the federal government\'s lead in going solar-inwords, be \'greenwashed,"\' other said Diamond Roofing V President Rick Gwaltney. "But we decided, ice strategically as athat it was more important to figure out wcompany,hich evolving green-roofing practices are truly sustainable."Kansas roofing contractors tour the Diamond Solar installationt las spring. In 2008, the company collaborated with MRCA\'s Technicaland Research (T&R) Committee and Structural Research, Inc. (SRI) ofspecify single-ply membranes with higher commodity-grade levelsstabilizers, including UV stabilizers,ded by Middleton, WI, to study and monitor the operating temperature v bilityofrecommen the ariaof various roof m ranes with integrated thin-film photovoltaicmanufacturer for PV applications embspecify thermallyistant insulation cover board installed directly (PV) panels laminated to their surfThe 3-year "Roof Membraneresaces. underroof membrane Temperature Monitoring of ThinFilmPV Arrays" project entailsthe designing,and installing instruments to monitor and recordinsulation. use high temperature-resistant(High-temperaturefurnishing, operating temperature fluctuations under various roof membranes.sensitive thermoplastic insulation, such as expanded polystyrene Benchmark Temperaturesboard and extruded polystyrene board, is not appropriate for adhered PV applications.) The goal of the project is to establish benchmark temperatures,are whichPreliminary Results presently unknown in the roofing industry. The benchmarks will go a long Preliminaryts of the project were recently presented at M 61st way in providing useful information to MRCA contractors on operatingresul RCA\'s Annual National Conference. They suggest evidence thatNRCA\'s temperature extremes that mayharmful to some roof membranes.supports be initial reco ns in specifying single-plysy of 72 mils "Establishing benchmark temperatures will help the roofing industrymmendatio roofstems determine whether aPVis sustainable andor greater and higher commodity-grade levels of stabilizers. roof-integratedsystem emphasize the importance of designing buildings for durability," says"It has been an interesting year for the MRCA PV testbed project," SRI\'s Matt Dupuis toldMidwes-t Roofer. "Now in its second y of Kevin Gwaltney, vice president of Diamond Roofing and chairman of theear recording data,system has seen all four seasons of exposure. Each day T&R Committee\'s PV Task Force. "In my opinion, Energy Secretary Chuthe the system records more than 1points of data. Now begins the and even the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)million rating system have missed the opportunity to expand the role of rooftops bytime-intensive process of sifting and farming the data." "Based on observations to date, it isthat apicture focusing more on energy consumption than on the overall operational lifeevidentcomplete cycle of the roof and its impact on the environment and economic vitality."of both incoming and outgoing radiation is needed to best characterize and identify the phenomena being recorded," Dupuis said. Aspart of the action plan commissioned by the T&R Committee and PVIncoming solar radiation, or short-wave infrared, is collected using a Task Force, Kurt Baumgartner,technical roof consultant, will sharepyranometer, MRCA\'s this sentiment on the part of contractorstothe CenterEnvironmentalwhereas outgoing radiation, or long-wave infrared, is calculated using a for Innovation in Roofing\'s (CEIR) technical committee. According topyrgeometer. Gwaltney, this view is gaining meritthe industry, as seen by CEIR\'sJul HuksefluxpIny, two research-grade instruments, aSRllyranomwithin recent intentions to draft aroof rating system, Roofpoint,eter and IR02 pyrgeometer, were installed to analyze the energy exchange landmark whichprm1de the first comprehensive roadmap for achievingtaking place on the roof. Output from both instruments is available for will v on adata stream at www.sri-engineering.com/mrca (see the sustainable low-slope roofing systems.iewinglive lower right comer ofscreen). The pyranometer monitors incoming After MRCA started the project, the National Roofing Contractorsyour Aswciation (NRCA) released design recommendations for low-slope roof/mAsolar radiation in W2and the pyrgeometer reads the apparent sky systems interfacing with adhered PV modules. Its 2009 publication, Guidelinestemperature in degrees Kelvin. for Roof mountedSystem Installations, suggests that designersGwaltney added that as the T&R Committee learns more about the Photovoltaic temperature dynamics andthe completion of the contact the roof system manufacturer for product-specific recommendationswhenproject\'s estimated for use in rooftop PV applications.Itsuggests thattimeframe approaches, more formalized guidelines will be released to alsocontractors use only adhered roof membranesprovide MRCA\'s contractors with best practice guidelines for installing roof-integrated PV specify amembrane thickness of 72 mils for single-ply roofsystems. minimum systems 10Midwest ValuesBusinessResourcesNetworking'