Metal roofing manufacturer puts metal, solar on plant’s rooftop

Officials with McElroy Metal like to point out that if you want to see the metal roofing manufacturer’s products in use, just look at its Georgia plant.

The company recently installed new standing-seam metal roofing panels and photovoltaic solar panels on top of its Peachtree City, Ga., facility.

McElroy says the 500-kilowatt solar installation is the largest project of its kind undertaken by a metal roofing manufacturer. It was part of the state’s solar power initiative, where the energy created is not used to power McElroy’s plant but is sold back to a state utility provider. Inovateus Solar LLC put 1,960 solar panels on the roof and a parking lot canopy.

“We are very excited to have installed a half megawatt photovoltaic system on our Peachtree City facility,” said McElroy President Ian McElroy. “The existing metal roof, a galvanized R-panel, was more than 34 years old. We retrofitted with our 238T symmetrical standing-seam system which provides an excellent metal over metal re-roof solution. And since we were installing a new roof, we decided to explore adding solar to the plans. Fortunately, we were able to put together a plan that made financial sense.”

The 238T does not have traditional “male” and “female” seams but have matched right and left seams with a mechanically seamed cap. The nondirectional panels can be installed several ways, including from the center.

They were put over the existing metal roof using McElroy’s patent-pending 238T Retrofit Clip, a 3¹/₂-inch standoff clip that raises the new roofing system to the top of the existing panels.

Paramount Metal Systems in Little Rock, Ark., was hired to install the roof.

“We found the 238T to be an amicable panel to work with for this type of system,” says David Dodge, president of Paramount Metal Systems in Little Rock, Ark. “It’s a 2-foot panel so the erection was faster because we were covering more square foot per panel. Everybody in the field was pleased with the installation.”

It took Paramount crews about a week to install the 30,000 square feet of retrofit metal roofing panels. Three different clamps from S-5 were used to attach the solar panels.

“Once we got the roofing panels installed, we were able to lay out the S-5 clamps,” Dodge said. “Honestly, I don’t think it could have gone any better and I would have to attribute that to the efforts of the whole team. The entire project took four to five weeks.”

Clamps from S-5 were used to attach a new standing-seam metal roof at the McElroy Metal plant in Peachtree City, Ga. The company also installed 1,960 solar panels on the roof (inset).