RoofingSouthwest OhioCincinnati

Felicity‑Franklin EPDM Roofing System

Felicity-Franklin Local School District is replacing the roof over eight connected sections of its campus in Felicity, Ohio — Sections D1, D, E, H, H1, H2, H3 and I — under one contract rather than section by section. The scope reads like a roof that has been managed rather than replaced: wet insulation to be located, removed and replaced with like material; saddles built where water is not reaching the drains; drain sumps enlarged where roof penetrations crowd them; expansion joints repaired.

What goes over the top is a 75-mil reinforced EPDM membrane from Carlisle, laid on a half-inch SecureShield HD cover board over the existing insulation, with new cleated edge metal at the perimeter and the membrane carried up and over the walls where the sections allow. The wood supports carrying electrical conduit across Section H come out, and new rubber roof supports go in behind them.

The district ends up with one membrane, one manufacturer and one warranty across all eight sections instead of a patchwork of assemblies at different ages with different people to call. The system carries a 30-year Carlisle watertight warranty and is installed to Carlisle's own detail requirements — which is the part of a roofing contract that decides whether that number means anything. The work was bought through a pre-bid unit-price contract held with The Ohio Purchasing Council.

EPDM membrane field with taped seams across the Felicity-Franklin school roof

Seam strips and curbed vents on the new Felicity-Franklin EPDM roof

Insulated condensate line running across the Felicity-Franklin roof membrane

New EPDM membrane terminating at the block parapet and coping

Felicity-Franklin roof edge overlooking the street during the membrane replacement

Roof drains and vent curbs set into the Felicity-Franklin EPDM system

Skylight curb and metal flashing where the roof meets the tall block wall

Technical Discussion

What a 30-year roof warranty actually asks for

Districts compare membrane thickness because it is the one number on a roofing proposal that lines up cleanly. Seventy-five mil reads better than sixty, and the assumption follows that the thicker sheet is what buys the longer warranty. It is not. Carlisle writes a 30-year warranty against its own detail requirements, and the field of the roof — the wide, flat, uninterrupted part where the membrane thickness lives — is the part least likely to fail. Water gets in at the edges, the penetrations, the walls and the joints.

So the 30-year details are mostly about those places. Reinforced securement strips hold the membrane where the plane turns and where a sheet would otherwise work its way off the wall over time. New cleated edge metal secures the perimeter mechanically rather than relying on adhesion. The membrane is carried up and over the walls where the section allows instead of being terminated partway up with a sealant joint. Expansion joints are repaired rather than covered. Every one of those is a place an hour can be saved by a bid that intends to.

The substrate has to qualify too. A half-inch SecureShield HD cover board goes over the existing insulation to give the membrane a hard, uniform surface to bond to, and wet insulation is found, removed and replaced with like material first — insulation left wet under a new roof keeps working on the deck no matter how good the sheet above it is. Drainage is corrected in the same pass: saddles where water is not reaching a drain, and enlarged drain sumps where penetrations crowd the low point.

The practical version for a treasurer is that the thirty-year figure describes how the roof was detailed, not a property of the rubber.

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