RoofingSouthwest OhioCincinnati

Finneytown School District Roofing Repairs

Gym roofs are large, flat and out of sight, which is why they are usually the last roof a district takes on. Finneytown Local School District took the lower gym at its Secondary Campus in Cincinnati down to the metal deck instead of covering it over, and the contract names the standard the new assembly answers to: current Ohio Building Code.

What goes back on is a fully tapered, glass-reinforced polyisocyanurate insulation package fastened to the deck at an average R-31, premanufactured drain sumps at every drain, and a Carlisle 90-mil EPDM membrane with six-inch factory-applied seam tape adhered over the top of it. The membrane is wrapped up and over the perimeter walls and locked down with new 24-gauge cleat and edge metal; wall details are finished with a sealed termination bar and metal counter flashing.

The electrical conduit that had been mounted to the lower roof's edge metal was removed and reset on rubber supports a few feet back from the edge. That is a small line in a large contract and it is the kind that decides whether a roofer working up there years from now has to dismantle the conduit to reach the perimeter.

The district's return on a tear-off is not only a dry gym. Tapered insulation means the roof drains rather than holds water, and the higher compressive strength of the board means traffic across the field of the roof does not slowly work the membrane loose from what is under it. The system carries a 40-year Carlisle warranty, and the job was bought through a pre-bid unit-price contract held with The Ohio Purchasing Council.

Rooftop equipment on rails beside the metal wall on the Finneytown school roof

Dome vents and ductwork across the new Finneytown roof surface

Brick parapet corner of the Finneytown roof during replacement

Technical Discussion

Bringing an old gym roof up to current code

A recover — new membrane laid over the assembly already there — is the cheaper transaction, and it leaves the building exactly as compliant as it was the year it was built. Nothing underneath changes. The insulation stays whatever it was, at whatever R-value was normal then. The slope stays whatever the deck gives it. The drains sit where they sat. A full replacement is the one moment a district gets to reopen all three questions, and the lower gym contract is written to use it: full replacement of the roofing system to meet current Ohio Building Code.

Insulation is the visible half of that. The new package is fully tapered, glass-reinforced felt-facer polyisocyanurate, fastened to the metal deck, averaging R-31 across the roof. On a gym — one large volume with a lot of ceiling and a lot of air to condition — that number keeps working every day the roof is up there, which is not something a watertight recover does for you.

Drainage is the half that sets the lifespan. Tapered insulation builds slope into an assembly the deck never had, so water leaves instead of standing. Premanufactured drain sumps set the low point around each drain in a factory rather than being cut in the field, which is where sump geometry goes wrong. Drain baskets are inspected and replaced where broken — cheap to do, easy to skip.

The board specification is the quiet one. UL- and FM-approved insulation at 25 psi compressive strength resists the crushing that lets a membrane pull away from the board beneath it after years of foot traffic to rooftop equipment. None of these three decisions is available under a recover, and Carlisle's warranty team inspects the finished roof before the 40-year warranty issues.

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