Custom Ventilation Solutions from Metal-Era 

The company has developed many custom ventilation airflow solutions for many projects, no matter how unique.

Proper ventilation is important for every building. Ventilation can save on heating and cooling costs, and eliminate ice dams; yet every project has unique needs and one solution does not fit all buildings. Metal-Era has provided custom solutions for thousands of projects across the country, many of which can be seen in the project gallery. One particular project that stood out to them is Maywood Elementary School.

Maywood Elementary School decided to reroof four of their five buildings. In the process of reroofing, they found that the buildings had no ventilation under the shingles which can easily lead to major problems like ice damming, increased cooling costs, moisture buildup and early shingle failure. The architect on the project recognized the need to create a cool roof system and recommended installing a vented nailbase.>

However, the eave is only half of the problem. For a balanced roof system, air needs to come in at the eave and exhaust at the ridge. Maywood Elementary had a very complex design that made it near impossible to install a ridge vent. To help with the complexity of the airflow for these particular buildings, Metal-Era was contacted. Using Metal-Era’s free Net Free Area calculator, Metal-Era’s technical department calculated that 24 in²/lf of Net Free Area (NFA) was needed. After this was calculated, an order was placed for 1,848 lineal feet of Hi-Perf Vented Fascia in the specified NFA.

The next step was determining what to do about the hipped roofs on the buildings which prevented traditional ridge vents from being installed. The eave to rake ratio on hipped roofs is almost nonexistent so Metal-Era explored other options. The solutions that Metal-Era created for this particular project were very custom and normally there are many challenges with hipped roof ventilation. However, in this case, Metal-Era designed custom Peak Vents specifically for this project. For other parts of the roof system, including gables, 96 lineal feet of Metal-Era’s Hi-Perf Ridge Vent Slope to Slope, Shingled Version was ordered. After a short learning curve, the contractors were able to successfully install both the eave vent and the ridge vents. The roof ventilation system started working immediately after installation and in the hot summer sun, a heat shimmer could be seen all around the ridge vent as hot air exited the roof system. View the video of the Maywood Elementary Airflow Installation or download the project profile for more information on this project and the products involved.

Metal-Era’s Airflow Solutions were introduced in 2006 and since then, the company has developed numerous products to help with any project, no matter how unique. Learn more at www.metalera.com.