On-site roll forming: Enhancing efficiency and quality

By Anna Lockhart.  

The metal roofing experts from AEP Span discuss the benefits of on-site roll forming on commercial roofing jobsites.  

In a recent episode of Roofing Road Trips®, host Heidi J. Ellsworth met with Jeff Haddock and Jeffrey Medeiros of AEP Span to discuss the benefits of investing in renting quality on-site commercial roll forming equipment and how to best prepare a job site for the inclusion of on-site fabrication.  

A manufacturer of metal roofing and wall systems, AEP Span is a company dedicated to serving their commercial customers with quality materials and panel profiles for over 50 years. Jeffrey shared that when it comes to metal profile creation using roll forming machinery, AEP Span not only can create panels for customers within their warehouse, but they also offer on-site creation with their portable machine, which is mounted to a truck they can park on-site.  

For projects needing metal panels larger than 45’, this is a great option. “We have a roll former in our manufacturing facility, but we also have the exact same version mounted to a truck so we can go out onto a site, and we can manufacture and roll form factory panels on site to a specific length,” he explained. “So, we offer our customers factory quality, our factory type roll former, the big boy that everyone wants to use that can roll continuously and we take it out to site and we can manufacture those panels for you directly on the construction site. It comes with all of our testing and our certifications as well.” 

Their on-site roll forming can be a great asset for contractors looking to use larger, customized panels for a roofing project in an area where high wind uplift is a concern, as their on-site roller is often used for their special pane, the SpanLock HP. “This particular panel that we can install or that we do on-site roll form, our SpanLock HP, is rated for hurricane zones, very high wind load. It's a very low slope because it's a two-inch-tall seam, allows us to get the quarter and 12 roof pitches out of that. It's invisible.”  

He continued, “We've run the panel through a multitude of tests. One of the big ones is the ASTM E1592, which is a structural wind uplift test where we've tested this panel at upwards basically five-foot open span to mode of failure. I can tell you in some variants we have reached upwards of 220 pounds per square foot of wind uplift resistance, which is quite high.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the podcast to learn more about the benefits of on-site roll forming.