Roof Hugger Celebrates 30 Years of Business!

By Roof Hugger. 

The metal-over-metal retrofit company toasts to how far their business has come and the bright future ahead. 

Roof Hugger is proud to be celebrating thirty years of business unparalleled by their competitors. As the first Huggers were “fabbed” into shape and shipped out the door, who could have predicted the millions of square feet of Roof Huggers installed thirty years later? Dale Nelson and his business partner, Red McConnohie, started Roof Hugger with aim to invent something that would make it possible to install new metal roof atop an old one. They wanted to create a product  that would be easily installed, economical, structurally correct and would work for any new panel. 

They settled on a notched “Zee” as a prototype, a deceptively simple solution that would be the framework for Red’s innovative idea and its evolution into a real marketable product. 

 
There was no accepted test protocol when they started, so together with a local engineering firm and local test lab, they created one. A few years later the E-1592 test protocol for metal panels was adopted, setting a new level of sophistication for all the future tests. Actual in place performance tables were established. New corner and edge zone framing assemblies were created to comply with the updated building codes that divided roofs into several distinct zones not just one uniformly loaded roof area. 
 
Construction details had to be changed and standard sizes of the sub-purlins had to be modified. All this was a huge change at the time, affecting all manufacturers and contractors in the industry. 
 
By 2005, a new wrinkle had come into being: the “Green Movement.” Not only did they have to address structural attachment and panel performance, but now they had to design and incorporate energy-saving assemblies, as well as design for rigid or fiberglass insulated assemblies and above sheeting ventilation. They had to understand thermal conductivity, thermal breaks, thermal emissivity, thermal reflectivity, solar heat collection and solar power generation. 

The Roof Hugger Systems had to accommodate specific insulation and mechanical systems while meeting all the structural code requirements, which lead to long hours, lots of reading, brainstorming and naturally - more testing. 
 
Roof Huggers with ventilation holes were created, new thermal break assembles had to be mated to the retrofit framing system, access openings for solar collection coils were designed, drag loads, and additional dead loads for photovoltaic systems all had to be considered. All this with an eye toward the ultimate critic…the installer. The system had to be as intuitive as possible, use standard tools and fasteners and go down quickly. 
 
Innovative retrofit design work continues today with no end in sight. Roof Hugger’s latest task is to conduct testing that will evaluate how much strength our sub-purlin system adds to the capacity of the existing purlins. Although the codes allow 3 PSF for retrofits, some buildings need additional reinforcement and this testing will identify the extra contribution to purlin strength the Huggers provide. 
 
As we look at the road ahead of us, it is great to know our skilled and knowledgeable staff, headed by Red’s grandson, DJ Highnote, and our parent company, The LSI Group, will continue to work tirelessly to maintain Roof Huggers’ leadership in the metal-over-metal retrofit market. As always, we will keep our eyes on the codes and any new technologies that can provide our customers with the best retrofit products available. 

Here's to the next 30 years! 

Learn more about Roof Hugger in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.roofhugger.com