Stephen Patterson and Madan Mehta - Unprecedented Change in Roof Drainage Design - PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an live interview with Madan Mehta and Stephen Patterson. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast. 

Speaker 1:
Welcome to Roofing Road Trips with Heidi. Explore the roofing industry through the eyes of a longterm professional within the trade. Listen for insights, interviews, and exciting news in the roofing industry today.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Hello, and welcome to another Roofing Road Trips. This is Heidi Ellsworth with Roofers Coffee Shop, and today we are heading towards Texas on this virtual Roofing Road Trip. And we're talking with two amazing gentlemen who are very involved with IIBEC and have recently been instrumental in coming out with a new publication for IIBEC of the Roof Drainage Second Edition. This book has been around, but now it's updated, and I'm telling you, it is so important for roofing contractors. So I would love to introduce Stephen Patterson with the Roof Technology Services Incorporated of Fort worth, Texas, a roofing consultant, and Dr. Madan Mehta, professor of architecture at University of Texas at Arlington. Welcome gentlemen to Roofing Road Trips.

Stephen Patterson:
Thank you.

Heidi Ellsworth:
As we are looking at this, I have been in the industry for quite a while, I have seen how important it is for roofing contractors to be working closely with roofing consultants, and engineers, and researchers. So it's really exciting to have this next edition coming out, especially when we're seeing, with all the moisture, rain, weather, there's so much going on. So before we kind of get into talking about that book, maybe we'll just have each of you introduce yourselves. So let's start with you, Stephen, can you kind of introduce yourself and give us a little bit of information on how you got involved with this project?

Stephen Patterson:
Sure. I have a really wide or broad basis of experience in roofing. I was a roofing contractor, believe it or not, in the mid '70s. And that's when I encountered my first roof collapse. I got a call from a client who said, "I've got a really strange thing going on, big noises and big leaks." So I go to the place and I find that the building is partially collapsed. Well, first I told him on the phone, "Get everybody out of there." And so that was my first real upfront and personal dealings with roof collapses. So, just a little bit more background. I'm actually a structural engineer who began my career in roofing in 1973. So I've been doing it for a long time. And I started my consulting practice in 1983, and I've probably done close to 100 collapses investigations over the years, and I've seen this as one of the major problems in roofing that's misunderstood. So, that's how that came about.
Dr. Mehta and I wrote Roof Design and Practice in 1971, published by Prentice Hall, and in that we addressed roof drainage, and specifically, a chapter on roof drainage, and as Madan and I talked, we decided that we really needed a ... There was no textbook or no comprehensive book out there on roof drainage design. So we went to the then RCI Foundation and requested funding to do the first Roof Drainage monograph, and it was very successful and we laid out basically all of the parameters, and I'll let Madan say a little bit more about that, but we have the complete technical backup and then how to design roof drainage. It was very successful. We'll get into the updated version of it and why we did it. But bottom line is that everything that we had known about roof drainage for the past 70 years was completely changed.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Wow.

Stephen Patterson:
So that was why we went back to RCI, now IIBEC, to request funding to update this book. And as you say, I think it's one of the most important books out there, life safety issues that affect roofing contractor, roof consultants, it affects everybody. So that's basically it in a nutshell.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Excellent. Madan, or Dr. Mehta, can you let us know about yourself?

Madan Mehta:
Yeah. My name is Madan Mehta. I'm a professor of architecture at the University of Texas at Arlington. I have been teaching here for 36 years, almost 36 years in about a few days. And prior to that, I was the chair of architectural engineering in the University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia. And before that, I was back in the country of my origin. I used to run my own practice in architecture and engineering. I hold academic qualifications in architecture as well as engineering, and in this country, I'm a licensed engineer. Back home in India, and I left that country about 40 years ago, I was licensed both as an architect, as well as an engineer.
My introduction with IIBEC and roofing in particular is basically I will attribute it to Steve Patterson. And here was one day after we wrote this book that Steve mentioned on Roof Design and Practice, Stephen mentioned to me that we should sort of have a monograph on roof drainage. And I said, "What is there to roof drainage? It's so simple. It's so easy." And I said, "There's the plumbing code and all the information that you need for designing a roof. Drainage is in the plumbing code. We don't need any more information." And he said, "No." He said, "No, no, no," that I was wrong. And I said, "Please tell me."
So he educated me and I then sort of done some own research and I realized that there are many unanswered questions. And then since then, I think we have known each other for about 25 years, and since then we both worked together in documents, a number of books. I mean that we did for editions of Wind Pressure monograph, and this is the second edition of the roof drainage. And then we did together a book on, as Steve mentioned, Roof Design and Practice, and we sort of published a number of papers. I was a junior partner, I must confess to it, because I'm not exaggerating it one bit. Steve is the driving force behind all the work they did together. And I must say that I've been very fortunate in having known Steve to have brought me into this, guided me. So I'm truly, truly thankful to him for what I have done and contributed.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love these kind of partnerships. That is so cool. That is excellent. And no wonder it's gone for so long.

Stephen Patterson:
Yeah. At risk of turning this into a love fest, Madan is the unique person that has practical experience as an architect, a master's in building sciences, I think from Australia, PhD in engineering from England, and a professor of architecture that gets down into the weeds. He has the most successful construction textbook in the country, which is basically a lifelong achievement to be able to put that together. But I couldn't have done it without Madan, because I knew practically what was going on and the problems, but I needed the technical expertise, the PhD engineering expertise to explain a lot of things. So I had a lot of questions for him. So, it has turned out to be a great collaboration.

Heidi Ellsworth:
I love it. And it's so necessary for the industry. So tell us, Steve, go ahead and share with us a little bit about Roof Drainage, about this new book. What can contractors expect?

Stephen Patterson:
Well, when we wrote our first drainage monograph, one of the main themes of that book was that we needed more research into where all these numbers came from, because there simply were no answers out there. So we applied all the data that we had at the time, the codes, the hydrology, the whole thing, and put it together in this book. And it was the first one, a comprehensive drainage design manual. Well, as it turns out, a project done by the plumbing engineers research project showed that exactly what we were saying in the first edition came true, that we really didn't know. And when they'd researched drainage design, they found that the assumptions they made on the drains, the flow rate through the drains were just simply wrong. And so we've been designing these routes for more than 70 years, drainage systems for more than 70 years, in a way that was no longer valid.
So that took us to this new drainage monograph, and it is a much more comprehensive book. It's actually written as a textbook. And I'll let Madan talk a little bit about the organization of the book, but the bottom line was we had to come up with something practical for contractors, roofers, architects, engineers to be able to design routes and understand what we know and what we don't know. That's a little bit about it. I'd like Madan to weigh in on the organization of the book and how we put that together, because he was instrumental in doing that.

Madan Mehta:
Well, let me address first as to what is the difference between edition one and the second edition. See, the edition one was published in 2003, right? And the only document that we had at that time, basically there are two documents that govern roof drainage. Number one is the plumbing code, right? Because that is a drainage to the plumbing system. And the second one is what are the bonding load? The weight of the water that accumulates on the roof? So two documents, one is a plumbing code, and the second is the ASCE 7 standard. In 2003, when we published this document, we started working 2002 and finished it in 2003. So the governing plumbing code at that time was the plumbing codes in 2000, right?
Now, I must mention at this stage that there have been, and that even now today also, there are three plumbing codes. One is the IPC, International Plumbing Code. The second is the UPC, that is the Uniform Plumbing Code. And the third is the National Standard Plumbing Code, right? And they are virtually the same, but they're not exactly the same. This is unfortunate part of the whole thing, that they are basically, they're dealing with the same information, but they do deal with it differently, and it is confusing to the architects and engineers and so on, anyway, but that's beside the point.
The other document, as I mentioned, is the structural part of the roof drainage, and that is governed by ASCE 7 standard. In 2003, when we published the first edition, the governing ASCE 7 standard was the 2002 ASCE 7 standard. It was the information about the rain loads was only half a page. And mainly this is what 2002 ASCE 7 standard said. Basically it said, "The roof drainage system shall be designed in accordance with the code," and the code meant, I believe code meant plumbing code, "Having jurisdiction. The flow capacity of secondary drains or scuppers shall not be less than that of primary drains or scuppers." That is it. It had no other information. This is the document that we followed in doing the first edition, in addition to the practical information that Steve had.
Now, we then realized, as the roof failures took place, the work of forensic engineers, such as Steve Patterson, we realized that something was missing. That is what was missing in the plumbing codes at that time, and in our roof drainage monograph also was the following. That the plumbing codes basically gave the flow capacities of vertical pipes and the horizontal pipes. So in the pipe system, right? And the other system that we, of course, we have the scuppers. There was no information, there still is no information, in the plumbing codes as to what is the drainage capacities of certain size of a scupper, right?
And in the plumbing codes of that time with 2003 and so on, all that was needed to design the plumbing system was to find out as to what size of vertical pipe you need and what size of horizontal pipes you need. The roof drains did not come into the picture at all. In other words, what was missing at that time, what was known at that time was that the roof drains have virtually no role to play. They recognized the following fact, which we later on found was wrong, that the flow rate through a roof drain is the same as the flow rate through a vertical pipe. Because if you look at it sort of on a global level, a roof drain is a round hole and a vertical pipe also is a round hole. So the understanding was that the drainage capacity of a roof drain is identical to that of a vertical pipe. And that is the reason I think I understood that the roof drain has virtually no role to play.
As the roof failures took place and the work of forensic engineers, we found that something was wrong. And there was realization, sort of a very subjective realization, that what we are missing is the contribution of roof drains in the entire drainage system. Right? And in 2012, there was work done by the American Society of Plumbing Engineers Research organization, and on a full scale they tested number of drains and realized that the contribution of roof drains is missing. The roof drains is important because it is the water from the roof drain that is the force behind all that goes into the horizontal pipes and all that goes into the vertical pipes, right? And the flow rate through a roof drain is not simply related to the outlet diameter of the roof drain, but the many other factors that come into it that the plumbing course missed and the entire plumbing engineering community missed.
And these are, number one, is the rim diameter. The top diameter of the roof drain, the depth of the bowl, the outlet diameter, of course, the strainer, and the most importantly, what is the head of water on the drain? These are the five factors that we ignored. We only focused on the outlet diameter. So this is the fundamental difference that there is that in the first edition, we ignored all that because the plumbing codes ignored it. Now, of course, we're writing the 2021 edition of the drainage monograph, we had to bring all these factors into it.
The information as to what is the flow rate through a drain had to come into the picture. We had more information, right? The only information that we got was from the publication of the FM Global. FM Global has a publication which is called the Property Loss Data Sheets. It gives the flow rate through roof drains of certain geometries. And so that was the only information that we had. So we used that information. I must say at this stage that there is a testing laboratory available to test the flow capacity of roof drains through a testing system. And it is funded by, or it is organized by the NSF. NSF stands for National Science Foundation. Now National Science Foundation is a prestigious organization and funded by the federal government.
So they have set this up up until this time. As far as we know, there's only one manufacturer who has the flow rates of their drains tested. We don't know of any other organization that has, or any other manufacturer who has their flow rates tested. So in writing this monograph, we had only one data system, which is from that FM Global. We did not take the one manufacturer, which I think the name is Froet Industries, F-R-O-E-T. That is the only manufacturer who has the roof drains tested. Now in writing this monograph, we did not want to sort of put the data of one manufacturer. So we had to put the data of the FM Global, which is more generic, right? So we put that data in.
And then we reorganized the monograph from the first edition. And as Steve mentioned, it is a comprehensive document. It is written as a textbook. And of course, I have been writing a number of textbooks for architects and engineers. And so it is basically, as I mentioned before, that there are two aspects to roof drainage. Number one is the plumbing codes, and that is the flow rates to the system. And the other is the structural part of it. Now, let me talk to the structural part, because it is briefer.
Structural part covers two things, number one is how much is the rain load? How much is the pounding load? What's the weight of the water accumulation on the roof? So that's one part. So we cover that in the monograph. The second part in the structural aspect is pounding instability. The pounding instability comes if the roof framing structural system is very flexible. Then of course the more the water accumulates, more it will deflect. More it deflects, more the water we collect, and so on and so forth, right? And that's what we call as pounding instability, right? And that is not covered in the monograph because it is highly structural and it requires a deep knowledge of software engineering. That is not covered. But in terms of how much the water accumulation is and what were the weight of water on the roof, that is covered.
Coming back to the next step of the plumbing, there is a flow rate is, so there are basically three ways that you can drain a roof. Number one is the roof drains, vertical pipes, and horizontal pipes, or put it the other way, roof drains, horizontal pipes, and the vertical pipes. We cover that. The other is that you can drain a roof through scuppers. So we've covered that. And then the third is that you have some low slope roofs, you have a sloping roof, which ends into a gutter, outside gutter, exposed gutter, and the down spots. So we cover all these three aspects in the book.
It is, as I mentioned, I will mention again, it's a comprehensive document, right? We treat this as a textbook. In other words, the idea was that anyone else from now on, for example, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, or 30 years, so on, when we are not there, Steve and I are not there, someone can take up this document as the first step and then build upon it, because there are still many unanswered questions, right? And I'll talk briefly as to what the unanswered questions is.
So in the plumbing aspects of the roof drains, and vertical pipes, and horizontal pipes, scuppers and so on and so forth, we go basically to the very first principles. That is basically go to the hydraulics, that is the fundamentals of fluid dynamics into this. And so we cover this about 200-page document, eight and a half [inaudible 00:21:32] 200-page document, it is divided into five chapters. And chapter number one basically is introduction to the general aspects of drainage system, which are the various methods of providing roof slope. We know that roof slope is important, right? But nowhere we found that why we'd need minimum quarter inch per foot for most roofs, right? Why we need quarter inch per foot. Basic plumbing code says it should be quarter inch per foot. International building code says it should be quarter inch per foot. But there's never an explanation given as to why quarter inch per foot is the one that is minimum required.
So we go into aspect and explaining as if we're explaining to a basic first year or second year engineering student, or architecture student, as to why it is important. And also in the same chapter, number one, we discuss as to which are the various ways of providing roof slope. We can provide roof slope either by tapered installation or by using formed concrete on a flat deck. Either tapered insulation on a flat deck and poured in place to form concrete on a flat deck all weekend, so that we can provide the roof slope in the structural frame itself, which is most commonly used because it is most economical and the best way to do it.
Then we talk also in chapter number one as to why we need crickets and so on and so forth, and the geometry of crickets. And then we also talk about in chapter number one as to what is the subjective, fundamental difference between the roof drainage through scuppers and roof damage through roof drains. So all that is covered in chapter number one. Chapter number two is really the workhorse of this book, because it goes into the nuts and bolts of roof drainage system that goes into the design of the primary roof drainage system, and the secondary drainage system, based on the data that we got from the FM Global. And so it deals with the system, if the system uses roof drains, horizontal pipe and vertical pipes, it does that. Then it goes into, if we don't do that, we use scuppers. Then how do we design? How do we work out the scupper dimensions to drain water from the roof? It gives actual examples and solutions. So we have examples and solutions.
The most important part of this chapter number two is the following, that the first step in designing a drainage system of a low slope roof is to determine and determine from the structural engineer as to what is the maximum allowable depth of water that the roof structure can take. Based on that, then we design the plumbing system, because this is following what happens in actual practice. The structural system is designed first. The building services, of which the roof vantage is one part of it, the other part of it is HVACs and the building service lighting, acoustics, and the building service, this comes later on.
So a structural engineer would have designed the structural frame of the roof. Then the plumbing engineer comes in and works out the roof drainage, right? So therefore he or she needs to know as to what is the maximum bonding depth of water that is allowable. So that is a fundamental part, that's a first step, and that is the one major addition through Roof Drainage book one and Roof Drainage book two. So chapter number two is the workhorse.
The chapter number three, four, they go into the fundamentals of ... So basically it goes into engineering. For example, chapter number three deals with what happens when you have a projecting wall over a roof. For example, there is a podium, and then there is a vertical tower, right? The water that falls on the vertical tower wall comes onto the podium, right? So that aspect is covered. And also in chapter number three, we cover some aspects that look very simple, but they are very illusionary in the sense that one can make a mistake. So we call that as unusual venue solutions. Then it goes into ... The two plumbing codes require that the secondary drainage system, that is the overflow drainage system, should be designed on the 15-minute 100-year rainfall intensity. International Plumbing Code requires ... Sorry. I take it back.
Two plumbing codes, UPC, Uniform Plumbing Code, International Plumbing Code require that the all flow drainage system should be designed on the same intensity of rainfall as the primary drainage system. The National Standard Plumbing Code requires that it should be done on the 15-minute 100-year rainfall. Now 15-minute 100-year rainfall is much more an intensity than is the 100-year 60-minute rainfall. In fact, it is double. The 15-minute rainfall 100-year rainfall intensity is double that of the a 100-year, because of the spike. The rainfall is never constant. There's a spike. That 15-minute spike gives us double the intensity. Also the ASCE 7 standard also wants that the overflow system should be designed based on the 15-minute rainfall intensity.
[inaudible 00:27:47] their explanation of the fact why this is so. So chapter number three goes and answers that question, as to why it is that 15-minute rainfall intensity is the one that we should design our full drainage system. But it also explains, because it goes into the details, it also explains that that is a problem between large roofs, right? It is a large roof that require to be designed on 15-minute 100-year rainfall. And it may not be necessary to design a small roof, right? So we have explained that sort of fairly well, that what are the pros and cons of not designing an overflow system for a 15-minute 100-year rainfall. It may not hurt on small roofs, but it will certainly hurt on the large roofs. And of course Steve's own experiences that that is so, that it is the large roofs that fail, not the smaller area roofs.

Heidi Ellsworth:
As we're going through this, because I'm really hearing that there are some things that have totally changed, and that you're still researching. And so I love the-

Madan Mehta:
I'm going to come to that, as to what is still missing, and that will be my last point that I'm going to talk about, what is still missing? And chapter number four works the hydraulics, the fluid dynamics of the roof drains. And this is highly mathematical, very engineering oriented, as to what is the fluid dynamics of the roof drains, vertical pipes, horizontal pipes, and scuppers. And again, as I mentioned to you, this is a document that we're prepared that future generations can take that as a first step and build upon it. As we get more information, there are still some missing information. And chapter number five then deals with the low slope roofs, which does not have roof drains, which does not have scuppers. It is basically drained by gutters and downspouts. So we then talk about the, in this chapter, we also talk about the hydraulics of gutters, and downspouts are the same as the vertical pipes.
Now, Heidi, I'm glad you mentioned this as what is missing. What is missing is as follows, that we have taken the data from the FM Global, because that is the only generic data that is available. And FM Global basically sort of deals with roof drains that have a certain geometry. So we do not have information on roof drains which have a different geometry. And so that is missing. Now, what is required is a fundamental research, basic research of taking very simple roof drains and finding out their flow capacities, and then making them more and more complicated. And basically we want to learn as to what is the fluid dynamics of a roof drain.
In the chapter on chapter number four, which talks about the hydraulics of the system, the missing link is that we do not have the fluid dynamics of the roof drains. That is a missing information, right? So I'm hoping that, I mean, I'm old and Steve is younger than I am, but that we some day some researchers will take this up. Will take it up also if the funding is available, that that is a missing link in this, that we do not have information. The other way that this information can come is that the manufacturers of roof drains start testing the system. Now, we all like status quo. Basically human beings are human beings, right? Most of us like to keep the status quo. So the manufacturers are not getting their roof drains tested. And unless there's some kind of force, and the force can come only from the code authorities, plumbing codes, for example. So the code authority, unless there is a force sort of brought in from the plumbing codes, this is not going to change. And we will still be stuck in where we are at the present time.
So basically, lastly, what I would say is that we need to bring this document in front of the plumbing code authorities, we need to bring this document in front of the engineers, structural engineers, plumbing engineers, architects, and so on. And unless it goes there, this will remain a work that will not be sort of put into practice. That is my last comment on this.

Heidi Ellsworth:
No, I just find it's ... This is so interesting because you think about all of the thousands of roofing contractors every day who are out there working, putting drainage in, the manufacturers who are setting specifications, everything else. So, Steve, how do you see this affecting roofing contractors and why is it so important that they read it and kind of understand the research and the information that you're bringing forward?

Stephen Patterson:
Well, let me first say that I was a general manager of a good size commercial roofing contracting company, full service, and that was the hardest job I ever did. So my hats off to all roofing contractors out there, because it is a difficult job. And one of the key factors though that creates problems for roofing contractors are drains, drainage design. So many leaks occur at roof drains. And so understanding the principles of roof drainage is very important to help the contractor understand what problems he's going to face.
I do want to say this, the book is written on several levels. You don't have to be an architect, or an engineer, or a roof consultant to be able to use the book to understand it. We've got both the highly technical part of it, and then the examples of how you do it step by step so that basically any roofing contractor can pick the book up and take from it what the basics are. And if they want to get involved in the more technical aspects, they can, because I know a lot of roofing contractors are engineers from all, architects or whatever, they come from different backgrounds in construction.
So fundamentally understanding it for a contractor, understanding roof drainage from a contractor standpoint is incredibly important. And I hate to bring up the L word, but there is a lot of litigation out there. I've mentioned I've been involved in more than, we are close to 100 collapses at this point. And any time a building falls down, people are going to get sued. And so the best way to prevent that from a roofing standpoint is make sure the drains are done. So if the contractor understands the importance of having an overflow drain, and it's not there, that he needs to alert the owners and he needs to bring people in to make sure that everybody understands it.
And I mentioned that first collapse that I investigated as a roofing contractor. I get the call, I tell the guy to get everything out, I drive over there as fast as I can. I throw my ladder up on the roof, go up there and there's three feet of water on the roof. And there's one drain, one scupper drain, a pretty good sized scupper drain, maybe eight by six or something like that. But stuck in that scupper was a Sunday Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper that had wedged, somebody had thrown it up there, it had wedged into the scupper, and then swelled, and it just made a perfect cork. So I got a sump pump and got everything out. And of course, I got everybody out of the building immediately, as soon as I heard, told them, I said, "You've got to get them out of there." That was right over the produce section. So if that would have collapsed when people were there, it could have been horrible.
As it was, it was just reroofing it, fixing a couple of broken trusses and going on. But the importance of the overflow and the importance of drainage is something that's critical to contractors. And so I would encourage all of them to read it, don't get intimidated by the technical stuff in there. It's there if you want to deal with it, but it gives you an explanation of what's required, how to do it, and I believe in a simplistic way that everybody can follow. And that was one of our objectives, was to write it on different levels for different groups. And so from a contractor standpoint, understanding roof drainage is critical.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, I tell you, gentlemen, I am so impressed. This is such an important document for our roofing industry. And as you said, also for the plumbing industry, I mean, in the plumbing codes. There's just so many different rounds. Madan, if you could maybe talk just about how important this is overall to the safety, and Steve already talked about it a little bit, but just what you've seen with the safety to integrity for buildings, why this is critical?

Madan Mehta:
Well, I must say that from an architectural point of view, most architects ignore the roof because roof is one part of the building that is never seen. A bulk of the architectural effort is basically spent on the aesthetics, that is the cladding system and the facade and so on. And the next part is of course the interiors and so on. The roof gets no attention at all, right? And it is the roof that is, if the water accumulates too much on the roof, then the roof will collapse and sudden, and that is catastrophic. So unless we can design the roof safely, then every occupant of the building and visitors in the building is at risk. So I think it is fundamentally important for the architects, engineers, and the contractors, because if there is a roof collapse, then they're already involved, everyone is involved in this.
So I think for the community, the users of the building, for all who are involved in the design and construction of the building, it is fundamentally important that they should make sure that the roof does not collapse. I think the two most important, the safety parts of a building are number one, I think, is the fire. And number two, I think, is the roof collapse, right? Windows seldom fail, facades seldom fail, and so on and so forth. But the roofs do fail and the buildings do catch fire. So after the fire, I think this is two.
Unfortunately, the building codes sort of spend a lot of information, and rightly so, on fire. Very little information is provided on the roof safety, the safety from the collapse of the roof, because of rain. And also I would add because of wind uplifts that takes place. And sometimes they work in unison. They work together. Wind can also put a vertical load, downward load on the roof. And if there is already water accumulated on the roof, that is there any way. So I think this is, in my opinion, fundamentally important.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Yeah. Definitely. And it's going to be getting everyone's attention. So let's, real quick, Steve, where can they get this book? How do people go about buying it?

Stephen Patterson:
Well, it's available online through iibec.org, RCI or IIBEC. And again, I would encourage everybody to buy one. We need the money, it goes to the foundation, and hopefully we may try to get some research done on roofing drainage through the foundation. And so it all goes to a good cause as well as helping educate everybody out there, which is our goal, that we want to make sure people understand it and remember, you always need a safety valve, and that's the overflow.

Heidi Ellsworth:
That's great.

Stephen Patterson:
Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Well, I'm just thinking that we're going to have to have you back, because I want to follow this testing and what you have going on with the event on the drainage manufacturers. I just think that is just such an amazing next step. So for anybody out there listening, if you're interested in getting involved with these gentlemen, you can also get ahold of them through IIBEC and RCI. But of course you can find everything about the new drainage book, about this initiative, about the foundation on Roofers Coffee Shop in the IIBEC directory. So, anytime you need this information, please go there, we'll get you to the right folks. I think this is such an important initiative. Thank you both for being here today.

Stephen Patterson:
Thank you for having us.

Madan Mehta:
Thank you, Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth:
Thank you very much, and thank you all for listening. We appreciate you and we want you to hear all of the great podcasts that are coming out on Roofing Road Trips. So please look for them at rooferscoffeeshop.com under the Read Listen Watch initiative, or on your favorite podcast channel. Be sure to subscribe and follow us. Have a great day, and we'll see you on the next Roofing Road Trip.

Speaker 1:
Make sure to subscribe to our channel and leave a review. Thanks for listening. This has been Roofing Road Trips with Heidi from the rooferscoffeeshop.com.