Just down the road from Pigeon Forge, Gallatin, Dollywood and other popular attractions in the Smokie Mountains is the thriving community of Sevierville, Tennessee. This beautiful mountain town has a community center and a civic center that hosts multiple events throughout the year.
The community center is housed in a 1985 vintage metal building manufactured by American Buildings of Eufaula, Alabama. Due to its age, the building recently underwent a complete reroofing with metal. Better known as Metal-over-Metal Retrofit, the building was originally constructed using American’s trapezoidal standing seam profile, hence it was decided to utilize a structural sub-framing system furnished by Roof Hugger, LLC of Lutz, Florida. This type of retrofit allows the existing metal roofing to remain in place by installing structural sub-framing over the existing roof and then installing a new metal roof as the finished weathering surface.
The local community leaders were not new to this type of reroofing for aged metal roofs because of an earlier 2017 project at Lanier Elementary School in nearby Maryville. This project was designed by Chuck Howard of Metal Roof Consultants (MRC) from Cary, North Carolina, which was naturally selected for the community center reroof. MRC has years of experience with retrofit roofing of existing metal roofs as well flat roofs that receive engineered light-gauge steel framing systems that creates a sloped new roof plane. MRC has literally completed millions of square feet of projects of this nature and is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the retrofit roofing marketplace. On the community center project, MRC consulted with Doyle E. Jones of Sevierville; Architect/Roof Consultant on the Lanier Elementary project.
The contractor that performed on the Lanier School project was Morristown Roofing of Whitesburg, Tennessee. Morristown was awarded the community center project through a public bid process in early 2019. Founded in 1962 by the late Paul Horner, Morristown Roofing Company now has a footprint of quality roofs in six states throughout the Southeast.
With an overall staff of about 55 employees, they have the expertise of installing all types of roofing from single-ply membranes to metal. Recognized and respected for their expertise, their clients have entrusted them with protecting various projects such as historical buildings, university stadiums, defense contractors, hospitals/healthcare facilities, food distribution/cold storage facilities, retail malls, data centers, office complexes, colleges, schools, and manufacturing locations. They complete about 10 to 15 metal roofing projects each year ranging up to 600 squares each. However, their motto is “No project is too large, nor too small for Morristown Roofing”.
When asked about the community center project, Ashley Horner of Morristown Roofing stated that this project was only their second Roof Hugger installation. The job went smoothly to say the least even with the building’s roof geometry having had sloped rakes due to skewed walls as well as valleys, varying slopes and other difficult transitions.
He went on to say the Roof Hugger product has the ability to increase snow loading and has little to no impact on the occupants of the building. It also helps control the contractor’s liability by not having to remove the existing metal roof as well as their cost because the sub-purlin framing represents less parts than other retrofit metal roofing methods.
In addition, with existing trapezoidal metal roofs, that are notorious for varying center-to-center major rib spacing, the Roof Hugger sub-purlin design compensates for this with their factory oversize notching of the zee-shaped sub-purlin’s vertical web to permit easy installation directly over the existing roof panel high ribs allowing for base flange attachment into the existing purlins. This results in a structurally correct, low-profile, finished retrofit framing assembly ready to receive the new metal roof panels.
The project finished out with 54,000 square feet of 24-gauge 2500 System metal roofing by MRS Metal Roofing Systems, Inc. of Stanley and Conway, NC as well as Johnson City, Tennessee. 12,720 lineal feet of Roof Hugger’s standard Model “D” sub-purlin with a 4.5” web height, Colorguard© snow retention system furnished by S-5! ® of Iowa Park, Texas, and 6-inches of fiberglass insulation installed between the old and bottom side of the new metal roof.
For more information on the project team members, visit the following websites:
Morristown Roofing – www.morristownroofing.net
MRC Metal Roof Consultants – www.metalroofconsultants.net
Roof Hugger, LLC – www.roofhugger.com
MRS Metal Roofing Systems, Inc. – www.metalroofingsystems.biz
S-5! – www.S-5.com