Product Overview - 3
Section 3 Selecting Roof Material
Up until now, we have only concerned ourselves with drawing up the roof shape so that it reflects the roof plan we are working to. As we said, it is extremely important to ensure that the roof plan on the screen resembles the one you are bidding for, and until you are satisfied with the roof geometry, there is little benefit in proceeding. Typically, for the roof shown in the previous section, it may have taken approximately 5 minutes to reach this stage.
Now we need to apply our roofing materials to the roof.
These may be tiles, slates, shingles or shakes or metal panels. If it is
a low slope or flat roof, we may need to use a Built-Up Roof system (BUR)
or apply a Single-Ply material.
In addition to the main roof cover, we will also need to quantify for the additional
items needed for the roof, such as our flashings, downpipes, insulation, miscellaneous
items as well as applying a cost factor for a means of fall protection.
As you may know by now, our software caters for all types of roof cover, but in this section, we will concentrate on Tiles, Metal Panels and Built-up Roofs with bitumen or single ply.
16. Tile & Accessory Selection
Our software is used by roof tilers and manufacturers
all over the world, and, to cater for the variations in materials and processes,
we have built in a number of features that simplify the process, yet still
provide a very accurate means of quantifying the tiles and accessories for
the job.
Shown on the following page are a couple of examples of
the depths to which our software will go to quantify for not only the main
field tiles, but also the hip and ridge tiles, valley tiles and even tile
and a halfs and eave tiles.
As you know, generally the most accurate method of calculating
the tile coverage is by "coursing" the tiles up the roof. Our
software caters for this and will even display the coursing lines up the
roof, allowing you to see where they are located.
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When selecting the metal panels, you will firstly be shown the database of materials that you previously defined.
After making the selection, you then have the freedom
to modify the default fasteners, the frequency of those fasteners, as well
as selecting additional screws and clips to be used for that particular
job. You will also nominate the labour rate that you intend to use to lay
this material, as well as selecting the costing associated with fall protection.
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18. Applying BUR or Single Ply to low slope roofs
In addition to providing software for tiling and metal
roofs, we have also devised a product designed specifically for the flat
roofing industry. This can be supplied as a stand-alone product called Roof
Maestro, or, if you are also involved in tiling or metal, you could utilize
Sorcerer, which encompasses all roofing types. For flat roofing, we have
designed two separate methods for the take-off, one for built-up roof systems,
i.e. "3 layer plus chip" and another for single-ply layout.
From a take-off point of view, when you are defining the materials, the software simply needs to know the size of materials used in square meters, and in the case of single ply, the width of the rolls, along with the costs associated. Below is the typical definition screen for this process;
Laying out BUR
Obviously, when you are applying a membrane product to
the roof, you will normally apply it in a series of layers and you will
normally need to quantify for fasteners also (this could be liquid fasteners).
At this stage, we have simply defined one individual membrane product, but
now, when we are applying it to a roof, we need to create, or select a "system" of
BUR.
This may be a typical "system" of BUR, consisting of several layers
of membrane and a fastener. These systems can be modified on a job by job basis,
or can be saved for future use. When you then select "Apply to Plane" the
software will then quantify all of these materials, based on the square metre
size of the roof, to report how many rolls, drums, tonnes, kilo's etc for membrane
and how many fasteners required, and the relevant costs associated.
Laying out Single-Ply
Single Ply works in a slightly different way, and uses
the width of the roll for take-off, reporting the total length of roll,
and then converting that into the number of rolls required. Also with single
ply, you can elect to run a number of perimeter sheets around the roof,
followed by the field sheet, and you can tell the software which direction
you intend to lay out the field sheets. You can also allocate different
fasteners for laying out the field sheets as distinct from the perimeter
sheets.
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19. Applying Flashings - Standard
As you know, flashings can be divided into two distinct categories, when it comes to costing a job. There are the standard "off-the-shelf" flashings that are supplied in a range of sizes and profiles, and there are "Custom Profile" flashings that are costed and supplied based on the "girth" and the number of bends. Custom profiles normally follow a set of profiles, but vary in size from job to job.
The first thing we will introduce is the Standard Flashing.
When you first receive the software and begin to define your flashings,
you will notice that there are a number of features, within the material
definition, that will help to replicate the manual methods you currently
employ to quantify flashings. These include setting the maximum length of
flashing, cost per piece or per unit of length, how you wish to quantify
the flashing, i.e. charge for stock length pieces, charge for amount that
is used, add up total run length and divide into stock length pieces etc,
if there is a specific labour rate that applies to that flashing, and what
accessories do you wish to quantify automatically.
These accessories can be set for a variety of frequencies, i.e. per run, per piece, per internal corner, per unit of length.
When applying these flashings, the first thing we need
to do is to set the Allowances. In general, this is something that you will
only need to set once, although there may be times when you will need to
change these values.
Remember that we set the stock length sizes when we defined the flashings originally, so it is important to set the correct overlap and run allowances to make sure that we quote for sufficient material to actually lay the flashings.
When applying the flashings on the roof, we need to select the flashing required
at each part of the roof, i.e. hip, ridge, gable, etc and select different
colours, if applicable. Shown below is the flashing selection box, where you
select the flahings required. Once happy with your selection simply select
Generate and the software will then calculate the necessary lengths of flashings
required, along with all accessories that have been automatically quantified.
On the screen, the lengths and sizes of the flashings needed will be displayed
and this information can also be printed out on a drawing, to assist in the
installation.
After generating the flashings, a cutting list is displayed on the screen and
this can clearly be compared to the drawing on the screen to see where the
flashings have been allocated.
As you will note from the above list, some items are
quantified as stock length pieces, i.e. the Valley is shown as one length
of 8000, however other items are shown in individual length sizes, based
on the lengths needed. This has been determined by the way you defined
these flashings.
20. Applying Flashings - Custom Profile
Because a lot of metal flashings and trim are made up from flat sheet and formed to suit the profile for the job, we created the ability to allow the user to firstly define a series of flat sheets, of differing thicknesses, materials and sizes, and then to create a series of "custom profiles".
When applying these flashings to the roof in question, the user then selects
the flat sheet that they wish to form the custom profile out of, then select
the actual profile.
You can modify the sizes of each part of the profile to suit the current job.
When reporting a cost for that flashing, the cost is based on the girth and
number of bends that make up the profile, and can even report the quantity
of flat sheets that are required to manufacture those flashings.
21. Applying Insulation and Fall Protection
When applying insulation, we have built in a similar ability to that of laying a built-up system. You can either apply insulation as a single product on any or all of the roof planes, or you can apply a "system" of insulation, which may consist of 4 or 5 different layers of insulation and fasteners.
Applying Fall Protection can either be applied automatically to all eaves on
a second storey roof or above, or can applied to any roof planes above a certain
pitch, or can be applied manually to any lines selected. You can also set up
fall protection using "anchor points" and apply these around the
roof and cost them accordingly.
To go to the next section - Section 4 - Quantifying the Roof - Click Here
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