- [Thad] Snow guards are helpful on your metal roof
because they protect high traffic
or sensitive areas of your property
from the danger of an avalanche.
In this video, Adam Mazzella from Sheffield Metals
and Sean Haddock from S-5!
explain how to prepare a roof for snow guard installation,
what tools you will need
and how to choose the right engineered product
for your roof.
Stay tuned for the next video,
where we demonstrate the installation process
from start to finish.
(bright upbeat music)
- So sitting here with Sean Haddock
and just wanna go over
kind of everything we have in front of us,
what we need to perform on this successfully.
So, I guess we'll start with the product.
We're gonna go with a ColorGard system.
You guys have a multitude of different systems,
but why I chose the ColorGard today,
was, you don't see it now, but we will slide
medium bronze piece of metal through here
to match the existing roof.
So, it's not just gonna be a bright, shiny stainless steel
or aluminum finished item sitting on the roof.
You will have some of that color in there.
And today, since I have a SMI 450 SnapLock,
we're going with the S clamp.
It's critical that you go to the S-5! website
to make sure that you get the correct clamp for your system,
whether it's for snow retention, whether it's for wind,
whether it's for solar, you name it.
- To touch on that a little bit.
The website, we have what we call a Configurator
and you go into the Configurator,
you can enter in your roof model, manufacture thickness,
and it'll tell you what clamp you need.
You also have an option there
to go ahead and click on Snow Guard Calculator,
and it'll take you to a page
where you can enter all the specifics for your job
and get a full bill of materials,
know how many rods you've got to put on the roof.
If you can skip seams or not,
which we'll go into a little more in this video,
but it's a really handy tool.
- So if I'm a homeowner, is that something I do?
Or if I'm a contractor, is that something I do?
Who should be calculating the ColorGard estimator
or the snow guard estimator?
- In general, you would want either
the supplier of the snow guards
or the contractor to use the calculator.
Homeowners, if you're savvy enough to know what your roof is
and all of those dimensions and things, then have at it.
But generally you wanna be qualified
to know what you're doing,
because it is engineering assistant before you.
- So this isn't just a Sheffield Metal specific thing,
S-5! works with all the major metal roof manufacturers,
really all over the world, not just the United States.
- Correct.
We deal with most metal roofing manufacturers out there.
We're prominent in Australia, in Europe,
anywhere that you've got snow or solar, we're in that area.
- Nice. - With distribution.
- So getting back to why I went with the S clamp,
obviously it was the recommended clamp for my system.
You guys have a multitude of clamps for the system.
But looking at S-5! on whole and why Sheffield Metals
is really drawn to distributing your product.
A number of benefits.
One of the things that stands out to us
is really your set screw.
It's a rounded head.
And what that means is a lot of other folks in the industry
have something that's actually going to penetrate the paint,
penetrate the metal,
which can cause future corrosion issues.
It could cause paint failure issues.
So, what it's doing is, it's not penetrating,
but it's gonna create a mechanical bond
that is strong enough without
really creating any product deficiencies down the line.
- And the mechanical interlock is important
to the holding strength of the clamp.
And what we do is, there's actually a detent
in the backside of that clamp,
so that when that screw goes in,
you're pushing the metal into that detent.
So it is a true mechanical as opposed to a frictional bond.
- Sean mentioned earlier that a lot of things that they do
has to do with an engineered design.
So it's not just, willy-nilly,
putting a snow retention on the roof,
they're actually basing it off of regional snow loads,
the type of system that you have, things like that.
And Sheffield Metals, we're all about engineering.
I mean, we wanna push engineering on everything,
while this system is a UL 90 rated system,
I have confidence that this system is gonna last,
it's gonna hold up against heavy windstorms,
things like that.
And installing an S-5! system on it as well,
fully believe that it's gonna be able
to withhold heavy snow loads as well.
- Absolutely.
When you get into the design and layout
and engineering of these products,
there's something we take pride in is,
we don't wanna just look at a roof and say,
well, to me, I think you're in heavy snow country,
you probably want to rows, do a clamp every seam.
I mean, as we found on your roof in doing our calculations,
we thought we were gonna have to put a clamp on every seam,
but instead we're gonna use every other seam on this roof
because the calculations prove we can do so.
And so that's saving you money. It's saving you time.
And at S-5! that's what we take pride in is,
is not overcharging, not overdoing it,
but doing what is needed, the right way.
- So you're gonna get your engineered system,
what you need, not something over the top
or well below what a region
or what a particular roof might require.
- Right.
- So we've gone over some of the pieces, parts,
the ColorGard, the clamp.
We'll get into the interface once we get into the install.
What other things are we gonna need as we go to install?
It doesn't look like a whole lot of complicated stuff here.
So you wanna walk me through it?
- It's not a whole lot.
And we've actually got some extra stuff just to show you.
But what we wanna have is common tools of the trade.
And so when we developed this product,
we wanted it to be easy for your contractor
to grab the tools that he's already got
and get up on the roof.
We have a screw gun, an impact, you can use either or,
tin snips for cutting the color strip when we slide it in.
A pair of vice grip pliers.
The one thing that is not as common is this torque wrench.
This is a dial indicating torque wrench.
What this does is, is help you determine
that you have reached the proper tension on the set screw.
- Okay.
- When it comes to installing S-5! clamps,
we've mentioned load testing and that we test everything
and we can tell you what they hold.
Well, you've got to achieve the torque that we tested at,
to be sure you're gonna hit those values.
You've got to achieve or exceed.
So we recommend installing these clamps
at 130 to 150 inch pounds on 24 gauge.
So you're gonna tighten down the clamp
and you're gonna check it with this tool
and see that you at least delivered 130.
We know that we tested 115 inch pounds.
So if you've exceeded that and you're good to go.
We don't expect you to use this tool
on every clamp and every set screw.
We want you to verify one or two,
get a feel for what your guns delivering
and go on and do your job.
- So these things are great.
Again, they're a little bit more expensive.
We'll put a link to this in the video description.
We distribute these,
I think a lot of your other distributors also do these.
It's not a critical tool,
but everybody that we work with on a daily basis
that installs those S-5, really swears of any of these,
because it's just that insurance.
And it's not that expensive of a tool
to make sure that your gun's dialed in,
that you can get your job done right.
- Correct.
And where it is critical is,
is a lot of guys are scared to squish the seam.
And like I said, you've got to push that metal
into that detent in the back of the clamp.
And so where it's not critical for a guy
that's been installing,
a guy that hasn't been installing, it is critical.
Because they need to know
how tight that screw really needs to be.
And it's a lot tighter than you would think.
- Yeah.
And that's totally gonna vary by system,
by seam style, by the gauge and metal that you're using.
This is a standing seam system.
So, we love to say no penetrations on this roof
or as little as possible.
So this kind of goes hand in hand,
where a lot of face fastened systems,
they're designed to have exposed fasteners.
We don't wanna penetrate this roof,
that's gonna contribute to the longevity of this system.
- Absolutely, and that's what S-5! was founded on,
was standing seam metal roofing
and not putting holes in the roof.
- Yeah.
So did we cover everything here?
- We got a few other rods and ends, tape measure, of course,
a string line.
In every box of S-5! clamps
it comes with a Torx tip for the screws
or an Allen tip, depending on what Clint model you have,
it doesn't hurt to have an extra in case you break one.
And finally you need a half inch or a 13 millimeter socket
to tighten down the bolts on the top.
- Got it. Okay.
- I almost forgot.
A saw you don't need it a lot,
but you either need a chop saw for cutting on the ground
or a reciprocating saw to cut up on the roof.
When you reach the end of an assembly or things like that.
- And so these come in eight-foot sections,
if you only need a four-foot section.
Yeah, it makes sense to be able to cut it down
and make it look, we can move it.
- Yep. - All right. Cool.
- [Thad] Thanks for checking out this video,
stay tuned for the next video
where we demonstrate the installation process step-by-step.
Thanks to Sean Haddock from S-5!
and Adam from Sheffield Metals.
Subscribe here to "The Metal Roofing Channel."
Comment below with any questions,
and as always I'm Thad Barnette, we'll catch you next time.
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