The roofing membrane industry has made a huge shift for the better over the last 15 years. Architects were once encouraged; some even incentivised, to ‘design out’ membranes and replace them with steel, such was the level of remediation taking place for membrane roofs and decks due to substandard product and workmanship. Steel also offered a wider range of colours.
With its collective commitment to excellence in the form of training and product assurance, let alone the formation 15 years ago of the active industry body, ‘Waterproofing Membrane Association Inc’, the industry today is unrecognisable compared to then.
These days membrane systems are more sophisticated, diverse and robust, while the poor performers of yesterday (including installers) have fallen by the wayside. Architects are back to proudly specifying membrane roofs and decks again, but this time, they’re being installed the way the manufacturers intended their materials to be — performing properly and standing up to New Zealand’s harsh conditions for the long haul.
With the industry having been back on track for a while now, Viking have felt it time to add some appeal to membrane roofs in the form of colours and aesthetic profiles. Up until recently, bitumen and rubber membranes installed in New Zealand have been black or grey and thermoplastic membranes have been light grey or white…and they’ve all been ‘flat’. Boring! Many membrane roofs are visible from the ground due to their geographic position and/or the fact that they have more pitch than the building code’s minimum of two degrees; (not all membrane roofs are flat). Viking Roofspec believe these roofs should make an aesthetic statement and offer the industry a range of colours and matching weldable ribs to their Enviroclad TPO range.
Viking Enviroclad’s palette of TPO colours are relatively light-shaded in nature; the pigments used to make these earthy tones being the traditional oxide pigments that stand the test of time under our harsh UV. These colours have matching TPO-weldable ribs which can be installed by an approved applicator, any distance apart and/or in any pattern. For example, if a designer is wanting a wide seam steel tray look on the salt-spray-soaked West Coast, but they want the roof to look stylish and avoid premature degradation, a coloured Enviroclad membrane roof with TPO weldable ribs would be perfect.
Viking’s coloured Enviroclad membrane is available in seven colours: White, Dove grey, Slate grey, Medium Bronze, Mansard Brown, Rock Brown and Patina Green.