When visiting the calendar page of the Town of Fishkill (NY) Recreation building, it’s easy to see that there is a lot going on every day. Each date has four of that day’s events listed, but at the bottom of each date is a link to drop down the entire list – some days, the link says “+14 more”. Now that’s busy!

Recurring roof leaks were becoming a problem with the original standing seam metal roof at this hub of activity. A typical July day at the Fishkill Recreation building will include basketball, cheerleading, senior bingo, soccer camp and Zumba workouts. Removing the roof and installing a new one was not an option where visitors of all ages are coming and going from 8:00 in the morning until 9:00 at night.

Ultimately, the town opted for a Roof Hugger sub-framing system, where the original roofing panels stay in place. The Roof Hugger sub-purlins fit over the seams of the 25-year-old metal panels and are attached through the old roof and into the original roof structural framing system. The new standing seam panels were attached to those sub-purlins, providing a durable, weathertight, wind-resistant system that should serve the community for decades.

The re-roofing of this rec center was completed by R.K. Roofing of Wingdale, N.Y., without interrupting activities within the building.

“The town was great to work with,” said Jon Vitolo, Sales Manager for R.K. Roofing. “They gave us plenty of room in parking lots to work. We had a staging area and a storage area. We needed a lot of room because some of the panels were 110 feet long. That’s longer than any of our guys have ever worked with.”

Vitolo said the decision to use the Roof Hugger system was predetermined with the general Contractor, A & J Construction of West Nyack, N.Y., before his team was brought onto the project.

“This was our first time working with the Roof Hugger and it was super easy,” Vitolo said. “We worked with some guys from Roof Hugger. We actually suggested one profile and explained what we were doing with insulation, Roof Hugger suggested an alternate profile that would work better, and they made it pretty easy for us.

“We installed the Roof Huggers and the roofing over the original trapezoidal roof. This was one of those out-of-the box metal building packages.”

Bill Wingrove, Product Advisor/Inventory Manager at Roof Hugger, helped R.K. Roofing get started. “When approached by Jon at R.K. Roofing, we reviewed the project and details of the existing roofing system,” Wingrove said. “Based on their research, we determined that the Model T Hugger, for the existing trapezoidal standing seam roof installed with tall ‘stand-off’ clips and thermal spacers, was the Hugger required on this retrofit. With our patented Hugger and proprietary stand-off fasteners from Triangle Fastener, we can accommodate roofs of this type.

“While we typically fasten down tight to the purlins, the stand-off height of the existing tall clips prevent that, using our stand-off matching fastener and anti-rotation arm on the Hugger, we can provide a structurally solid framing for the installation of the new roof system, no matter the type of roofing we are covering. We appreciate Jon and his team with their efforts on making this a successful retrofit project and look forward to the next opportunity.”

The project required 4,600 linear feet of Roof Hugger’s Model T, a 4-1/2-inch-tall sub-purlin for typical 24-inch on-center rib trapezoidal standing seam panel. R.K. Roofing also installed more than 20,000 square feet of roofing panels. New Castle Metals of Hicksville, N.Y., manufactured the panels onsite, the Drexel Metals 450SL, a 1-1/2-inch snap lock profile. Medium Bronze was the color selected for the 15-inch wide 24-gauge panels, installed on a 5:12 slope.

“My biggest concern going in was how strong the system was going to be, because we had to walk on it,” Vitolo said. “It wasn’t an issue. It’s definitely walkable.”

Vitolo said he was also worried about the appearance of oil canning with the long panels, but between the usage of floating clips and spacers, it wasn’t a problem.

“When you get involved with a project of this magnitude, there are a lot of things you look out for,” Vitolo said. “I think we did a good job of anticipating any issues. We didn’t have any complaints, no callbacks. It was the smoothest job of this size we worked on this year.”

General Contractor: A & J Construction, West Nyack, N.Y.

Roofing Installer: R.K. Roofing Inc., Wingdale, N.Y.

Panel Manufacturer: New Castle Metals, Hicksville, N.Y.

Date Completed: July 2024