Category Archives: Roofing Materials

Solar Panels & Shingles: Not a Marriage Made in Heaven

Posted by The Pole Barn Guru on 01/31/2012

An increasing number of new pole building owners consider installing solar roofing panels in order to harness solar energy and generate electricity for their new buildings. The traditional approach was based on installing heavy crystalline solar panels on top of an asphalt shingle roof. Shingles are an oil based roofing system with a relatively short […]

Categories: Building Styles and Designs, Roofing Materials, Pole Barn Planning, Pole Barn Structure
Tags: Cyrstalline Solar Panel System, Shingled Roofs, Solar Roofing
1 comments

Skylights

Posted by The Pole Barn Guru on 01/30/2012

A request we receive frequently is for skylights to be installed in the steel covered roofs of our pole buildings. My first thoughts go back to a building I worked inside of over the winter of 1980-81. About 20 years old, the building had a steel roof with numerous fiberglass (actually Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic or […]

Categories: Roofing Materials, Pole Barn Planning, Pole Barn Structure
Tags: Fiberglass Eave Lights, FRP Panels, Polycarbonate Eave Lights, Transluscent Panels
28 comments

Why Steel Roofing?

Posted by The Pole Barn Guru on 01/19/2012

My grandparent’s lake cabin was nearly 75 years old when the cedar shake roof finally gave out in the 1980’s. With the quality of cedar shakes down and the price high (besides the dangers of a wooden roof in a forest) the solution became clear – painted steel. In the woods, the non-combustible feature alone […]

Categories: Pole Building Comparisons, Roofing Materials, Pole Barn Planning, Steel Roofing & Siding
Tags: Asphalt Shingles, Pre-painted Steel, Reroofing
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Stitch Screws: What do they do?

Posted by The Pole Barn Guru on 12/23/2011

Seeing as it’s Friday, I’ll give you a “shorty” today. At the beginning of this year my bride and I visited a horse barn facility in Florida we sold fall of 2010. This was a huge building and although our programs calculate just over a 5% overage cushion for screws, we really went heavy on […]