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Storm-damaged Arena Roof Finds New Life in Recycled Walkway
The University of Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena hosts
some of the most intense athletic competition in the country,
seating 15,500 college basketball fans and serving as
a venue for concerts, sports camps and commencements.
But when a hailstorm and a tornado came to town on the
same day, the arena itself was confronted by a powerful
competitor that damaged the 25-year-old roof.
Although UI had been planning to phase in a new system
due to the roof’s advancing age, the storm damage
called for an immediate roof replacement, and it needed
to be done in two months to avoid delaying the start of
the fall basketball season.
To continue the tradition of longevity and high performance,
UI’s roof consultants recommended a Sarnafil vinyl
EnergySmart Roof® to replace the older Sarnafil membrane.
Copper brown flashing membrane on the truss column bases
complemented the roof’s distinctive exposed Cor-Ten
steel trusses for an especially aesthetic profile.
And the plan came with another appealing component: Sika
Sarnafil could recycle the old vinyl membrane into roofing
walkway membrane, a more cost effective choice than paying
for dumpsters and the associated tipping fees at a landfill
– and certainly more environmentally friendly.
In the commercial, low slope roofing market, vinyl is
the only material with an established recycling system
in place. And because it is a thermoplastic, vinyl can
be reprocessed and recycled repeatedly into new products,
including roofing membranes. All it requires is a recycler
and the technology to process the material into new membranes
and roofing accessories, which Sika Sarnafil has.
While the new roof was being installed, the old one was
rolled up, sent to a Cedar Rapids recycler for grinding,
and then returned to Sika Sarnafil to be processed into
the new roofing membrane products. Fabricated with an
aggressive tread to protect both the roof and the roofer,
Sarnatred walkway membrane had historically been manufactured
of virgin vinyl. But half of the content of these pads
is recycled.
Despite the narrow timeframe and the added recycling component,
the project was finished in one phase and ahead of schedule.
“Now that we’ve handled one recycling project,
I think we will look into this for other jobs,”
said the project’s contractor, Byron Warnick, president
of CEI Roofing of Dallas, Tex. “This will be something
owners will want to be a part of.” UI’s project
engineer, Jeff Hayes, concurred. “It’s a win-win
situation for everyone,” he said.
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