Aging Roof Studies Show Interesting Results

Several prominent organizations have begun long-term studies to discover the effects of severe weather, high winds and impact on aging roofs. Until now, roofers and insurance companies knew that certain factors caused more claims, but had no studies to show specific vulnerabilities.

Photo courtesy of Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety - American Family Insurance aging roof research farm located in Madison, Wisconsin.

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) has completed tests that show older buildings have higher claim frequencies from natural disasters. Some of that may be due to improvements in building codes on new buildings in recent years, while others are caused by poor maintenance or aging building materials.

At its new roofing farm in South Carolina, IBHS constructed four homes with six different asphalt shingles each, for a total of 24 roof specimens. The roof aging study will be conducted over a 25-year period with roofs being studied every 5 years. More roof farms will be added to test other materials. The IBHS roof farm was created with consistent designs to nominalize the differences in roof exposure, slant, design and so on. Each has a north and south-facing section to note the effects of sun and exposure to the roofs. IBHS has also asked for partners to collaborate and install duplicate specimens in other parts of the country. It will supply the construction drawings and specifications and ask for periodic updates from partners on the performance of the roofs.

The American Modern Insurance Group and American Family Insurance also have “roof farms” where they test the long-term effects of aging on roof performance (in Richburg S.C. and Madison, Wis., respectively.) Tests in various parts of the country will allow for comparison between different climates and the effect on aging roofs.

Controlled aging of roofs in various climates, along with systematic testing of wind and impact resistance at various intervals will provide valuable data to both the insurance and roofing industries. It will also be invaluable to roofing manufacturers and professional roofers to help make residential and commercial roofing materials ever strong and safer in the future.