Roof Mounted Equipment

Wilde Consulting Engineers have provided structural engineering advice to many Clients who wish to extend their facilities and operations through installing additional external equipment at roof level. This equipment includes:

• Solar panels.
• Mechanical plant, eg heating and ventilation systems.
• Telecommunications equipment.
• Access walkways and stairs.

Schemes fall into two broad categories. The first is where the new equipment is relatively lightweight and can be added without the need for any roof strengthening works. The second is for heavier equipment where roof strengthening works are required.

For both categories, the starting point is to establish the strength, existing loading arrangements and condition of the existing roof structure to determine whether there is any spare ‘load capacity’ available.

For modern facilities, this can often be done with reference to original design documents (drawings and calculations) supported by a site inspection visit to confirm roof and loading layout arrangements. Often, a qualitative approach is sufficient, obviating the need to carry out detailed and costly quantitative strength assessment.

For older structures where original design documents are not available, more detailed site inspections are often required to establish the roof structural layout and member sizes. This information is then used in studies to determine the roof strength in relation to the existing loading arrangement.

Projects completed have ranged from adding solar panels to Victorian era market halls with iron roof structures through adding heating and ventilation equipment to 1960’s steel framed boiler houses to adding solar panels to recently constructed steel framed warehouses.

Each Project is unique, requiring bespoke approaches and solutions.