Building products giant Georgia-Pacific says its newly released DensDeck StormX Prime Roof Board is the first high-performance gypsum roof board designed to help prepare commercial rooftops from impact and puncture caused by severe hail.
The product is classified for use in approved assemblies under FM Global’s Very Severe Hail Standard set in 2019. FM Global, a mutual insurance company that specializes in loss prevention services, considers Very Severe Hail to be those objects that are greater than or equal to 2 in, or about the size of a softball.
“DensDeck StormX Prime Roof Board is the premium choice in our product portfolio and the latest advancement in roof assembly preservation from Georgia-Pacific,” says Mikael Kuronon, director of product management, roofs, at Georgia-Pacific Building Products. “If your building is in a very severe hail zone or is frequently confronted by the intense moisture of hurricanes, you need a roof board that stands up to attack.”
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As Georgia-Pacific explains it, the past eight decades have seen multiple factors combined to raise the risk of experiencing a severe storm. As a result, more people and property are in the path of severe weather than ever before, “with an estimated 75 percent of American cities experiencing a hail storm annually. Since 1960, there has been a 400 percent increase in weather-related disaster losses,” the company adds.
Commercial buildings, condos, and multi-family buildings with their flat roofs are especially vulnerable to this hail damage, the company says. But DensDeck Prime with EONIC Technology helps enable structures to meet the FM Global Very Severe Hail Standard while simultaneously enhancing assembly protection.
Georgia-Pacific says DensDeck StormX is the perfect solution for structures within the Very Severe Hail zone because the proprietary engineering enables the board to prepare a roof to adapt to severe weather events as well as recover from them. The gypsum-based boards measure 5/8 inch thick and come in panels measuring 4 feet by 8 feet or 4 feet by 6 feet. It’s designed for low-slope commercial roofs.
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So what exactly is FM Global’s Very Severe Hail Standard? The Rhode island-based insurance company tests roof systems for moderate and severe hail impact resistance on how the systems withstand the dropping of a two-inch diameter 1.19 pound steel ball from either 8.1 inches or 141.5 inches, the company says. The new Very Severe Hail designation uses an ice launcher to propel a two-inch diameter laboratory-made ice ball at 152 to 160 feet per second. DensDeck StormX, Georgia-Pacific says, is classified for use in approved assemblies that meet these rigid standards for impact resistance. The severe hail zones includes such states as Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska. New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming.
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