Southwest College, a Los Angeles-area comunity college in the Westmont neighborhood, uses cool roof, standing-sam metal roofing from Custom-Bilt Metals, Chino, CA, to reduce energy costs and contribute to green-building energy certification.

The company's roofing products top the college's new construction of almost 90,000 sq. ft. of facilities, including a student services and activities center, maintenance and operation center, parking structure, fieldhouse and general use and concessions building. The project was fabricated by Keystone Roofing Inc., Custom Metal Solutons, Oceanside, CA. Spread over two acres of campus properties, the project includes interesting architectural features such as the metal roofing, as well as custom metal fascia on numerous shade structures that unify the facility's look.

The project used 700 squares of Custom-Bilt's Titan standing seam CB-150 panels in Old Town gray. The flat-stock panels were custom formed onsite and complement the project with a classic look that produces dramatic shadow lines the run continuously from ridge to eave, accenting the pitch and plane of each roof angle.

"Many challenges arose during this process, mainly because the butterfly-shaped roofs created a water shedding dilemma that needed extreme modification to insure water tightness between crickets and metal roofing," said Martk Katona, president of Keystone Roofing." In the end we delivered a combination of colored PVC material and metal-roofing transitions that look pleasing as well as shed water properly."

Lower energy bills Buildings with cool roofs use as much as 40% less energy for cooling than buildings with darker-colored roofs, according to research from the Heat Island Group, Berkeley, CA. Custom-Bilt Metals has partnered with PPG, Pittsburgh, to provide panels using the Kynar 500 paint system with UltraCool coatings. The heat-relective coatings also meet Energy Star criteria for cool roofs. The CB-150 panels chosen for the Southwest College project are available in 25 colors and offer a 35-yr., no-fade warranty.

The Los Angeles Community College District, of which Southwest is a part, mandates the use of sustainable building practices for its nine campuses. The metal roofing products contribute to LEED credits where recycled content, recyclability, energy optimization, and water-collection properties are included in a whole-building, weighted-average approach.