What is Radius Metal Roofing?
The best part about this job is the opportunity to install many different types of roofs for many different buildings. One of our recent jobsites, a pie pizzeria in South Salt Lake, had a curved portion of their roof that required metal radius roofing panels. Radius roofing panels are curved from one end of the panel to the other, to fit the shape and contour of the roof. 
Installing flat metal panels seems self explanatory, but how are panels curved to fit a specific roof? We began by running a dark bronze 24-gauge pre-painted galvanized steel coil through a panel machine. Dark bronze is, incidentally, the most popular metal roofing color today.
An interesting part of this process is that the panels are 46 feet long! That’s longer than a school bus or even a 3 car garage. You can imagine the difficulty in handling these panels. It takes several men to control the panels as they run through the machine.Once the panels are ran straight through the machine, we put them through another that does the curving. To curve the metal, we used NewTech ss150 as the profile. This gave us 20 inch wide panels with ribs at 1 ½” ribs.
The trickiest part of curving the panels is figuring the exact radius. For the average size roof this takes almost as long as running the panels. It is kind of a “trial and error” process. Once we have it figured correctly, we stack them, ready to install. We use a crane to lift them or hand load them (with lots of men) onto the roof. Both ends are hooked onto a D-style drip edge using concealed panel clips.They are screwed down every 2 to 3 feet using these clips, which are not visible in the final roof. Aesthetics aside, this installation method will prevent leaks. Generally, with metal roofs, there are seams that are in areas where water will build up during storms. If the panels are not installed correctly, the water will come through the seams.
After securing the panels, we manually close the seam with a special tool. The final roof with have some waviness (i.e. oil canning) by the nature of the radius paneling and installation process. These waves mean that the roof is installed correctly. The waves should not be visible from the ground.As you can see, these radius metal roof installations are quite the process. Because we are nerdy roofers, we think it is fun. Haha, dad, just seeing if you read to the end. The entire roof is designed and installed to fit the contour and size of the roof. An entire crew is necessary just to manufacture the panels, not to mention the crane and specialty tools used to install the final product. However, if you take a look at the finished roof, I’m sure you will agree, it is all worth it!Check out this pizzeria at about 200 E 3300 South Salt Lake