architecture tips

Roof drains are commonly used on flat roofed buildings in America. For years there have been a few manufacturers that make commercial drains out of either cast iron or plastic. Both cast iron drains and plastic drains are a pain to install. Having to cut out roofing membrane and install a clamping system that clamps the drain to the roof from below the roof line. Cast iron drains are very costly and plastic drains tend to fail over time. But there is an alternative!

Thunderbird Products has been making copper drains for over 30 years. Copper drains don't rust, are very easy to install, and are cost effective. Copper roof drains come on a large flashing made out of 20 ounce natural copper. Why is this important? This is what makes the drain easy to install, just nail the flashing down and put your waterproofing over it and your done!

One of the biggest problems with cast iron and plastic roof drains is that as the building settles the drain winds up popping up off the roof causing puddling around the drain and usually a future callback to the contractor and roofer. Thunderbird copper drains eliminate this problem. The nature of copper is that it is a softer metal. So as a building settles the copper drain flashing actually settles with the roof. This means no more puddling, and no more call-backs!

One potential problem with copper drains is electrolysis. This is reaction that happens between some dissimilar metals. For instance, when copper comes in contact with iron the two metal corrode each other. It is therefore easy to see why you wouldn't want to use a copper drain on a steel or tin roof. That is why Thunderbird Products recently introduce a line of drains that are made out of 26 gauge marine grade 316 stainless steel. Stainless steel can be used with metal roofing systems, and does not have a bad reaction to other metals.

Thunderbird products also manufactures a line of TPO cladded drains. TPO is recenlty popular waterproofing membrane that can be heat welded to itself. It is a great single ply roofing membrane that has a very long life and a very successful track record. Thunderbird TPO cladded roof drains use TPO cladded flashing material from the manufacturer. An installer no longer has to cut a whole in their tpo material to install a drain. Just buy a Thunderbird TPO roof drain, put it down, and heat weld directly to the drain flashing.

All Thunderbird roof drains share some common characteristics. All model are made with a seamless drain basin and flashing. All drains come with a strong ABS plastic dome strainer. Made for pipe size up to 6" in diameter. Overflow and clamping ring options available.

There are a few online retails that have Thunderbird Products line of drains in stock and ready to ship.

CopperLab: http://www.copperlab.com/

and

DrainsUSA: http://www.drainsusa.com/

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