Most commercial building owners think about their roof hatches once, when they’re installing them, and then forget about them until a problem arises, typically at the most inopportune moment. However, what many operators and project managers fail to realize is that the hatch you choose today inherently establishes a trend of costs (or savings) over the decades. Sure, a hatch that costs a couple hundred dollars less will save you upfront, but it can quickly cost thousands down the line in repairs, energy losses and time lost dealing with maintenance issues.
Hatch failures are rarely drastic. They happen over time. The weather stripping can wear down, the hinges can jam, the latch no longer catches. By the time you notice, you’ve already been paying for it, as air escapes through gaps that won’t seal, costing you higher heating bills; or water creeps in and deteriorates materials underneath.
What Roof Hatch Materials Make a Difference?
Essentially, the materials of the roof hatch dictate how often you’ll have to deal with them. For instance, while aluminum is better in almost all instances than steel to prevent corrosion, it’s not that simple. While marine-grade aluminum can withstand coastal conditions where salt air eats through metals within a matter of years, it’s far less likely that galvanized steel holds up well in overly humid environments – but it’ll work fine in dry climates. It’s a temperamental difference.
It might be easy to think that the quality of metal matters when it comes solely to rusting capabilities, but that’s not the case. Over time, cheaper metals warp slightly, meaning that seals do not fit tightly any longer. This means that your HVAC system must work overtime to compensate for air leaks, hundreds of dollars lost per year for a building with an improperly sealed roof hatch, not to mention the staff who never make a connection between increased utility bills and the roof.
As much as the door matters, so does the frame. A properly designed rooftop hatch should come with a curb or frame that’s designed to bear any stresses placed upon them and maintain their integrity through thermal expansion and contraction. When they flex or settle unevenly, good doors even fail to seal properly.
How Weather Sealing Plays into Cost
Sealing mechanisms sound easy until you realize how much punishment roof hatches get. They are exposed to sun, rain, snow, ice and wind with no protection whatsoever. Thousands of times a year per weather change, the gaskets and seals operate on compression and expansion alone. Lower quality seals fail in four years. Higher quality ones fail ten or fifteen years later.
Seals have to be replaced, and that’s not easy without maintenance getting up on the roof and having the proper tools in place, scheduling, safety considerations and labor costs associated with replacement. If a specific hatch requires more intensive seal replacement (i.e. removal of pins), then you’re paying more every time just because of initial design. Some have seals that pop out of channels; others require cutting.
Water intrusion from failed seals create a different cost entirely. A little leak here and there may not mean much, but water that enters from a hatch can destroy insulation, ceiling substrates and even the roof deck itself, which costs exponentially more than replacing a seal would have ever needed.
The Importance of Hardware – Hinges/Springs/Latches
Weldless hinges, springs and latches may sound trivial, but these are what maintenance men deal with whenever they access your roof hatch. Cheap hinges fail. Springs lose pressure which means heavier lifts; hinges jam making hatches hard to access; latches fail to catch properly which is a security issue but also dangerous if wind blows an open hatch off its current state.
Where this costs you money is in labor time, it should take a few minutes for an employee to get access to the roof hatch if they need something moved from the rooftop; however, if they’re fighting a sticky hatch each and every time they need access, it adds up quickly. A commercial building with frequent rooftop access needs, once weekly for HVAC checks or regular equipment inspections, can lose out on hours of labor annually just by hardware that doesn’t work appropriately. At typical labor rates for commercial buildings, this adds up.
Spring-assisted hatches make opening easier, but only if they’re sized appropriately and made to last. Under-sized springs fail quicker; over-sized springs slam hatches shut which eventually damages frames and seals over time.
Access Patterns and Their Implications
Ultimately, how often someone is using your roof hatch determines which factors apply most heavily and why. If you have a person accessing the roof hatch twice yearly for a check-up versus accessing it three times a week, that’s going to wear out different components.
More access means more rigorous consideration in terms of more durable hinges, better step systems or more robust hardware designed for thousands instead of hundreds of cycles per seal component.
This is where the initial selection drives long-term performance and expected costs. If you downsized your expectations based on forecasted access and then they turned out greater than expected/anticipated, the door may still function as intended, but it’ll start needing repairs and realignment adjustments more frequently than it’s supposed to.
How Insulation Impacts Hatch Value
An insulated hatch is basically on par with cutting an extra hole within your roof (for thermal considerations). It’s either insulation between two pieces of metal or it’s just metal. Therefore it makes sense to insulate because it doesn’t cost much to do so compared to energy losses. The average energy losses are not exorbitant on a per-square-foot basis, but they add up over time. It makes no sense why someone would want an uninsulated hatch, it’s just an unnecessary added hole in your roof.
Insulated hatches need their R-value maintained, for cheap insulation compresses and/or rots if moisture gets into them. Once insulation is compromised, thermal performance continues downward until it’s replaced.
Some insulated hatches come with thermal breaks through their metal frames; others do not and therefore cold transfers right through, even if the door panel is insulated. This creates condensation in cold weather, which means rusting and water-damaged frames which could’ve been avoided had it been insulated better.
Falling Victim to The False Economy
A cheap hatch sounds like an effective budget solution, but more often than not it isn’t. Hatches at budget value do not allow for features that decrease problems found later (i.e improper drainage channels, reinforced corners, penetrating fasteners tested for weather sealing). When this happens, issues arise quicker than anticipated.
Costs associated with replacement include more than just purchasing another new hatch, they include removal of existing ones, disposal fees, potential curb repairs if frames penetrate too deeply into roof system, new flashing and labor for all of it, and this could easily cost up to four times than what was needed initially. If a better option would have lasted two times longer (without these replacement concerns) then cost-of-lifetime-ownership completely transforms.
What’s Easy Over Time?
Do you really value what makes sense now, without consideration for down-the-line ownership? Does it sound good to pay $500 more now assuming you’re going to use less service calls while having them last five years longer? Include energy losses associated with easy/hard hatch operation or worse, water-related degradation failure due to seal losses which additional costs over twenty years could save major dollars.
Generally speaking, unless something catastrophic happens like huge holes opening no building operates on two different roof hatches in its lifetime unless extreme failures occur. That’s a substantial amount of time over which small inefficiencies can build. A hatch can cost $100 annually operating inefficiently with an additional service call every other year unnecessarily for an additional $3,000 over its lifespan compared to one which is better facilitated. Suddenly your higher price isn’t so expensive upfront.
The best option for long-term costs is not necessarily the most expensive option, but one that adequately matches with specifications needs of your building, climate control conditions, access frequency needs, equipment needs passing through them, etc. By matching them correctly at the outset you save money over time down the line.