Weather & Maintenance
What Causes Metal Roof Problems and How Can You Prevent Them?
A metal roof should last decades. When one gives trouble, it's usually one of a handful of causes, and most are preventable at the design stage.
Read moreSteel buildings hold up well in Arkansas weather. Steel doesn’t rot in the humidity, termites can’t eat it, and it isn’t combustible like wood framing. But five things about the climate here still shape how a building should be specced: humidity, hail, wind, ice, and the clay the building sits on. Planning for them before the first panel goes up is far cheaper than fixing them after.
Humidity and condensation
The most common surprise with a metal building in Arkansas isn’t a storm. It’s a drip. On a humid spring morning, an uninsulated metal roof is colder than the air beneath it, and moisture condenses on the underside and falls on whatever is below. People often mistake it for a leak.
The fix is insulation, planned before the build. If you’ll store anything you care about or spend time inside, read when a metal building needs insulation.
Hail
Hail is why a lot of carports get built in April. Steel panels take hail far better than a windshield or an RV roof does. A vertical roof style also sheds the ice that comes with a hailstorm instead of letting it sit.
Wind
Open-sided buildings catch wind, and tall ones catch more of it. That’s why anchoring is never a one-size decision. A carport in Pine Bluff and one in Springdale don’t see the same conditions, and a tall RV cover needs more holding power than a low single cover. The anchoring should be sized for the building’s height, its exposure, and the ground it’s on.
Ice storms
Every few winters, Arkansas gets an ice storm. Roof pitch and panel orientation decide whether that ice runs off or accumulates. On larger roofs, vertical panels make a real difference, and a steeper pitch helps too.
Clay soil
After a wet spring, Arkansas clay softens and moves. Anchors need to reach deep enough to hold when the ground is soft, and a foundation has to carry a building through years of wet-and-dry cycles. This is the part of the job that’s invisible once the building is up, and it’s where this company started: 30 years of pouring concrete in Central Arkansas. Read more in anchoring a metal building in clay soil.
What this means for your building
None of this is a reason to avoid steel. It’s a reason to spec the building for the ground it sits on. That’s how Metal Dreams quotes every carport, garage, shop, and barndominium: framing, roof pitch, and anchoring set for where the building goes and what goes in it. Request a free estimate and tell us your town.
