S2: E27 Roofing Road Trips with Heidi Welcomes Tremco’s Chris Cooper and Ashley Cooper

By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.

This RRT episode is all about using technology on the rooftop.

Chris Cooper, southern Indiana Tremco foreman, and Ashley Cooper (no relation), Tremco product manager for Knovi Monitoring Technology and its SmartDrain product join Heidi to talk about how this cool rooftop technology works and the innovation behind it.  

The SmartDrain technology is really interesting, says Ashley. “It's a wireless technology that is installed or fixed rather, I should say, to our drain covers on our rooftop. So, it's a completely wireless system that allows us to monitor the water levels around our drain.”

Clogged drains can be devastating to rooftops says Ashley. “This technology allows us to proactively monitor [the] drains and know the minute that water levels rise around our drains. And what it does is it sends us an email and or a text message the moment that our water levels rise. In our industry previously we've been a little more reactive to situations such as clogged drains and this really affords us the opportunity to be proactive.”

Chris was recently involved in a project in Kentucky where they installed 29 Knovi SmartDrains on the roof. Chris shared, “[We] made a determination that this would be best for them to do. As we did that, we investigated the drains, we found that they had plastic strainers on most of the drains. So, before we started with the drain sensors, we installed new drain screens on all the drains, including retrofits of everything. So, we had a good, solid surface that we were going to apply these drain sensors to.”

Ashley commended Chris and his team because this was their first SmartDrain project. “They had really never seen the technology before. Never felt it, never touched it. And they very smoothly did the installation of the 29 sensors. I believe it was about a day and a half that they were on and off the roof. So that just goes to attest to how easy the installation is.”

Easy to install, 24/7 monitoring and alerts when drains are clogged is a win-win for both the contractor and the building owner.

Listen to the full episode to learn more about this groundbreaking technology.