Help calculating wind loads in accordance with the revised UK National Annex to Eurocode 1 is now available to roofing and cladding manufacturers and contractors through Roofconsult, the independent roofing and cladding consultancy.

Roofconsult’s Roofwind range of spreadsheets has been updated to meet the UK National Annex Eurocode 1 – ctions on structures Part 1-4: General actions – Wind Actions (BS EN 1001-1-4:2005), which was revised earlier this year.

The Roofwind range of Excel spreadsheets comprises the original wind loads calculations to BS6399 launched by Roofconsult on its formation in 2003 – Roofwind – and its bigger brother Roofwind Plus, as well as the new European code spreadsheets.

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RoofwindEN calculates wind loads based on two categories of terrain – town or country – and where the orography (topography) is not significant. Data has to be manually fed in. But RoofwindPlusEN uses site data from the Fastrak BREVe programme from CSC (UK).

From just the National Grid reference of the site, Fastrak BREVe determines the site parameters automatically from extensive databases of ground roughness and altitude for sites in the UK and Ireland, and calculates site exposure to give optimum results.

Considerations include building measurements, dominant openings, roof pitch, adjacent buildings, site altitude, distance to sea and town, and probability (1 in 50 years storm) factor.

David Roy FloR, Managing Director of Roofconsult, which specialises in flat roofing metal sheeting and cladding, said: "All public funded buildings should have been designed in accordance with Eurocode from April 2010.

"With the publication of the revised national annex in January, now is the good time to update the spreadsheets to the current British Standard."

The Roofwind spreadsheets can be customised for individual products or systems, such as single ply membranes, composite panel fixings and roof-based photovoltaic systems, and are priced from £350.

For further information Visit: www.roofconsult.co.uk