Armadale Arena, WA

Fielders KingKlip® 700 made from COLORBOND® steel Surfmist® has proven to be a versatile cladding solution for this reroofing project on Armadale Arena in Perth’s southern suburbs, with 1024 square metres of the cladding rolled and curved on-site.

The community sport stadium reroofing project was managed by Nationwide Australia Roofing who discovered that the existing roof was leaking through its pierce fixings. Instead of just replacing the fasteners, a complete reroof was deemed the best long-term solution.

“Our company was first engaged by facility owners, City of Armadale, to undertake a roof check and provide a condition report,” said Company Director, Phil Del Borrello.

“The site was experiencing some water leaks and we soon identified the fixings as the main source of the problem. With pierce fixings, the rubber washers can deteriorate and allow water to enter over time, then you also have potential issues with the cladding if water gets (trapped) between the overlapping sheets.”

Fielders KingKlip® 700 made from COLORBOND® steel Surfmist® was an appropriate solution for several important reasons. Its concealed fixed design, utilising specially engineered fastening clips attached to the substructure, onto which the cladding is pushed and locked into place, eliminated the problem of the deteriorating screws.

Additionally, KingKlip® 700 can span long distances, and for this project the steel was rolled on-site to 26.85 metre lengths, resulting in full coverage of the curved roof in a single sheet with no joins. The 700mm wide sheets were also curved on-site before being bundled and craned to the roof for installation.

“Every join on a roof has the potential to leak, so having the long spans reduces the likelihood of water ingress issues. We were able to achieve these long lengths by rollforming and curving on site, without having to worry about transportation issues,” Phil said.

Nationwide Australia Roofing completed the Armadale Arena reroofing project within a tight one-month construction schedule, during which the arena was closed to the public. The project was achieved by a team of ten professional installers, along with two Fielders technicians who operated the rollforming machine. The Fielders’ Production Foreman and Commercial Business Development Manager were also on-site during the sheet rolling and curving process to provide technical advice.

“KingKlip® 700 is a familiar product for our team, we work with it regularly, so the installation process went extremely smoothly. The cladding also complemented the roof’s fibreglass skylights which we replaced as part of the reroofing process,” Phil said.

“I also found Fielders to be extremely supportive. This was the first time we’d rollformed on site, so it was reassuring to have the Fielders team with us to ensure it all ran smoothly.”

Phil said the City of Armadale was not only pleased with the appearance of the finished project but also relieved that the new roof would require little maintenance over its lifetime.

“We always recommend the best solution for our clients, even if it involves us trying new processes. I have no doubt that the KingKlip® 700 will perform very well in this application, it’s a cladding profile that we regularly build with and I can see us using it on many more projects in the future, while also making the most of Fielders’ on-site rollforming capabilities,” he said.