On October 25, 2023, Hurricane Otis made landfall near the port of Acapulco. Its power devastated the coast of Guerrero, with maximum sustained winds of about 270 kilometers per hour, one of the strongest recorded hurricanes to have impacted the Mexican Pacific.
While most of the surrounding shops, restaurants, hotels and businesses were completely demolished by the category 5 hurricane, remarkably and for the most part, the Acapulco grocery store remained intact. In the aftermath of the hurricane, the roofing contractor visited the site to inspect for roof damage. Sections of the roof that were without solar experienced severe roof blow-off. However, the store’s rooftop solar array secured in place by S-5! PVKITs and Mini clamps withstood the devastation.
Photos of the site taken post-hurricane clearly indicate the vast majority of roof damage was to areas of the roof without solar installed. This is evident, even in the higher-pressure edge roof zones, where the roofing panels along the edge zones, under the solar modules, were not damaged while the nearby bare roofing was blown off. The logical conclusion is that the solar modules, PVKITs and Mini clamps installed over portions of the roof prevented those portions from failing, preserving both the solar modules and the roof.
The Mini clamps together with the PVKIT solar mountings by S-5! were installed to secure the solar modules to the metal roof, but the clamps performed a secondary function as wind clamps, often referred to as External Seam Clamps. These external seam clamps measurably increase the roof’s wind uplift resistance capacity, preventing multiple modes of failure, including seam separation and clip disengagement (when used at roof clip locations).
Third-party testing performed in 2013 resulted in a 300% increase in uplift resistance of a metal roof when S-5!’s WindClamps™ were installed on the roof seams. The Mini clamps on the grocery store roof acted as external seam clamps during the Acapulco category 5 hurricane.
The metal roof seams were strengthened from the installation of the Mini clamps to resist uplift pressures on the roof and met the challenge to secure the solar modules to the building, preventing wind uplift forces from tearing them off the building and preserving the roof.
S-5! PVKIT provided a direct-attachment of the solar modules to the roof's seams and are 85% lighter than rail systems.
S-5! Clamps performed a secondary function as wind clamps, often referred to as External Seam Clamps. They securely held the solar modules in place against the category 5 hurricane forces.
