Texas State Roofing was honored to a tour of the GAF Plant in Ennis, Texas for the inaugural run of the GAF Timberline® HDZ™ High Definition® Lifetime Shingles! Accuracy made easy with the industry’s largest nailing zone. This new shingle design will be available in Texas in the very near future!
The GAF Ennis Plant operates 24/7 with complete efficiency, constant product testing and a commitment to a safe working environment. GAF has a winning formula that benefits all concerned – the end user, a home or business owner; the roofing contractor, the material supplier, and the awesome team of employees designing, testing, manufacturing, selling and managing GAF.
GAF manufactures the fiberglass ‘mat’ – the actual skeleton of any shingle at the Ennis Plant. Currently, one of two GAF fiberglass mat manufacturing facilities with a third on the way. This manufacturing line takes huge bins of glass fibers and creates rolls and rolls of fiberglass mat material that is principally utilized for roofing shingles. The fiberglass mat is also utilized in the manufacture of wall to wall carpet. An amazing process of transformation from a raw material to critical product utilized in so many manufacturing opportunities.
The manufacturing facility for the shingles at the GAF Plant is seemingly like a Willy Wonka wonderland. All the ingredients – huge rolls of fiberglass mat, specially formulated steaming hot asphalt, bins and bins of the various colors of ceramic granuals, and some ‘secret’ stuff all flow into the monstrous mechanical line to create state of the art shingles. The large rolls of fiberglass mat get coated with asphalt, inundated with sprinkles of granuals in specific color combinations, cooled down, cut into shingle parts, assembled with special adhesives (and the new HDZ shingles receiving the proprietary LayerLock™ which mechanically fastens the common bond), packaged and palleted. There is certainly a lot of engineering involved in this facility.
Next was the tour of Product Testing Lab, a critical component in assuring consistent quality. Undoubtedly there are the many components and products that go into and result from the manufacture of shingles. Lots of fun scientific stuff going on here.
Thank you GAF for this opportunity to learn what goes into something seemingly as simple as a shingle. And especially being invited for the inaugural run of GAF Timberline® HDZ™ High Definition® Lifetime Shingles!
