Coast Guard Roof: On A Clear Day,
You Can Coat Forever
By Jen Kramer   

Sitting in the midst of San Francisco Bay, Alameda Island, California is often shrouded in fog or blown by sea winds. Even in the height of summer it is not unusual to see folks strolling around in sweaters. But October of 2010 proved to be the meteorological exception to that rule -- a surprising exception for which Tom Burk and his crew from Phoenix Coatings, Inc. were very grateful.

“We had beautiful sunny weather, just perfect for coating the two roofs at the United States Coast Guard base on Alameda Island,” Burk says. “It was very unusual for the Bay Area, especially for that time of year, especially considering there weren’t even any winds.” Considering the intense bidding process, perhaps Mother Nature was taking it easy on the crew when it came to the job itself.

The job to repair and recoat the two roofs – totaling 52,000 square feet (4,830.96m²) in all – was not easily won. “It was a PIPS project,” Burk explains. “The Performance Information Procurement System (PIPS) is a system developed by Dr. Dean Kashiwagi at Arizona State University designed to identify the best value delivery systems based on performance.” Under this system, Phoenix Coatings is an “Alpha Contractor.” As Burk explains: “To be considered an ‘Alpha Contractor,’ we must maintain a minimum of 98% customer satisfaction and 98% roofs that don’t leak. Phoenix Coatings is one of only 14 polyurethane foam contractors in the United States to receive an ‘Alpha Contractor’ status from Arizona State University’s Del E. Webb School of Construction College of Engineering and Applied Sciences under the Alliance for Construction Excellence (ACE).”



Burk joined the program because he wanted to see how good he and his crew really were – and it has paid off. “We’ve been involved with the program now for 14 years,” he says. “The customers do all of the evaluations of the bidding contractors – not Dr. Kashiwagi. And in this instance, the Coast Guard was looking at best value, not necessarily the price of the bid.”

Measure First, Then Cut Substrate

The Coast Guard must have been impressed with Phoenix Coatings because Burk and his crew won the bid to coat 52,000 square feet (4,830.96m²) of roof divided between two buildings – each roughly 26,000 square feet (2,415.48m²) -- on the Alameda Island base.

“The existing tar and gravel over concrete roofs on Buildings 50 and 51 were both leaking in various places,” explains Burk. “But before we removed any of the old material or made any cuts into the substrate, we performed a moisture survey on each roof.”  To do so, Burk put on his five-point safety harness and climbed onto the roof. “The moisture surveys were performed with a Tramex moisture scanning device,” he explains. “Any areas that registered more than 15% moisture were carefully mapped out on a schematic drawing of the roofs’ surfaces.”

The schematic drawings were to play a very important role in the removal process because “we were not going to remove the entire roof,” Burk says. Since only portions of each roof were compromised, only those damaged portions would need to be removed and replaced. The drawings were a map to those damaged areas and would be given to the subcontractor in charge of removing the ballast and gravel from the roofs.

Once the moisture surveys were complete, the subcontractor arrived and removed the ballast and gravel from the roofs. Then Burk and his crew returned to re-survey the roofs – this time using a laser transit and looking for low areas. Any low areas were drawn on the maps and also recorded on the roof substrates themselves.

“After the gravel and ballast was removed and the low areas marked, we were finally ready to begin the demo process,” Burk says. The areas identified as wet were cut out using saws, shovels, and brooms. “By removing only the wet areas, we were able to obtain substantial savings in man hours and in dump fees,” he notes.

Since there was no hazardous waste in the wet recovery board and spent roofing materials, the crew was able to simply transport all removed materials to an approved dump site.

Coating In The Warm California Sun

Although the job seemed to be blessed with unusually beautiful weather, there were no guarantees that the weather would hold. In order to avoid overspray, should the wind return, the crew constructed windscreens using tarps and 2x4s.

In spite of the lovely weather, they had to cover-up in safety gear as well. “We drove to and from the site in short sleeves,” Burk says. “But when it came time to spray, we were covered by Tyvek suits and long sleeves.”

Before they could spray they had to give some tooth to the substrate. Using a roof spudder from Reeves Roofing Equipment and straight hoes to scrape to surface, the crew spudded the roof to remove any gravel that remained embedded in the tar. Explaining the spudding process, Burk laughs, “It’s like scarification only different.”

Then they fired up their Gusmer/Graco hybrid pneumatic 45:1 pumps and spray-applied BASF Elastospray 81302 spray polyurethane foam onto the cut-out areas. An HFC-blown, zero-Ozone depleting foam, the Elastospray was applied at the recommended 2" (5.08cm) thickness.

“Once the foam had cured, we applied Neogard’s 7419 elastomeric polyurethane base coat using rollers with 1/2" nap covers,” Burk notes. The high-build, aromatic, single-component base coat was roller-applied at a thickness of 4 gallons (15.4L) per 100 square feet (9.29m²).

After the base coat cured, the crew again used their Gusmer/Graco equipment to spray-apply the top coat. “We spray-applied Neogard’s 7443 top coat at a rate of 2 gallons (7.57L) per 100 square feet (9.29m²)  for a total dry film thickness of 65 mils (1.65mm),” says Burk. Neogard 7443 white is a single-component, aromatic, moisture-cured, fire-retardant polyurethane coating designed for use as a weather protective topcoat. “Using a 6 cubic foot blast pot from Clemco Industries we broadcast white roofing granules from Superior Marble to point of refusal,” states Burk.

And remarkably the weather held. “We had clear, sunny, wind-free days for the entire job,” Burk says with not a little amazement in his voice. Anyone familiar with the San Francisco Bay Area will understand. Like the mythological bird that shares their name, the Phoenix Coatings crew rose above the typical fog of a complex bidding process -- and the weather itself -- to complete a winning job.



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