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Crazy or Confident? The Proof is in the Roof
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VENDOR TEAM
Brazos Urethane, Inc.
1031 6th St. N.
Texas City, TX 77590
(409) 965-0011
www.brazosurethane.com
BAYER MATERIALSCIENCE
Coatings
100 Bayer Road
Pittsburgh, PA 15205
(412) 777-2000
www.bayermaterialscience.com
BAYSYSTEMS
Coatings/SPF supplier
P.O. Box 6460
Phoenix, AZ 85005
(800) 289-8272
www.bsna.com
BULLARD
Respirators
1898 Safety Way
Cynthiana, KY 41031
(800) 227-0423
www.bullard.com
GRACO
Spray equipment
88-11th Ave NE
Minneapolis, MN 55413
(800) 647-4336
www.graco.com
EVONIK/DEGUSSA CORP
Sonneborn NP1 urethane sealant
P.O. Box 677
Parsippany, NJ 07054
www.degussa-nafta.com
MILWAUKEE ELECTRIC TOOL CORPORATION
Sawzall
13135 W. Lisbon Road
Brookfield, WI 53005
(800) 729-3878
www.milwaukeetool.com
MI-T-M CORP.
Power-washer
8650 Enterprise Drive
Peosta, IA 52068
(800) 553-9053
www.mitm.com
SIKA CORPORATION
Sikaflex urethane sealant
201 Polito Ave
Lyndhurst, NJ 07071
(800) 933-7452
www.sikausa.com
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By Stephanie Marie Chizik
Bidding on a roof coating job in Houston, Texas right before the start of hurricane season may concern some people. Warranting a 20-year-old building for another 20 years may raise some eyebrows. However, it was the guarantee that if the new roof could be lifted by the gulf coast wind the owners would get a free replacement that may have had some people calling the Brazos Urethane, Inc. crew crazy.
With the amount of preparation that went into this roof re-coating job, though, it should be no surprise that the coating contractor was willing to stand behind — and on — the roof.
Safety First
Before the job began, Brazos — working with a general contractor from Anadarko Industries — needed to ensure their company could meet all initiatives presented by the client. The first task the coatings crew needed to accomplish was to address safety.
“We spent the first two weeks setting up our safety program,” states Wally Scoggins, Brazos’ owner. All employees went through background checks and completed a 30-hour course to receive Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) certifications. Brazos was also required to have an OSHA-certified scaffold builder and a certified scaffold inspector, as well as design, fabricate, and install an approved permanent fall protection system.
With their safety list checked off, the Brazos crew could move on to their second initiative: being green.
Roof-Pollutant Free
After experiencing years of leakage and numerous repairs, the client — associated with the U.S. government — decided to repair their multi-level rooftop. They needed to find something to control the multiplying screw holes created with the metal roof’s expansions and contractions. After researching different options, the client chose Bayer’s roofing system because of its insulation value and 20-year warranty (with unlimited wind rider). They chose Brazos to help.
Because the roof was made up of five separate levels, the six-to-nine-person crew from Brazos treated each section separately. On each level — starting with the highest first and working their way to the lowest — they followed the same steps: power-wash, prime, foam, and apply the basecoat.
The project started in February with power-washing the roof. The crew used a MI-T-M 3500 psi washer to remove dirt and chalking. Because of the green initiative, the crew collected all used water to ensure no nearby ground water was contaminated. To do this, the crew devised a low-tech solution, attaching nylons to the end of the downspouts. This makeshift sieve allowed the water to flow through the gutter, but caught any debris flowing with it. Once they were finished power-washing the roof, the crew removed the nylons and disposed of them in trash receptacles.
In the meantime, the metal roof was left to air dry before the next coating: the primer. The Brazos team used a Graco airless pump and 831 tip to apply two mils (DFT) of BaySystems EC 100 black primer. With a three to four hour wait until the primer was dry, the crew was able to complete a few tasks that needed to be done before applying the spray polyurethane foam (SPF).
To prepare the equipment up on the rooftop, the crew draped the hoses and lines along the edge of the roof. They also needed to find a way to contain the SPF overspray.
“Preparing the surfaces that are not to get foam is one of our biggest challenges,” explains Scoggins. With the building surrounded by parking lots, the crew relied on wind screens to catch any foam before it could hit the cars. These hand-made boxes — constructed from aluminum angle iron, tubing, and mesh — could be rolled around the job site as the sprayers moved, allowing the wind to pass through but stopping the overspray from exiting. Given the sensitive location below, containment on this job site was key.
No Nonsense Makes Good Sense
Working on a hot rooftop in the midst of the humid Houston spring meant controlling hydration was a very real concern for the Brazos crew.
 “We had to be conscious of heat more than anything because the guys would just get dehydrated,” Scoggins says. “On the roof there’s nowhere to hide.” To ensure that no one experienced heat exhaustion, the crew took regular breaks throughout the three month-long job. In fact, the team’s safety plan included taking frequent, short breaks, paying attention to each other for signs of fatigue, and maintaining constant radio communication.
“We work as a team,” continues Scoggins. “We depend on everyone to keep us going.”
Occasionally, the crew was forced to retreat from the rooftop even when the sun wasn’t shining. If the wind speed reached 15 mph, the crew had to stop work and get off the rooftop. On these days, they tried to wait out the wind, hoping to climb back up and resume spraying before evening fell and the dew moisture levels rose, but all too often, they were forced to call it a day.
In fact, during the first few days — while the crew worked on the highest roof level — the wind was particularly troublesome. It took the team six days to spray-apply the foam to this level alone because of the wind. However, working between gusts, they were able to have enough time on the roof to spray two inches of Bayer’s BSNA three-pound SPF using a Graco H20/35 and a Gusmer GX7. To reach the nooks and crannies, they used 90 pcd and #1 module tips.
“Because we set up 100 percent tie off systems on every roofing project, before we even start spraying, we were able to move back and forth to each level of the roof as we desired,” Scoggins says. “We could spray foam on one roof and coat on another and do it at the same time.”
To accomplish this, they used a Graco 63:1 5000 psi with an 833 tip to apply 12 mils (DFT) of BaySystems’ 5410 high tensile acrylic coating. Once the foam was down, the crew returned immediately to apply the basecoat before heading home. After two days of this piece-by-piece process, the crew was able to add the midcoat into the mix.
A second layer of the 5410 basecoat was used to ensure adequate coverage and to achieve the desired DFT. To contrast the dark gray of the first basecoat, a light gray was chosen for the midcoat. The additional 12 mils (DFT) added in this step helped to achieve a combined thickness of 36 mils (DFT).
Perfect Scores
To help make one final push with their green initiative, Anadarko chose a white reflective, or “cool,” topcoat.
“It has the highest reflectivity and emissivity available,” Scoggins explains. “The topcoat helps reduce the heat island effect of metal roofs in Houston, Texas.” Using two six-mil (DFT) passes of Bayer’s white EC 5400 topcoat, Brazos was able to help Anadarko “take advantage of every energy saving product possible.”
 To ensure the best quality, the crew also retraced their steps to look for any discontinuities.
“Sometimes you get some nicks while you’re doing the job,” Scoggins says. “We’d fix all of those and put the coating on.” To re-finish any open foam, the crew used Sikaflex or NP1 urethane sealant, and to trim the SPF properly they used a variety of tools (Sawzalls, knives, handsaws, and grinders).
Even if no nicks or high spots had been found, the crew was still responsible for scoring the roof for quality control. After a week of filling in nicks, the crew cut one-inch deep by four-inch long slices out of the coating system. Every 500 square feet, the slices were removed, numbered, and recorded. Once the coating system passed Brazos’ inspection, the silts were refilled with the same urethane sealant they’d used earlier. With one last pass of the topcoat, the crew was finally finished.
In the end, the professional approach of the Brazos team paid off. Not only did they complete the job without any injuries or incidents, but they also completed the job with a quality award from Bayer.
“Working on a roof is one of the most dangerous professions there is and owners in this day and age are so safety conscious that they realize they’ve got a dangerous situation on hand,” Scoggins explains. “We need to show we know what we’re doing and we’re not going to hurt anyone or ourselves.” Their award helped prove that they’d done it the right way.
For Scoggins, this meant having his entire crew behave in a businesslike manner and wear proper personal protective equipment (PPE) at all times. Each member of the crew wore Bullard full-face fresh air masks at all times, and harnesses when working near the roof’s perimeter warning line.
As they exited the roof, the Brazos crew was confident that they’d done all they could to leave behind a perfectly safe, successful, and guaranteed rooftop.
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