Roofing On The Waterfront
By Jen Kramer   

When high winds damaged the roof of the Waterfront Office Tower in Louisville, Kentucky, the coatings crew from Spray-Tec Inc. was called upon to remedy the problem. As Roger Jordan, Vice President of Spray-Tec, Inc. explains, the building’s owner, The A.J. Schneider Company, is a key player on the Louisville waterfront. They are Louisville’s “largest owner-operator of hotels with real estate and lumber divisions. The company’s holdings include [local landmarks]: The Galt House Hotel, the Crowne Plaza Louisville Airport, Waterfront Plaza, One Riverfront Plaza, Medical Arts Building, and Home Supply Company.”

Not only is a Schneider project a matter of visual prominence on the Louisville waterfront, it is also a matter of civic pride as well. Jordan continues, “The company founder, A.J. Schneider, was one of Louisville’s most beloved citizens, devoting much of his time and money to the redevelopment of downtown Louisville, charities, businesses and churches around the area.”



Jordan’s company, Spray-Tec, Inc., has worked on Schneider projects for the last 20 years and has a good rapport with the company. That and their record of excellent work made Jordan and his crew more than contenders for this waterfront project. “We were awarded the bid to do a complete tear down and recoat with Gaco Western products on approximately 9,000 square feet of concrete roof deck starting in early September,” Jordan states.

A Matter Of “Simple” Logistics

The 16-story office building -- located in the heart of Louisville’s downtown and surrounded on both sides by office towers, in front by Main Street, and behind by a parking garage -- would be in use during the job. Spray-Tec’s Production Manager, Manuel Adler, and Safety Coordinator Mike Nykamp selected the seven-man crew, led by Javier Cruz, a 12-year veteran on Spray-Tec’s team. They would have one week to complete the project.

The building’s location would be tricky enough under normal circumstances, but the Waterfront Office Tower offered a special challenge: no climate-controlled staging area for materials and equipment. “The roof’s elevator penthouse was too small and not accessible via elevator,” Jordan recounts. “We would have had to use expensive crane set-ups. So we used the storage area on the 26th floor of the adjacent office tower as our staging area. All of our equipment would operate from this roof. This meant that when the time came for us to spray the coatings, we had to drop our hoses down 100+ feet just to reach the 16th floor of the Waterfront Tower. We used 200+ feet of hose to reach the entire job site.”

It also meant that the tear-off of the existing modified membrane torch-down roof was a tricky process. First, “the membrane had to be cut into small pieces and transported down two flights of stairs to small wheeled dumpsters. These were then pushed through secured office space, over to a service elevator, down seven stories to an interior chute that unloaded into an industrial dumpster positioned in the lower parking garage,” says Jordan.

Although the membrane had lifted in several places due to high winds over the years, the concrete deck was in good condition. The roof, having been “nursed along by Spray-Tec’s repair division two years earlier” was not leaking. However, previous leaks had left the “thick metal gutters that had been attached to the concrete decking rusted and pulling loose,” Jordan states. “But after re-securing the gutters and a wire brush-down, we were able to restore them rather than having to replace them. Fortunately, they weren’t so badly corroded that they couldn’t be saved.”

Along the riverfront, the potential for windy conditions also meant that the surrounding buildings would have to be protected from overspray. The crew masked all lower level windows with plastic. They also constructed a burlap barrier on the parapet facing Main Street. “We have a rolling overspray tent too,” says Jordan. “But we didn’t have to use it.”

In fact, the unusually dry weather held throughout the course of the project. “There were two days where some bad weather was forecast, but it passed without incident. That is the kind of thing you lose sleep over.”

In addition to protection neighboring buildings, the crew had to protect themselves too. They suited up in PPE that included Tyvek suits, Miller five-point safety harnesses and lanyards, 3M 6000 series respirators, Advance goggles, Wonder gloves, and hard hats.

Two-Way Radios

With the deck exposed, the Spray-Tec crew used a Graco MX2-490 airless spray pump to spray-apply a flash coat of Gaco Western’s GacoFlex E5320 two-component, water-based, epoxy primer. A straight-forward process that was anything but straight-forward. “All of our spray equipment had to be disassembled on the ground, transported up the service elevators and reassembled on the roof of the adjacent building,” Jordan explains. “The three-phase power was wired up and the hoses were lowered down to the work area. With the spray rig on one roof, and the hose man on another, all communication between the equipment operator and the sprayer was done via two-way radios.”

The primer coat was followed by 1 1/2" of Gaco Western RoofFoam 273, a medium-density, rigid polyurethane three-pound roof insulation. Working in the same manner, divided between two roofs, the crew used a Graco/Gusmer 20-35 Pro-proportioner to spray-apply the foam. “We chose our equipment and products carefully because we could purge the lines, clean the equipment and use it for both the foam and the coatings,” Jordan says.

That coating was a top coat of Gaco Western’s GacoFlex U-87, a two-component polyurea hybrid with a low-viscosity, fast-curing, fire-retarded waterproofing elastomer. The Spray-Tec crew used the same equipment to spray-apply a “40 mil DFT top coat onto the 9,000 square foot substrate.” Jordan continues, “We specified this particular coating because of its durability and toughness and the added bonus of eliminating the need for broadcasting ceramic granules into the top coat.”

Time was vital and the Spray-Tec crew used it to their advantage through careful planning and clever teamwork. They turned the roof back to the A.J. Schneider Company on time. The building is now protected and better insulated because of the Spray-Tec system. Thanks to Jordan and his crew, for this particular Louisville building, all is well on the waterfront.

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