When you know you can do a good job and you know you’re working with good products, you don’t mind being held accountable. On Top Roofing of Park City, Utah, recently completed a demanding roofing project and supplied the homeowners association with a watertight warranty from Drexel Metals.
Homeowners associations – or HOAs – have been known to provide challenges to roofers, especially metal roofing installers. The only thing more daunting than an uneducated HOA board is an HOA board that was forced to learn about roofing. The HOA board at the Cache Condos in Park City knows roofing.
The original roof on the condos was a cedar shake that lasted more than 20 years, but a little more than five years ago, it was starting to fail. The board elected to go with a corrugated metal roof with a rusty look.
“In the five years they had that corrugated roof, they had more trouble with leaks than they did in 20 years with the shake roof,” says Jeremy Russell of On Top Roofing. “It was a bad install by a company no longer in business. So they hired a consultant, a consultant who insisted that all details be installed to specification. That’s what we do.”
First, the consultant and the board had to be re-sold on metal roofing for the Cache Condos. The rusty 7/8-inch corrugated metal roof installed just five years ago was installed with exposed fasteners, was rusting in flashing areas and leaking in the laps when snow built up on the roof. With a strict spec from the consultant and a watertight warranty from Drexel Metals to back up the work, a standing seam metal roofing system installed by On Top Roofing was selected over asphalt shingles.
“One of the requirements was we had to inject the seams with butyl,” Russell says. “So we purchased a Hot Melt (Technologies) system. It was a huge investment, but we were happy to do it. It was something we’ve wanted to do and this project got us to take that step.
“We received plenty of support from Drexel, putting everything together to meet the requirements of the consultant. We worked out all the details to spec and added some of our own that were above spec.”
One requirement was to use no exposed fasteners. That meant employing stainless steel material in many of the details – skylights, chimneys, roof to wall flashings. “We etched it, primed it and painted it with automotive paint to match,” Russell said. “It took more time, but it will not leak.”
More than 33,500 square feet of 22-gauge Galvalume 1-3/4-inch snap-lock standing seam panels – all formed onsite – were installed by Russell’s crew. The roofing panels, roll formed on one of On Top Roofing’s two New Tech Machinery roll formers, were PVDF-painted in Medium Bronze. The project took about eight months to complete and On Top Roofing wrapped up in November 2014.
“We issued the warranty in December 2014,” says Frank Oswald, warranty inspector for Drexel Metals. “I’d say Jeremy went above and beyond what a typical installer would have done on this project. I was at this site on three different occasions because this project was really under a microscope. Ultimately, we’re quite satisfied with the work and the install.”