Westminster Canterbury, a serene retirement community nestled on the waterfront of the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia Beach is where one comes in their later years to enjoy relaxation doused in sand, sun, and salty breezes – a lifestyle its residents have worked hard to achieve. Upkeep of the facilities is a top priority in maintaining a place of serenity. When residents no longer want to enjoy views of the bay due to leaky, peeling, tar and gravel roof systems, it’s definitely time for repairs. Enter father-son team, Tom and Brandon Rowe, owners of Contractor Services, a Virginia Beach-based construction business tasked with repairing seven roofing areas with four different extremely weathered and failing roof systems.

The Stats:

• Type: Commercial Residential Community
• Scope & Size: Nearly 16,000 square feet of tar and gravel, elastomeric covered EPDM, elastomeric covered foam roofing, and elastomeric covered TPO filled with large river rock.

 

 

Phase One: Not so Easy EPDM

Tom, Brandon and the team decided they would knock out the elastomeric covered EPDM system first – clean and install a new roof system – a piece of cake. This, they quickly realized, was not the case. There were areas of peeling and the not-so-tame 60 mph winds rolling off the bay that were pulling the flapping pieces of weathered coating further and further off the substrate. After testing other areas that looked to be okay, the team realized they had to remove the entire top layer. Armed with wire sanding wheels to effectively remove the failing material, it took a group of five men four weeks to alleviate the area – ouch – not at all the easy task, they expected.

Phase Two: Goodbye Gravel

The next task was to remove the loose gravel. This seemed simple enough, but challenges ensue when there is no room for vacuum trucks on site. However, no challenge is too big for the boys of Contractor Services. The father/son duo developed their own transport system out of PVC pipe and old 55-gallon detergent drums fashioning a large funnel from roof to dumpster. After four days, the team removed 8,000 square feet of rock from the roof surface.

Phase Three: A Smooth Roof for a Steep Price

Now that the roof was clear, the team was ready to prep and grind down the rough aggregate roof surface that was left behind. Tom and Brandon fashioned their own grinding machines, but the roof was so rough, it was damaging the machines. To top it off, they were spending thousands on replacing grinding wheels daily. Finally, after weeks of grinding with no end in sight, the boys proposed filling the roof with concrete. Dispensing of tools, the team hoisted hundreds of 50 lb bags of precision grout up onto the roofs with a modified engine hoist developed by Tom and Brandon to get the grout to the seven different areas of roofing. Some had railings, some had 12’ parapet walls, some had none, and other roof areas had zero access without extension ladders.

 

 

Phase Four: A SURE End in Sight

“Finally, with a fresh, smooth surface we were ready to sure up the roofs,” says Brandon. “The boys hoisted 200, 56 pound, five-gallon buckets of the SureCoat Roof System up and down ladders to each roofing area and that was the last of our worries, from here on out it was smooth sailing – minus whipping out my rusty geometry skills to work around a few unusually shaped roofing penetrations. This was our first time using SureCoat, and we did it all with the help of their YouTube videos, Facetime, and phone conversations with team member, Jeff, who walked us through every question and concern coaching us to the best installation possible. Coming back the day after our first coat, I was in awe of how excellent this product is. It dried hard as a rock, like a flexible rock. It was like putting a waterproof cast on the roof. It’s as simple as apply, roll, apply – once we got into our application groove, the roof took no time to install. And, leak-free was our result. One of the staffers that works in the laundry room said, ‘Hey, you fixed my leak!’ and fixed we did.”

 

 

Tom and Brandon offered a solution that solved all the problems of the old pummeled roofing that previous coatings and roofing solutions attempts couldn’t fix. Westminster Canterbury is now the proud owner of a cost-effective, all-weather roof backed by a manufacturer’s written warranty that not only covers ponding but is renewable for the life of the roof. This project was finished in the fall of 2017, and since then, there has been no more leaking and no more repairs.

“After years of leaking and built-up roofing systems that never really worked we’re excited to have a system in place that hasn’t failed us yet, and we’re almost a full year out from Tom and Brandon finishing the installation,” says Joe Lucy, maintenance supervisor at Westminster Canterbury. “Not only that but most of our residents looked down on the roof systems in question, and it was impeding their vast views of the Chesapeake Bay. Contractor Services is a trusted business in our community, and they have proven themselves throughout the years implementing fixes that other contractors in the area just couldn’t do.”

To learn more about the SureCoat Roof System or if you’re ready to price out your next project, call or click today! 877-8 BE SURE – www.SureCoatSystems.com