Company Serviced/Roof Repair: Mercedes Benz of Sugar Land
Details:
Structure Roof and Wall Solutions completed a low pressure building cleaning project for Mercedes Benz of Sugar Land, Texas in April of 2018. In September of 2018, Mercedes approached SRWS to see if a solution could be provided to upgrade the existing Gravel Built-up (BUR) areas. A system was needed that would not cause disruption or impact to the ongoing operations of the dealership. SRWS, upon inspection of the roof areas and the difficulties of access presented a solution for a cold Fluid Applied Reinforced Roofing (FARR) system. Mercedes decided to start with 5 of their smaller roofs as a test to see how the installation process of the FARR system effect the operations of the facility and observe the impact of an energy saving white reflective roof.
Specs:
Near the end of November, SRWS (Structure Roof and Wall Solutions) started the cleaning process on the 5 roofs totaling about 15,536 square feet. Two of the smaller roofs had extremely high parapet walls which combined with the bad winter weather, gave SRWS a difficult task to tackle. In order to have the roofs ready for materials, all of the excess gravel had to be removed and the existing roof assembly needed to be cleaned and dried. Once the roofs were cleaned and dried, SRWS continued with all of the necessary prep work before starting the actual system. The first steps included applying a three step process of elastic cement and polyester fabric to the perimeter of
all small penetrations. Four of the roofs were the embedded gravel and there was one roof that had a granulated capsheet. All of these roof areas were at the busy front, left and right sides of the building. There were also lots of AC units and condensation drain lines on the roofs.
SRWS found a significant amount of areas on the granulated capsheet roof where the capsheet had delaminated from the plies below. These areas all had to be cut open, dried, and repaired. SRWS applied a coat of Western Colloid emulsion with a layer of polyester fabric embedded to all of the large roof penetrations. SRWS also replaced all of the existing wooden risers for the HVAC condensation lines with new blocks that had been coated. Once the detailed prep work was completed, the first coat of the system was ready to go down. SRWS decided to go with a seven step Western Colloid system that included a flood coat of WC Emulsion, two more coats of WC Emulsion with embedded layers of polyester fabric, and two top coats of WC Elastahyde White Acrylic Quick Set applied with time to dry in between layers. In order to add an extra layer of cooling and energy saving, SRWS applied the WC Elastahyde White Acrylic Quick Set to the AC ducting.
Results:
By the end of the job, Mercedes extended the life of their roof with a new sustainable energy efficient roofing system that added 235 dry mils of thickness and came with a ten year renewable warranty. Structure Roof and Wall Solutions went back to take temperature readings of the roofs and found a dramatic difference in the temperature deltas. On a sunny day in January, the ambient air temperature was 71 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature readings on the original gravel roof ranged from 105-109 degrees and the readings on the coated roofs ranged from 71-76 degrees Fahrenheit. This shows about a 33% temperature difference which will mean significant savings on utility costs and HVAC maintenance. Structure Roof and Wall Solutions faced many obstacles on this project with cold weather and rain being the greatest. The extremely high parapet wall also slowed the job down in making it difficult to remove the gravel and lowering the amount of sunlight and wind that reached the substrate to dry the layers of material. Working at a high end car dealership added an extra layer of caution that had to be taken by all of the SRWS employees. No job comes without its struggles, but at the end of the day, a happy client and a watertight roof are all that matter
Photo 1 – Aerial image shows what the roofs original condition looked like.
Photo 2 – This image shows the roofs while they were in the process of being installed. You can see that some roofs had their first coat of Western Colloid White Acrylic and others had the Western Colloid asphalt emulsion with the embedded fabric.
Photo 3 – The final image shows the finished five roofs that were installed with the Western Colloid Fluid Applied Reinforced Roofing System.
