Victoria Mews is an 18-building property spread across two city blocks in San Francisco. Each building offers a stately Victorian exterior, comfortable appointments within and stunning views of the City from a roof top deck.

Keeping up the infrastructure at Victoria Mews has always been a priority for the tenants’ HOA, so when it came time to begin discussions about re-roofing the 18 buildings on the property the association turned to Pat Collins, Senior Project Manager at Advanced Resources, LTD, for guidance. Collins, in turn, called on Bigham Taylor Roofing.

“We’ve had a good working relationship with Bigham Taylor and have worked with them on similar projects,” Collins says. “Multi-building, multi-family residential is a unique type of project and they have a proven track record with us.”

The plan was to work methodically through the 18 buildings and so the BT team started with the two buildings on the corner of 19th Street and Wisconsin Street.

“The logistics were challenging in that new scaffolding and debris chutes were required at each building,” reports BT superintendent Jose Reyes, Jr. “We had to take special care to set up the scaffolding to allow pedestrian and vehicle traffic.”

One of the things that made the Victoria Mews project unique, Jose adds, was the number of roof top decks. “Each building has one,” he says, “and they were all unique. Some of them are quite detailed and involved, so we had to be careful when we removed them. That made the usually difficult job of tearing off a tar and gravel roof seems easy in comparison.”

After removing the decks and old roof, a tapered insulation system was installed over the roof deck because the old roofs were dead flat and ponded water. A new scupper drain was also added to improve drainage.

A Dens Deck insulation board went over the tapered insulation for fire safety and then a two-ply Siplast 20/30 torch-applied roof system was applied. “The Torch Applied system was speced in for two reasons,” Jose explains. “First of all, we wanted to keep the occupants comfortable during the project. Second, moving a hot asphalt kettle around the neighborhood’s very steep and tight streets would have been next to impossible.”

BT maintained a two-hour fire watch each day to ensure the buildings were safe before leaving the site.

Another unique aspect of the Victoria Mews project, Collins points out, was the fact that some of the tenants requested the installation of skylights and sun globes. “That took a certain amount of coordination between the HOA and the individual owners,” Collins reports. “But they made it easy for all from the billing to the installation.”

Bigham Taylor began working at the site in 2009, installing new roofs on a pair of buildings at the corner of 19th Street and Wisconsin Street. Buildings down Carolina and 20th Street were completed this year.

Collins, who was on site multiple times throughout the project, gives Bigham Taylor’s responsive field team and superintendents credit for keeping Victoria Mews residents and neighbors happy. “Typically you’ll hear a complaint or two,” Collins allows, “but we didn’t hear anything from any of the owners. I believe that was because they were there, available and responsive to anything that was requested. The company really shined this time around.”

For more project photos, please visit the Recent Projects page by clicking here.

From the desk of Steve Galli:

We have been preparing for the implementation of the 2008 Building Energy Efficiency Standards since they were announced. We applaud the Energy Commission for their efforts to improve efficiency and increase environmental sustainability.

Much of the press and industry have been talking about reflective surface roofs for the past several years, and while we’ve already seen how that type of application may increase the life of a roof by reducing the heat load and lowering UV degradation, we believe that insulation is potentially going to be a much bigger factor moving forward.

The latest regulations state that R-7 insulation must be present in a building’s conditioned space. If R-7 is not present, then any new roof system installation must include R8 or R14 (depending on the location’s climate zone) insulation.

This addition to the code came about because the Energy Commission discovered that installation of a white roof was not enough to boost energy savings and that it was difficult to quantify the level of savings. However, installing new insulation benefits both the heating and cooling of a building and provides an energy benefit on a 24-hour per day, 365-day per year basis.

One of the ways that building owners can mitigate this impending expense, especially if they have a vacant building, is to do a proactive insulation inspection. If the interior insulation is not up to the specified requirements, we recommend doing that now by installing the required R-7 insulation below the deck. It is potentially more cost effective to add insulation to conditioned spaces below the deck in a vacant space than it may be to add insulation below a new roof membrane.

Also, the insulation added below the deck will last more than one roof cycle (which the insulation below a roof system may not depending on how well the roof is maintained during its service life), providing a lower cost per unit over its life cycle. If it is not possible to add insulation below the deck because the space is occupied, it may be possible to get an exemption due to the need to lift mechanical equipment during a reroofing application.

Each building needs to be studied independently to determine whether or not insulation will need to be added if and when the roof is replaced. Staying ahead of the curve always makes it easier to plan and budget in advance for whatever may be in store for a particular building. Our experience shows that owners and asset managers are never fond of expensive “surprises.”

Also, building owners should go through their vacant buildings to check on the status of their lighting fixtures. By updating any old fixtures and installing energy efficient bulbs, owners may earn lighting credits.

Obviously, this has the potential to be costly for building owners, but it also offers an opportunity to use Title 24 compliance and the Green badge as a marketing tool to attract tenants who are trying to be “Green Businesses.”

Please contact us to discuss how these new changes may affect your portfolio.

Rod Freitas literally got his feet wet as a roofing apprentice while living in Washington, working for Cleo’s Roofing. “We worked in Seattle and Tacoma, on all kinds of residential and commercial roofs,” Rod says. “That company is still going strong today.”

The Bay Area native — Rod was born and raised in San Jose — started his career in the Pacific Northwest after serving four years in the Army. “I was interested in being a mechanic and that’s what I did in there,” he says. “The Army experience was a big influence in my life.”

Rod felt the tug of his Bay Area roots and moved back with four years of experience under his belt. He caught on with Bigham Taylor right away and, except of a couple of years with other companies, he’s been a fixture at BT ever since. He’s been a superintendent since 1994.

“If I had to say, I am a low slope waterproofing expert,” Rod says. “I’ve done residential roofing, shakes, tiles and comp, but I was predominantly a hot built up roofer and a single ply roofer. That’s what I’ve been doing my whole career.”

When he wasn’t on the job, Rod coached his son’s Little League team and managed his daughter’s traveling softball team. He also played third base for the Modesto Old Timers, a traveling baseball team that traveled throughout California and into Arizona, until he was 44.

Nowadays, Rod spends his time outside of the office on either his Harley or dirt bike. He recently returned from a week on the big island of Hawaii, hanging out with friends.