Alta Bates Hospital

Samuel Merritt University is a hands-on learning environment offering nursing, health sciences, occupational therapy, social work, and psychiatric mental health care degrees. 

SMU’s learning center in Oakland, California, is on the campus of Sutter Health.

There were a handful of leaks in a couple of the classrooms after a season of rain, so school management decided it was time to reroof the academic center. 

BT Roof found two roofs on the building: an EPDM roof and a hot rock gravel roof. Removing those systems from the light concrete deck went smoothly, and the BT crew did what it could to reduce noise and dust, especially since the original system contained non-friable asbestos.

“It was common practice to overlay a new system over an asbestos roof in the past and get another 20 years out of it,” reports BT Superintendent Marty Behrbaum. “We’ll still see some of these roofs out there, but I think about 90% are gone.”

While the system was leaking, BT found that the light concrete deck was in good condition and did not have to repair anything. Plus, there were only a few small split AC units on the roof and minimal plumbing. 

Once the deck was cleared and cleaned, BT installed DensDeck ½” low-rise foam insulation and attached a Sarnafil 80-mil feltback system on the flat deck. 

The only wrinkle to the project came as the crew knocked out some stucco to raise the base flashings to meet the minimum height requirement suggested by the manufacturer. 

Even with the stucco challenge, the month-long project ran smoothly.