Denver, Colorado (4/3/2002) --- Pratt & Whitney engineers selected The Hartford Roofing Company to install a Johns Manville two-ply cold applied modified bitumen roofing system for its 170,000 square foot aircraft engine blade manufacturing facility in East Hartford, CT after carefully evaluating three alternatives. According to Bob Vassallo, Project Engineer, Pratt & Whitney, single ply was rejected for durability reasons since the roof area requires frequent modifications to accommodate ventilation exhausts. These are often moved from one area of the roof to the other as the shop floor manufacturing requirement, location is optimized to meet needs.
"We also considered a hot applied roofing system but there were a number of issues with this particular application," Patrick McCarthy, Project Engineer, Pratt & Whitney said. "We had material handling problems due to the location of the building and space. It is practically impossible to shut down air intakes to control the odor from getting into the factory because it operates 24 hours a day."
Accordingly, the engineering team consisting of Rajan Anburajan, Bob Vassallo and Patrick McCarthy, settled on a cold applied modified bitumen system with a 20-year no-dollar-limit guarantee. "Cold applied allow us to handle materials in smaller quantities," said McCarthy. "We also liked the fact that the modified bitumen is manufactured in a controlled environment and therefore leaves less room for application errors."
The original 40-year old roofing system was a 4-ply coal tar and gravel roof with cork insulation. It was removed and replaced with 2½-inch JM E'NRG'Y 2™ polyisocyanurate foam insulation, ½-inch DuraBoard™ insulation that was mechanically fastened through both layers. The roofing contractor, The Hartford Roofing of Glastonbury, CT then used a spray gun system to apply the adhesive, which was kept at 120 degrees by heaters. Next a DynaBase® glass reinforced SBS modified bitumen base sheet was installed followed by a DynaKap® modified bitumen cap sheet. DynaFlex® was used for the flashings.
According to Herb Williamson, Vice President for The Hartford Roofing Co, Inc., the project presented a number of challenges for his crew, which included project foreman Brad Roche and project superintendent and Vice President of field operations, Mark Finan. In order to maximize the efficiency of the manufacturing operation, equipment had been frequently moved requiring new ventilation ducts. Accordingly there were abandoned openings on the roof and abandoned equipment.
"We had to use a great deal of care in replacing the roof deck at the abandoned openings on the roof," Williamson said. "We could not let any dust or dirt get into the building because of the sensitivity of the manufacturing operation. It was necessary to hang plastic below the roof deck to catch the dust and debris."
People also were working in the plant seven days a week, 24 hours a day. This required careful scheduling. Despite the challenges, however, the project was completed in just slightly over two months with a 20 person crew working 10 hour days, six days a week.
"We were impressed with the responsiveness of both The Hartford Roofing Co. and Johns Manville," said Anburajan, Manager Facilities Engineering. "Hartford Roofing was very conscious of safety. Their workmanship also was of a high quality. In fact, when Tim King, regional technical inspector for Johns Manville came out to inspect the roof with us, we were hard pressed to find any issues," he said.
Anburajan said the end product was the result of teamwork. In particular he credited the quality of the job to the excellent working relationship between The Hartford Roofing and Patrick McCarthy.
The Hartford Roofing Companies, based in Glastonbury, CT perform many of the largest and most prestigious roofing and sheet metal projects through the eastern U.S. and Puerto Rico. With its six location and more than 550 employees, it is the second largest private, family owned roofing contractors in North American with 2002 sales projected to exceed $75 million. Additional information can be found at
http://www.hartfordroofing.com/.
Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is a leading manufacturer and marketer of premium-quality building and specialty products. In business since 1858, the Denver-based company has sales in excess of $2 billion and holds leadership positions in all of the key markets that it serves. Johns Manville employs approximately 9,500 people and operates 52 manufacturing facilities in North America, Europe and China. Additional information can be found at
www.jm.com.
