Four-legged roofing

• Photo courtesy of Wm. Molnar Roofing Co. Inc., Riverview, Mich.
• Photo courtesy of Wm. Molnar Roofing Co. Inc., Riverview, Mich.
• Photo courtesy of Wm. Molnar Roofing Co. Inc., Riverview, Mich.
• Photo courtesy of Wm. Molnar Roofing Co. Inc., Riverview, Mich.

Founded April 4, 1939, in Rochester Hills, Mich., Leader Dogs for the Blind helps provide people who are blind or visually impaired with lifelong skills for safe and independent daily travel. The organization is dedicated to providing high-quality services to its clients in a respectful and empowering environment.

In 1939, rent for a farmhouse for clients and staff, a barn for dogs and a garage was $50 per month. The cost to graduate a client and dog team was $600. During Dec. 3-9, 1950, Michigan celebrated its first Leader Dog week as proclaimed by Gov. G. Mennen Williams. In 1958, the organization stopped charging clients to train with a Leader Dog, providing an opportunity for everyone in need regardless of their ability to pay.

The decision to provide all services free of charge to clients, including housing, meals and equipment, continues thanks to generous support from Lions Clubs International that has continued to support the organization and its clients financially, providing assistance to thousands of people. About 450 dogs now are trained and matched with owners annually.

In 2015, continued success and growth in the organization necessitated more space, and a facility addition was constructed with help from Wm. Molnar Roofing Co. Inc., Riverview, Mich.

Getting to work

In March 2015, Wm. Molnar Roofing began its work on Leader Dogs for the Blind's new 20,000-square-foot building. A crew of four workers, led by David Austin, sheet metal foreman for Wm. Molnar Roofing, installed Berridge Cee-Lock 24-gauge, standing-seam, Galvalume^®-coated steel roof panels, Firestone^® Delta Series Concealed Fastener Panels, Stonewood™ 8-mil-thick pre-surfaced phenolic soffit panels with a NorthClad^® extruded track system and PAC-CLAD^® 22-gauge prefinished steel Flush Wall Panels. Forty-six 48- by 48-inch CAP Acrylic Dome Velux Skylights, an S-5!^® ColorGard^® snow-retention system and associated flashings, gutters and downspouts also were installed.

A crew of 11 workers, led by Chris Hemry, foreman for Wm. Molnar Roofing, worked concurrently on the two existing roof areas and a new low-slope roof area on the addition. The original roof systems consisted of 27,000 square feet of ballasted EPDM and polyisocyanurate insulation over a concrete deck with 40 skylights, and another 10,000 square feet consisted of PVC membrane over polystyrene over gravel-surfaced coal tar over perlite and fiberglass insulation on a steel deck.

A vacuum truck was used to remove the existing roof's aggregate surface and dispose it off-site. The membrane was cut into manageable pieces and discarded into dumpsters. The insulation was loaded on trailers and sent to a recycler. The coal-tar area was cut into 2- by 2-foot pieces and loaded into a Heiden Crane Attachments Super Dumper Box attached to a boom truck and lowered into dumpsters.

Workers then adhered a base layer of 4-inch-thick polyisocyanurate insulation to the concrete deck with 1/4-inch-per-foot extended tapered panels and 1/2-inch-thick DensDeck^® Prime Roof Boards, all set in I.S.O. Stick™ Insulation Adhesive, followed by fully adhered 60-mil-thick white TPO membrane. The crew also installed metal wall panels and copings, a custom two-piece metal expansion joint and flashings to tie in new and existing roof areas, and all the skylights were removed and replaced.

Warning lines were set up around the roof, and a safety monitor was used on the job site while work was performed. Crews also used a Garlock Multi-Man Fall Protection Cart and Garlock SkyDome skylight covers to protect them for the duration of the job. Wm. Molnar Roofing conducted random site visits to ensure safety practices were followed and to address unforeseen hazards.

Challenges

Dogs are known for their highly developed sense of hearing, so keeping the volume of construction work to a minimum was a key element to the project's success.

"It was important to keep the noise down on the 27,000-square-foot section so the training dogs in this area were not disrupted," says Robert Molnar, project manager, vice president and chief financial officer for Wm. Molnar Roofing. "We had the dogs moved for the ballast removal, and during the reinstallation, we used low-volume tools and methods wherever possible."

In addition, the structural steel was 2 inches off square, so a reveal trim was installed at the soffit's low end to hide uneven lines, and varying sizes of U-shaped plastic shims were used to help make the final phenolic product appear flush and square. Also, the Berridge roof panels were supposed to be 12 inches wide, but there was a mix-up during the manufacturing process and the panels were made 16 1/2 inches wide.

"To satisfy all parties, Berridge expeditiously sent us coils to run from a New Tech Machinery roll-forming machine, where we ran the SS 675 1 3/4-inch standing-seam panel with two stiffening ribs and 12-inch-wide net coverage," Molnar says. "Berridge credited us most of the expense of the additional coils, and we donated 8,000 square feet of the improper panels to the Township of Grosse Ile for their recreation department, who agreed to pay our labor to install the panels on a building that needed a new roof."

Woofing it up

Although some may have perceived receiving the wrong roofing material as a setback, Wm. Molnar Roofing chose to seek a beneficial solution and completed its work on Leader Dogs for the Blind on time in September 2015.

"The issue turned from a negative for three parties to a positive for four parties because we kept our poise and looked for a solution rather than dwelling on who was responsible for the error," Molnar says.

Thanks to Wm. Molnar Roofing's efforts, Leader Dogs for the Blind successfully unveiled its new Canine Development Center earlier this year, allowing the organization to train a greater number of dogs for the visually impaired with skills for many more lifetimes of independent travel.

Chrystine Elle Hanus is Professional Roofing's associate editor and NRCA's director of communications.

Project name: Leader Dogs for the Blind
Project location: Rochester Hills, Mich.
Project duration: March 2015-September 2015
Roof system types: Metal; TPO membrane
Roofing contractor: Wm. Molnar Roofing Co. Inc., Riverview, Mich.
Roofing manufacturers: Berridge Manufacturing Co., San Antonio; Fiberesin Industries Inc., Oconomowoc, Wis.; Firestone^® Building Products Co., Indianapolis; Georgia-Pacific Gypsum LLC, Atlanta; NorthClad^® Rainscreen Solutions, Everett, Wash.; Petersen Aluminum Corp., Elk Grove Village, Ill.; S-5!^® Attachment Solutions, Colorado Springs, Colo.; VELUX America LLC, Fort Mill, S.C.