Go, go Idaho!

• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
• Photo courtesy of Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.

During the fifth century, a group of Germanic people, known as Vandals, warred and pillaged through north Africa, ancient Gaul and Spain. In 455, the Vandals' King Gaiseric led his troops to Rome where the group's reputation preceded it. The Vandals were unopposed as they plundered Rome and ravaged its people for 14 days, hence the term "vandalize."

In the early 1900s, a sportswriter for The Argonaut, the Moscow-based University of Idaho's newspaper, used the term vandalize to describe how the school's sports teams were beating their opponents. Because the teams had no mascot, the university's mascot became Joe Vandal, a helmeted barbarian who wears a bearded sneer.

But the name became somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1969, the University of Idaho Vandals experienced vandalism when Neale Stadium, the university's football stadium, was destroyed by arson and the university was forced to build a new facility. With the help of former student William Kibbie, the university raised $12 million for the ASUI- (Associated Students University of Idaho-) Kibbie Activity Center. The 14-story, 410-foot- (125-m-) long facility is home to the school's football and men's basketball teams andprovides training areas fortrack and tennis, as well as competition areas for intramural activities and volleyball tournaments.

Notably, the facility features a 160,000-square-foot (14860-m²) barrel-arch roof system supported by a web of wood and steel trusses that earned its engineer, Arthur Lowe Troutner, founder of Trus Joist Corp., Boise, Idaho, the 1976 Outstanding Structural Engineering Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The building also is the world's largest free-standing wood truss athletic dome.

In 1996, the barrel-arch roof system began to fail. The built-up roof (BUR) system on the low-slope areas at the top of the barrel was leaking because of age. In addition, Idaho's extreme winds were blowing off the three-tab composition shingles located on the steep-slope roof areas.

The ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center is surrounded by a 20,000-square-foot (1860-m²) low-slope roof system that covers the center's concourse area. This area's existing modified bitumen roof system also required reroofing because of problems related to aging and leaks.

Although university representatives determined the roof systems needed repairs in 1996, it took nearly five years before the University of Idaho received state approval and funding to pay for the more than $1 million project.

Preplanning

University representatives wanted the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center's roof to be aesthetically pleasing and long-lasting, so they contacted Chick Mabbutt, founder and principal architect of Associated Architects, Moscow. The university had a more than 20-year relationship with Mabbutt's company, and university staff trusted him to identify the best roof system for the center.

Mabbutt spent four months evaluating various roof systems to reroof the barrel-arch roof system, including EPDM and TPO membranes, standing-seam metal, flat-seam metal, asphalt shingles and polyurethane coatings. Mabbutt knew the facility's barrel-arch design would require special consideration because of Idaho's tough climate—the new roof system would have to accommodate up to 2 feet (0.6 m) of thermal expansion and contraction within a 24-hour period.

Mabbutt was assisted by Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash., to determine the budget, such as life-cycle, repair and maintenance, and initial costs. Mabbutt chose Cobra Roofing Services to help him because he had worked on other university buildings with the roofing company.

After consulting university representatives, Mabbutt decided to specify The Garland Co. Inc.'s R-Mer Lite® insulated steel roof system for the barrel-arch areas because of its ability to withstand wind uplift and thermal expansion. The product also can be unrolled similar to a membrane.

Mabbutt and university representatives chose Stevens Roofing Systems' white Stevens EP TPO roof membrane for the concourse area's low-slope roof system.

The project was up for bid on July 3, 2001, and the bid was granted to Cobra Roofing Services on July 13, 2001, with a notice to begin work in August.

"Cobra Roofing Services has a fantastic reputation in the region for handling large, high-profile projects that require professional setups and staffing," says Dan McDonald, Garland's roof asset manager and project representative for the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center.

Reroofing the barrel-arch roof system became complicated when Ray Latona, an engineer for San Francisco-based Simpson Gumpertz and Heger Inc., evaluated roof loads before the project began. Latona recommended both sides of the barrel-arch roof system simultaneously be removed and reroofed to prevent structural distortion of the roof during installation.

According to Mabbutt, the recommendation was made because the barrel-arch roof system is a vaulted dome, not circular.

"If we removed the roofing materials on one side of the arch, that side would be light and bulge out under the weight of the other side, which would be pushing down," Mabbutt says. "The new roofing materials were lighter than existing materials and would have wrinkled if both sides of the dome were not reroofed simultaneously."

To overcome this issue, Cobra Roofing Services assigned a tear-off crew that was followed by a reroofing crew on both sides of the barrel-arch roof system. The crews were closely watched by a supervisor who stood on the roof's ridge and carefully tracked their progress.

To add pressure to the situation, Cobra Roofing Services only was given 100 calendar days to complete the project. The tight scheduling was required because university representatives wanted the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center to be completed for the school's first 2001 home football game, which was scheduled for Nov. 3. Work began in mid-August 2001.

The project

To prevent structural distortion and complete the project within the time schedule, Cobra Roofing Services assigned 22 roofing workers; two foremen; one work-site supervisor, Nils Brandt; and one project manager, John Weirich, to the project. Weirich and Brandt coordinated contract management, schedule revisions around basketball and volleyball tournaments, and construction activities between workers on both sides of the barrel-arch roof system, as well as roof deck inspections by university representatives and safety inspections by the university's safety director.

In addition, Weirich and Brandt met with Mabbutt, McDonald and university representatives to review work plans and ensure everything flowed according to schedule. The roofing crew held its own morning meetings, as well.

"Morning huddles were held daily to review safety equipment, safety policies, work schedules and coordination plans," Weirich says.

Safety was a major concern during the project because of the building's size and barrel-arch roof's slope, which varies from 1-in-12 (5 degrees) at the top and increases to 10-in-12 (40 degrees) down the building's sides. The top roof area required perimeter warning lines and safety monitors. Working along the barrel-arch roof system's sides was more complex and required roofing workers to wear full-body harnesses, rope grabs, and safety lines in compliance with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The safety lines were secured to 66 pre-engineered fall-protection anchors that were integrated into the barrel-arch roof system.

According to Weirich, the company's safety precautions were his top priority.

"It's not often you have more than 25 field employees on one structure for more than two months," Weirich says. "Our utmost concern was the safety of our employees, and we only experienced one minor injury—a cut finger. We received regular praise from the university's safety director and others during the reroofing process."

Accessing the barrel-arch roof system also was complicated. Workers only could access the roof from inside the building by walking on the ceiling, which consisted of a 2- to 3-inch (51- to 76-mm) radius plank deck. The workers proceeded through steel and wood scissor trusses to the end of the dome where they climbed a 10-foot (3-m) ladder and exited through a small hole to the roof.

"Doing this two times to three times per day was quite a workout!" Weirich notes.

Before reroofing could begin, crew members used mechanical roof cutters to cut sections of the upper portion of the existing BUR system into 2- by 2-foot (0.6- by 0.6-m) pieces. Material carts were used to transport the pieces to a staging area. A 230-foot (70-m) lattice crane using skip boxes then lowered BUR materials to the ground where they were loaded into trash bins and transported to a disposal site.

Workers repelled down the sides of the barrel-arch roof system to remove the existing three-tab composition shingles by hand and lower them to the concourse area's low-slope roof system below. Workers then put the shingles into skip boxes that were emptied into dump trucks.

Installation of the barrel-arch roof system required a specified insulation system and heavy-gauge hat channels mechanically fastened to the roof deck. To meet the specified wind-uplift criteria, Garland designed the panel layout for the R-Mer Lite metal roof system. The base of the roof system required alternating 6- by 42-foot (1.8- by 12.8-m) and 6- by 43-foot (1.8- by 13-m) sections. Alternating 6- by 42-foot (1.8- by 12.8-m) and 6- by 64-foot (1.8- by 19.5-m) panels were used for the perimeter of the barrel-arch roof system. And the roof system's field required alternating 12- by 63-foot (3.6- by 19-m) and 12- by 64-foot (3.6- by 19.5-m) panels. To ease installation, Brandt and the foremen designed a tool to lower the roof panels down the sides of the barrel-arch roof and set them in place.

Because Idaho winters can begin in October and be fierce, university representatives decided to postpone reroofing the low-slope roof system covering the concourse area until summer 2002. At that time, Cobra Roofing Services' workers installed specified insulation and mechanically fastened a 60-mil- (0.06-inch- [1.5-mm-]) thick Stevens EP TPO roof membrane on the upper concourse area that serves as the main drainage area for the barrel-arch roof system. The lower concourse area required the removal of an existing modified bitumen roof system. A hot-applied insulation board was installed, and a 60-mil- (0.06-inch- [1.5-mm-]) thick Stevens EP TPO membrane then was fully adhered.

A Vandal victory

The reroofing of the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center's barrel-arch roof system was completed in October 2001—nine days ahead of schedule. As planned, the University of Idaho Vandals played their first home football game of the season in the newly reroofed facility.

Joe Vandal led his team and fans in battle cries against the Monroe-based University of Louisiana's Indians. True to its name, the team vandalized its opponent and won, thanks to the home-dome advantage.

Although the Vandal victory was the highlight for students, faculty and alumni who watched the Vandals play in the ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center, Weirich experienced a different highlight.

"Completing the project on time without any major safety incidents was the most rewarding part of the job," Weirich states. "The university's representatives and architect were extremely pleased with our entire staff in the way we conducted the project and our excellent workmanship."

Christina Koch is associate editor of Professional Roofing magazine and NRCA's manager of public relations.

Project name: ASUI-Kibbie Activity Center
Project location: Moscow, Idaho
Project duration: Mid-August 2001 to October 2001
Roofing contractor: Cobra Roofing Services Inc., Spokane, Wash.
Roof system types: Metal and TPO
Roofing manufacturers: The Garland Co. Inc., Cleveland, and Stevens Roofing Systems, Holyoke, Mass.
Engineer: Simpson Gumpertz and Heger Inc., San Francisco
Architect: Associated Architects, Moscow