Photo courtesy of Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad.
Photo courtesy of Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad.
Photo courtesy of Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad.
Photo courtesy of Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad.
Photo courtesy of Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad.
The Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort in Tobago, West Indies, is the largest resort hotel located in the tropical Tobago Plantations Estate, a 750-acre gated community of luxury villas, condominiums and bungalows. Situated on more than 2 miles of beaches and a beautiful coastline, the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort is a state-owned development enterprise that operated for eight years as the VHL/Hilton Tobago Golf and Spa Resort.
The former hotel had suffered damage from the effects of a highly aggressive marine environment. As a result, in 2009, the hotel required substantial rehabilitative work.
The main goal of the work was to rehabilitate the hotel with innovative roofing and building products that would protect and preserve the resort's structure from marine weathering. Hotel management sought to rebrand and renovate the hotel to become the top resort in Tobago to provide sustainable employment for nationals and improve Tobago's international allure.
Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad, was contracted by the Tobago government to take on the massive but exciting project.
Tear-off begins
In October 2009, Lifetime Roofing began its work to remove the resort's roof systems. The main facility's roof has a 45-degree slope and 50-foot height that posed a significant safety risk. Accordingly, Lifetime Roofing designed an intricate safety plan that incorporated innovative roof system access, toolbox talks and daily inspections of all equipment to ensure safe working conditions.
Because of the project's grand size and complexity of the renovations required, project management software was incorporated, supervisors met daily and meetings were held weekly with all crews and ground personnel to ensure effective coordination of trades and deadlines were met, including reopening the hotel in time to host a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort is located on the eastern side of the island where the hotel's entire eastern elevation faces the Atlantic Ocean. The building's corrosion issues were compounded by unsuitable material choices, including the roof systems, windows, doors, fasteners, bolts and nuts.
The main facility's original 150,000-square-foot roof system was assembled from 24-gauge Galvalume® with an exterior painted finish of double-sided 70 percent Kynar 500® in Patina Green. Unfortunately, the extremely harsh marine conditions led to early product failure, and the resulting leaks over time precipitated early deterioration of the timber ceilings.
The entire roof structure required removal, including the plywood deck. The metal panels were unsnapped; the 3-inch clips were unscrewed; and the old panels were lowered to the ground. The removal of the panels was carried out in small segments to ensure there was a balance of recovery from removing old material and incorporating new material to avoid exposure to rain and ocean water.
The old panels were donated to the Tobago House of Assembly who then distributed them to an underprivileged Tobago community.
The new roof system
Once the seven-month tear-off process was completed, a self-adhering Grace Ice & Water Shield® underlayment was applied to a new 3/4-inch-thick marine-pressure, termite-treated plywood deck.
In addition to withstanding harsh marine conditions, the material selected for the new roof system also needed to withstand Category 5 hurricane wind-uplift conditions. With these stringent criteria in mind, Englert .040-inch-thick aluminum with a paint finish of 70 percent Kynar 500 in Slate Blue was selected to create an Englert 1 3/4-inch Integral Snap-Lock Metal Roof System (S2000) with 16-inch-wide panels.
This material selection allowed for on-site manufacturing and custom-fitting of panels in a temporary factory built on the job site. This was a more efficient process than selecting a factory-formed panel and transporting the panels from mainland Trinidad to Tobago.
The panels were installed using Grade 316 stainless-steel UL-90 clips with Grade 316 stainless-steel fasteners. Before installation, stainless-steel cleats, bolts and nuts were soaked in acetone to rid them of ferrous contaminants from the weld-cutting to custom-build cleats. The wrenches also were dipped in acetone because the installation tools themselves were ferrous in nature.
Structural columns were enveloped in unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in circular and rectangular hollow sections with the reinforcement bars and concrete inside the PVC. The timber fascia were wrapped in Grace Ice & Water Shield underlayment and then enveloped with aluminum trim finishes and anti-corrosive, eco-friendly concealed fasteners.
In addition to the main facility, throughout the project, 15 smaller buildings, including a guard booth, bandstand, restaurant and dive shop, also were renovated with new roof systems. Each of these roof systems was complex and required intricate, detailed and exceptional craftsmanship.
More than 50 workers were present at any given time to install the roof systems. The Lifetime Roofing craftsmen were committed to successful installations and took great care to install the materials with precision to allow the roof systems to meet the challenges of hurricane wind uplift.
A successful reopening
Despite many challenges, Lifetime Roofing completed the Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort project in August 2011, on schedule, on budget, without accidents and in time to reopen to host the government meeting—a result of excellent project management and execution.
"Lifetime Roofing exercised due care and diligence throughout the duration of the project," says Beverley John, president of Evolving TecKnologies and Enterprise Development Co. Ltd., El Socorro, Trinidad. "The team demonstrated good site-management practices and successfully completed the project on time and on budget without compromising safety or quality of workmanship and materials."
Lifetime Roofing transformed the resort's dilapidating roof systems into gorgeous, sustainable systems designed to work with their environment. For its ingenuity demonstrated on Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort, Lifetime Roofing was selected as a 2014 Gold Circle Awards finalist in the Innovative Solutions: Reroofing category.
Chrystine Elle Hanus is Professional Roofing's associate editor and NRCA's director of communications.
Project name: Magdalena Grand Beach and Golf Resort
Project location: Tobago, West Indies
Project duration: October 2009-August 2011
Roof system type: Aluminum
Roofing contractor: Lifetime Roofing Ltd., Arima, Trinidad
Product manufacturer: Englert Inc., Perth Amboy, N.J.
Gold Circle Awards: Innovative Solutions: Reroofing
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