University of Houston Science Center Re-Roofing

Project Details

Project Description

There was little reason to believe that the eye of Hurricane Ike had done significant damage to the University of Houston’s campus after it made landfall over the campus in 2008. The subsequent physical inspection turned up little damage—but it missed something crucial!

Fortunately, the university had a roof consultant, Armko Industries, Inc. The roof consultant made the wise recommendation to use infrared thermal mapping to check on the level of moisture that had got inside the roofing system. As a result of this mapping, they discovered an unacceptable level of moisture infiltration within the roof, such that the roof needed to be replaced with an entirely new roofing system.

So much for no damage...

In this emergency situation, the University of Houston turned to Castro Roofing and the Storm Hawks.

Castro-Roofing-new-roof-system.jpgALT: Castro Roofing installs new roofing system for U of H Science Center

Time for a Re-Roofing.

University of Houston officials chose to get a new roof installed, but they didn’t want to have to evacuate or shut down the entire Houston Science Center for the duration of the project, which turned out to be sixty-three days. We were up to the challenging task of systematically removing sections of the existing 45,500-square-foot roof and replacing them with a variety of new roofing materials, including insulation, sheet-metal flashings, wood blocking, asphalt, and lightning protection.

This allowed them to continue using the building while we methodically removed roofing debris and installed a brand-new roof.

Castro-Roofing-reinstalled-lightning-protection.jpgALT: Castro Roofing installs 2,400 square feet of lightning protection and new walkway

Safety First

During the process, we put safety first, focusing on how we could avoid any accidents for our workers, building occupants, and pedestrians. To accomplish this, we had to safely reposition wind diverters in the facility to keep chemical fume levels acceptable while doing our job.

We also had twenty-two safety meetings with our employees to discuss everything from OSHA safety standards to back-injury prevention and protective wear. We employed a third-party job safety expert to ensure that a safety plan was implemented successfully. Thankfully, no accidents or injuries were reported during the entire project!

In the end, we managed to complete the project two weeks ahead of schedule and were recognized as a finalist in the National Roofing Contractor Association’s 2013 Gold Circle Awards program.

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