Reroofing Project Meets Expectations for California Capitol

For all of the challenges the capitol reroofing project presented, its performance since completion in 2009 has met expectations, especially as they relate to previous problems keeping water out of the building.

“I’ve been at the capitol for three years, and we’ve had no issues with the membrane leaking,” Manning says. “It’s easy to maintain, and you can hose it off and clean out the roof drains easily.” It also has held up well to changes made since 2009.

“We have made modifications to facilitate other construction projects using the original contractor, and those have gone well,” he says. “For example, we made penetrations in the roof to put a temporary fan unit on the roof. We also made penetrations for chilled water and hot water to go to this unit. We did that so we could replace units on various floors in the building.”

No solid data exist on the impact of the new roof on the building’s energy use, but Nelson says that given the previous roof’s condition and the attention to sustainability during specification, the new roof is certain to be an improvement.

“Given the roof that was in place before, clearly there are energy savings because we put a lot of effort into the roofing systems itself and getting a cool roof,” she says.

The new roof’s benefits also extend to staffing and scheduling in the maintenance and engineering department.

“The capitol has a lot of personnel that John and I both manage who do all the maintenance to the building,” Libby says. “Part of the cost savings also has to be that the roof has held up so well that our manpower is not required to do anything but the PMs on the roof, do our quarterly inspections, and to clean it when necessary. But now we can direct our energy and our personnel to matters of more importance than chasing a roof leak. It’s really proven to be a cost savings as far as where we now can direct our personnel.”

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