Bascom Hall

Roofing UW Madison's prized Bascom Hall presented All American Roofing with a significant opportunity and challenge. The building houses the entire administrative staff of the UW Madison campus including the chancellor's office which meant that every eye would be on this historic project through until the end. The process of restoring a special and priceless building like Bascom Hall begins with meetings between the building's dedicated maintenance staff to highlight specific requirements and special concerns they have: buildings of this nature typically have written documentation regarding the previous work performed on the areas concerned which contain information critical to the workers and foremen performing the new work.

Our foremen and technical staff were the first to review the project plan with the administrative staff, presenting a safety plan, quality assurance plan and waste/recycling management plan specific to the project. The nature of a complex job such as this is to break it into sections, with each roofing area having its own portfolio and performance plan for our dedicated foremen and crews. Once the plans had been presented and accepted by the project manager and his assistants, the building-specific historic maintenance helped us to develop a job-specific performance plan with which to present the foremen and crews.

Working with historic buildings, All American Roofing always takes every precaution to protect the existing structure and interior from undue exposure to roofing activities: we provided entry and exit plans for our crews, utilized specific cleaning methods while working in the building interior and communicated constantly with the staff inside the building.

The project called for four separate types of waterproofing systems:

• 1. Fully Adhered 60 mil Johns Manville EPDM

  The majority of the project was to have All American Roofing remove the existing Gravel Built Up Roofing and insulation completely and install 2” mechanically-attached ISO insulation and a fully-adhered 60 mil Johns Manville EPDM roofing system with a 20Yr NDL warranty.

• 2. Fluid Applied Urethane Membrane

  The upper two roofing sections have built-in drainage systems which are subjected to unusually large amounts of water and ice and, therefore, are extremely susceptible to deterioration of the roofing components. The solution here was to apply a fluid applied Urethane roofing primer and membrane over the existing acrylic roof coating. This new urethane roofing system will stand up much better to the abuse of ice movement and water-flow than the original metal or acrylic coating had faired.

• 3. Fluid Applied Acrylic Coatings with Clear-Coat

  Two balcony areas demanded a more historically-representative approach due to their high visibility and placement in the building. The building staff wanted to return to the look and feel of a painted high-gloss surface: an effect that is easily achieved with a high-solids acrylic coating with a special high-gloss clear-coat. The building's staff were especially concerned with appearance more than the effects of standing water on the surfaces (the balconies are actually covered and have little elemental exposure) which allowed us to create the perfect effect of this high-gloss surfacing.

• 4. Fluid Applied Silicone Membrane over SPF

  Perhaps the most challenging aspect of the project, the building's staff presented All American Roofing with the task of upgrading three small roofing sections in the interior of the building's courtyard to a more historically-accurate surfacing. The sections were on the ground level and were covered with black EPDM roofing: all extremely exposed to every room with a courtyard view. The solution here was to prepare and prime the surface of the existing EPDM, install new wooden nail-boards and foam-stop metal edging, and install a tapered layer of Gaco Western Fluid Applied SPF insulation. This insulation provided the substrate we needed to apply a specially-colored Silicone Fluid Applied roof membrane over the SPF. This upgraded the aesthetic appearance of the roofing areas in the courtyard to match the rich and colorful qualities of the historic limestone of which the entire building is made.