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Summary of Work
Several departments of BEST Contracting Services and three divisions were involved in bidding and performing this project.
BEST’s Façade Division supplied and installed the exterior metal wall panels, the General Sheet Metal Division fabricated the wall panels, provided and installed louvers, flashings and gutters and the Roofing & Waterproofing division performed the waterproofing of the wall panels and supplied and installed the metal roofing and the single ply roofing.
Awarding this “multi-trade” contract to a single subcontractor was a tremendous benefit to the GC (Hensel Phelps) for several reasons including the need for just one purchase order, full accountability from a single source and efficiencies of scale which help to lower cost.
Other benefits are less visible but very real in the world of general contracting:
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Optimize schedules of deliveries
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Sequence multiple trades with no lost time
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Reduce equipment on site by sharing between various departments
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Sharing one staging area for multiple trades can be very advantageous especially on a site with constricted space
The architect, Gonzales Goodale of Pasadena, selected Weathered Blue Rheinzink for the wall panels. BEST’s General Sheet Metal Division received this material as 22 GA coils, cut the coils and then formed the panels. The panel detail was very exacting. Instead of the typical slender open corners, each panel was hand detailed to form a sharp closed corner – a long precise process. In addition, the panels were assembled to create horizontal single lock standing seams.
Considered a “wet” wall panel system, BEST’s Roofing & Waterproofing Division also supplied and installed an Enkamat ventilation mat, a Grace Ultra waterproof underlayment and a DensGlass substrate.
Matching blue zinc soffit panels were also created in BEST’s General Sheet Metal shop and installed by the Facade Division. General sheet metal components such as louvers and flashings were supplied and installed by sheet metal personnel.
Crews from the Roofing & Waterproofing Division installed the same type of zinc metal panel in Weathered Blue as the roof system on the central multi-story tower. The standing seam roofing system was produced for this installation used formed 22 GA panels up to 30 feet in length.
The balance of the roofing on this large campus was installed using Sika Sarnafil 72 mil white PVC to meet the solar reflectance and heat emissive requirements of the California building code. This system is installed by heat welding all the panel seams and details providing an absolutely watertight roof. BEST’s highly experienced single ply crews used robotic welders on the larger areas and performed the detailing using hand-held hot air welding machines.
Challenges
As with all new construction projects the primary challenges do not come from the installation process but the mix of schedules and interaction with multiple other trades.
The BEST team faced their own challenges coordinating shipments and deliveries of the various components of all of these systems and staging the product when it arrived on site.
However, working as a team and in conjunction with the General Contractors personnel we were able to successfully meet these challenges and keep our part of the project on schedule.
Results
These challenges were met in large part because a single subcontractor, BEST, performed multiple scopes of work on this project. This allowed us to optimize the scheduling of our different trades and coordinate the delivery of material and machinery resulting in an efficient project with a reduced timeline – saving time and money.
“We selected BEST for multiple scopes of work on the RFK Community Schools project. I’m glad we did," said Steve Kimball of Hensel Phelps Construction Co. "BEST proactively coordinated their various trade scopes with the other envelope trades to ensure that their work was installed on time and at a cost savings to the project. In addition, single source accountability relieves a lot of finger pointing between trades.”
Project Detail
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