Roofing Project Profiles

Uniquely Shaped Restaurant Trades Wooden Shakes for Architectural Shingles

David Willett of Resolve Roofing has been in the roofing business for 22 years, but there is little chance he’s seen many jobs quite like this one.

The conically-shaped building houses Traders Restaurant, a long-time institution in the Mobile, Ala., area. “I had been involved with the place for some time, doing repairs on the old, wooden-shake roof after I was referred to the owners by another contractor doing renovations at the site,” Willett said. “When they decided to move ahead with replacing the roof, our repair work at the site got us the recommendation to do the new roof.”

The building presented some unusual challenges as a roofing job. “All of the angles and planes of the roof meant it was a pretty labor-intensive job,” he continued. “One of the biggest challenges originally was trying to figure out how to measure the roof. After giving it some thought, we ended up taking the measurements from inside the building rather than outside.”

One thing that wasn’t in doubt for Willett was his choice of shingle — IKO Cambridge AR. “I got put on to IKO products a couple of years ago by a former business partner of mine who had been using them for a while,” he said. “I’ve always found IKO Cambridge AR shingles to be a good product, very heavy duty, and the size of the shingles means less materials cost, which helps me to be competitive on price.”

The odd shape of the roof meant for additional attention to detail, and despite the relatively modest size of the roof area (about 2,400 square feet), Willett said, “It took a solid couple of weeks to complete the job.”

In the end, both Resolve Roofing and Traders Restaurant were pleased with the finished product. While the building is unique, Willett didn’t feel like the challenges were out of the ordinary. “The main thing on this job, like any other, is to just keep things moving in the right direction,” he said.

For more information, visit www.iko.com.