BACK TO SCHOOL: West Seattle High School roof project status

With Seattle Public Schools starting classes tomorrow, a reader e-mailed us, wondering about the status of the West Seattle High School re-roofing project, which was supposed to be done before summer’s end. So we went over to WSHS to ask about it. Principal Brian Vance told us the district’s new estimated completion date is “end of October.” But he also says the work isn’t expected to affect classes or other school operations – part of the courtyard is fenced off, so that means a little less space for students to gather, but the work that remains isn’t expected to be very noisy, for example; it’s tile work, not hammer-and-nail shingles. (The historic tile roof was not part of the 2002 addition/remodel project, according to district documents.)

Just Wondering September 5, 2017 (6:37 pm)

So how do you attach tiles to a roof?

WSB September 5, 2017 (7:00 pm)

https://www.thebalance.com/how-to-install-clay-roof-tile-844477
- Just Wondering September 6, 2017 (7:13 am)
  
  So nails are used but not from a nail gun which makes the noise we hear when a shingle roof is being installed.
  - I know things September 17, 2017 (10:45 pm)
    
    Actually it’s a combination of nails and screws some from guns and some with hammers. The two layers of underlayment (the primary waterproofing) is nailed down first overlapping shingle style. Then the battens and counterbattens get nailed through the underlayment. The battens hold the tile off the underlayment so it can dry after a rain and the nails through them are driven hard to form a gasket like seal. The tile is installed last with screws because its historic and you don’t want to break to many.
    
    All of this happens in conjunction with low slope work at the widows walk, gutters and valleys along with new copper flashings and re-installation of the historic copper fascia.
    
    You see this type of roof more often in places like chicago or back east. Its very time consuming and requires roofers who can work on steep slopes greater than 7/12.

Some person September 5, 2017 (7:58 pm)

It wasn’t ever planned to be finished before school starts originally. (And luckily enough for the historic group hug people, the scaffolding didn’t go up as early as originallyplanned.).

WSB September 5, 2017 (8:24 pm)

“Scheduled to be completed in summer 2017.”

And for the person who asked above about tile-roof construction, there’s a little project-specific description on the very last page of this.

John H September 5, 2017 (8:41 pm)

Good thing it doesn’t start raining around here until November 1st ;>)

Having been around the WHS a fair amount during the day recently I just don’t see a big group of workers working on the project – seems to be very very low key, as in they are not in a hurry to get it done by putting a larger group on it by the contractor.

The WSHS principal seemed to convey his own frustration at the “end of October” completion date when I asked him about it last week.

Swede. September 6, 2017 (1:05 am)

The small amount of people working with it is likely also due to lack of skilled labor. It’s not exactly common with this kind of roofs around here, at least not what I’ve seen with my layman architect eyes, so logically very few people know how to do it.

Writing code for a phone app though… thousands that do that!
Yep September 6, 2017 (9:02 am)

Steep slope tile work is very difficult and its not a common roof type around the pacific northwest which means there’s a limit supply of people who do that type of specialized work.