When outside sales associate Steve Moore of ABC Supply’s Sarasota, Florida, branch received a call from his long-time customer Sam Cowell of Roofing by Curry in April, he assumed Sam was calling about a typical commercial roofing job.

As soon as Sam mentioned the job would be in downtown Venice, Florida, Steve quickly realized there wasn’t going to be anything typical about this one.

The Location

A tourist town like Venice provides unique challenges when it comes to commercial roofing jobs. While most of its buildings and storefronts are only one story tall, their close proximity to one another eliminates typical roof loading solutions.

The Jobsite

The site for this project was at one of the city’s larger and more well-known establishments, Venice Stationers, which is located in the middle of downtown, on the always-busy Venice Avenue.

“We knew this job was going to be tricky!” said Steve. “There’s a narrow alley behind all of the shops where the power poles are located. According to OSHA regulations, our crew needed to be at least 20 feet from power lines, so we had to load the roof from the main [road].”

The Logistics

After a thorough review of project details, the scope and complexity of the project became clear. Steve’s team concluded that they would need to take up an entire lane on Venice Avenue, along with 20 parallel parking spots—not an easy feat on a busy street in a popular tourist town.

Steve explained that the team estimated the job would take about five to six hours to complete. And since Venice typically comes alive by 8 or 9 a.m., they would have to arrive to the jobsite early in the morning.

Working with the city several weeks in advance, the team had both the jobsite and street roped off from pedestrians and traffic, allowing them to park their trucks street side to unload roofing materials on the sidewalk—a service performed at no extra charge to the customer.

The team first unloaded the street side of the truck and then the sidewalk side, which was an all-hands-on-deck approach. “This is a pretty huge gift shop. There were about 30 pallets of roofing product total, calling for us to use both a flatbed and a knuckleboom truck,” Steve said.

ABC Supply Tapered Solutions

After all the product is unloaded and installed on the roof, oftentimes the work then shifts to tapered solutions to help prevent water damage.

ABC Supply has a designated Tapered Solutions team that equips commercial contractors with custom-designed insulation systems for all types of projects. The plans provide positive drainage to remove water from roofs with no extra engineering fees for estimates or drawings.

For this job, ABC Supply ordered materials directly from the manufacturers and then worked with the Curry roofing team to deliver materials directly on-site at a scheduled date and time.

All in the Details

While the Venice job proved to be complex, the Sarasota associates completed the project without a hiccup due to their proactive and precise planning. Such attention to detail and commitment was certainly appreciated by Sam Cowell and the Curry roofing team.

“This was a stressful situation and there weren’t any complaints from the many passersby on the strip where the job was loaded,” said Sam Cowell. “Plus, they didn’t have very much room to unload, but they squeezed everything in where they needed to. You so often hear about mistakes, but this team did a great job!”

Have a big project coming up? ABC Supply branches throughout the country have associates ready to help you succeed no matter the project, from commercial roofing to residential focused to simply getting a quote on products.

Contact your local ABC Supply branch to tackle your next project and find additional resources on our blog.