Local Connection, Strong Expertise
Tecta America New England, LLC offers three decades of commercial roofing experience
When a New England area business hires Tecta America New England, LLC to service or replace the roof over its head, it can be confident it’s getting the individual attention of an exceptional, local operation strongly connected to the community—and backed by the resources of the nation’s largest commercial roofing organization, says Tecta America New England President Peter Owens. “We were founded in 1988 as Delta Roofing with a commitment to providing the highest standards in workmanship, quality and service in the commercial and industrial roofing market,” Peter says. “We serve customers throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire, so our New England roots go back more than three decades.
“We became part of the national company Tecta America Corp. in 2007, but our emphasis has continued to be on quality service tailored to the needs of New England businesses, big and small. Being part of Tecta America offers numerous cost-saving synergies that we can pass along to our customers, like lower insurance rates and substantial materials savings. It also gives us access to additional manpower when we need it.”
Tecta America New England has locations in North Billerica and Brockton in Massachusetts, in East Hartford, Connecticut, and in Portland, Maine. All told, Tecta America New England employs about 135 workers.
The company boasts a long list of high-profile customers—large ones like the Amazon Distribution Center in Milford, Massachusetts, and the 1-million-square-foot The Mall at Rockingham Park in New Hampshire. And, it has clients with smaller buildings like freestanding 5,000-square-foot Citizens Bank branches throughout the New England states. Its projects are as current as an IKEA warehouse in Massachusetts and as historic as the 200-year-old Hebron Academy in Maine.
Tecta America New England offers services beyond straightforward new roof installations or roof replacement. These include emergency roof repairs, ice and snow removal, fall protection products, environmental systems such as cool roofs and green roofs, moisture surveys and preventive maintenance. Its patented TectaCare program monitors roof conditions to give customers early warning of future maintenance needs.
“New England’s a tough area because of the winters and because we’re so close to the ocean,” Peter says. “For a lot of our customers, much of what we do is driven by wind speed issues and state and international building codes for insulation assemblies.”
Quality Service to Meet Customer Needs
Since Peter, his wife, Carolie, and their partner Brett Chapman founded Delta Roofing in 2000, Tecta/Delta has adhered to its mission to be the very best, Peter says, adding, “Over the past 32 years we’ve become one of the largest and most respected commercial roofing companies in New England.”
Peter has served as President from the beginning. Brett left the company some years ago to start a solar maintenance venture. Carolie served as the company’s accountant for a time but is no longer involved in the company.
Tecta America was created in 2000 when 10 major roofing companies across the United States joined forces for economies of scale. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Tecta America has grown to include 75 locations and 3,500 employees throughout the United States.
Headquarters for Tecta America New England are in North Billerica, on the northern edge of Boston. Tecta America New England also oversees Tecta America WeatherGuard, a commercial roofing company based in Schenectady, New York. Peter serves as its President, as well.
Loyal Customer Base
“Some 75% of our work is reroofing,” notes Jay Maschmeier, Senior Vice President of Tecta America New England. “About half of our clientele are repeat customers. Many have been with us for more than 30 years and won’t use anybody else. Additionally, we have solid relationships with a select group of general contractors who work with us to maintain high standards throughout. We’re able to control our portion of the project to ensure a successful outcome for them.”
Many Tecta America New England customers are multiple property managers, Jay notes. They include large-scale corporations like developers New England Development and Simon Property Group, Inc., as well as businesses that operate smaller, standalone buildings like many Panera Bread locations.
“It’s common for our customers to put together portfolios for us to manage all their roofing needs at all of their New England properties,” he says. “We oversee their roofs and free them from an aspect of property management that would otherwise be a distraction.”
Most jobs for large commercial facilities involve flat roofs, although it’s not unusual for a mall, supermarket or other flat-roofed structure to incorporate eye-pleasing gables and mansard roofs as decorative fronts or features. Small standalones, such as bank branches, are likely to be designed with peaked roofs, says John Donovan, General Manager of the Brockton and East Hartford Operating Units.
Weather, Restaurants, Fumes…and Seagulls
“The materials used are all job-specific,” John says. “They depend on the location and the immediate environment. A large flat-roof building most likely will have a single-ply membrane put down over a layer of polyurethane insulation, atop a subsurface of steel, cement or gypsum.
“Some places need a tougher membrane. The issue of wind resistance needs to be factored in. Coastal areas like Cape Cod face not only wind challenges but also a lot of salt spray. Proximity to restaurants, airports and high automotive traffic are considerations. Salt, restaurant grease and engine fumes can all degrade some substances.”
So can seagulls. Not only does bird excrement degrade a surface, the birds tend to bring food back to the roofs and peck holes in the membranes while eating it. “It’s a big problem without satisfactory solutions, so far,” John says.
How the membrane is held to the roof insulation assembly is also important. The old approach of ballasting the membrane/assembly with washed river rock is no longer a preferred option. Today, with roofing technology advancements, materials may be secured to the insulation assembly with screws and discs, bonded with thermal heat or attached with low-VOC (volatile organic compound) adhesives.
Other methods are sometimes needed. To reroof the 117,000-square-foot Siemens USA manufacturing and R&D facility in Walpole, Massachusetts, after vacuuming existing ballast stone and repairing wet and damaged subsurface areas, the roofers faced a challenge.
“Siemens wanted to eliminate any risk of fasteners intruding into their interior clean spaces, so we couldn’t use them,” John says. “Instead, we loose-laid a 90-mil EPDM membrane and installed 100,000 9-inch by 16-inch pavers held together with aluminum clips.”
More complicated was the Portland International Jetport Terminal in Maine. The roof deck was wood, with a unique interior design that meant that fasteners couldn’t protrude through the ceiling. After extensive planning, under windy, wintry conditions, a layer of tapered insulation was carefully laid down using special fasteners—basically shorter, fatter screws.
Showing Mettle with Metals
Durable alternatives for some building roofs include metal standing seam systems. Each Tecta America New England location has its own metal fabrication shop to custom fabricate flashings and other metal fixtures. They also can fabricate standing seam panels between 12 and 24 inches wide.
“The metal standing seam systems we fabricate will perform for 30-plus years, in the toughest environment like New England,” Peter says. “You’re likely to see them on schools, retail complexes and small structures like bank branches that want a more informal look. They’re often used for decorative effects on flat-roofed buildings, such as gables over the entrances. Some 80% of our projects are flat but 15% to 20% might have metal out front.”
The company also has a small market for the restoration of copper and slate roofs. “Copper and slate were the roofing materials of choice for the majority of buildings built before the early 1900s,” Peter says, “Historic roof replacement jobs as at Milton Academy and Middlesex School in Massachusetts and the U.S. Courthouse in Portland, Maine, required custom-fabricated copper panels with ornate copper details, and custom-sized and colored slate.
TectaCare for Preventive Maintenance
Whether newly installed or not (or Tecta America New England-installed or not), Tecta America New England offers property owners a proactive four-step program called TectaCare, encompassing regular roof inspections to identify existing or potential problems, general upkeep tasks such as clearing roof surfaces and gutters of debris, routine maintenance tasks such as caulking and resealing flashings, and annual condition assessments.
“If there are indications the roof is going to need replacement, we’re able to give the owner advanced warning so that they can plan for it,” Peter says. “If budget problems prohibit immediate replacement, we can develop measures to maintain it until the job can be budgeted.”
Tecta America New England has received numerous awards from roofing product manufacturers and trade associations during its 32 years, Peter notes. He sees it as a reflection of the company’s dedicated employees. “We’re proud of the work we do and especially proud of the people who do it,” he says. “There’s no question that all of our team members are committed day in and day out to providing our customers with extraordinary levels of expertise and attention.”