Learn how Valcourt Building Services, a leader in exterior waterproofing and restoration services throughout the South and along the East Coast, handles as many as 500 projects a year.

Few assignments were more visible for this waterproofing and restoration services company than a complete renovation of the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida. The large hotel complex, featuring nine floors and nearly 1,300 rooms, is a premier destination for major conferences and events. When the hotel’s ownership retained consulting engineers to assess the building’s overall condition, the report revealed that the exterior coating system was beyond its useful life. Plus, moisture leakage issues were discovered in the stucco and exterior insulation and finishing system (EIFS) wall cladding. At that point, the owners awarded Valcourt the contract to implement a restoration game plan.

Leta Hardy, Valcourt’s vice president of business development, said the first step on the Gaylord Palms assignment was to convene a pre-construction meeting with all stakeholders. This meeting was a crucial tool for surfacing key issues and planning for major events. For example, since the property hosts a wide variety of convention business, Valcourt project managers needed to know which events had no-construction clauses in their agreements. This consultative approach helped the team build a project schedule to minimize guest disruption. At the same time, mockups of all product and coating choices were finalized, which included quality control consultations between Valcourt and Sherwin-Williams.

“We always want to develop a plan that meets everyone’s needs, and for this project we wanted to include Sherwin-Williams in on-site consultations right at the start,” Hardy says. “That was important because we want to ensure that we are providing systems that will last through their expected lifespan.”

Exterior work on the hotel began in June 2013. Valcourt first focused on replacing damaged EIFS panels and restoring wood soffits and beams. After repairs were completed in each area, work crews applied an initial coat of Sherwin-Williams Loxon^® Conditioner, a fast-curing solution that improves adhesion on vertical masonry surfaces. Then, the team followed up with Loxon XP^® Waterproofing Masonry Coating.

“Loxon XP was selected because it creates a tough barrier against Florida’s heavy rains and the efflorescence that can develop in damp climates,” says Janeen Pernigotti, Valcourt’s project manager for the Gaylord Palms engagement. To protect newly repaired wood trim and supports, Valcourt used SuperPaint^® Exterior, an acrylic latex formula that delivers outstanding performance against the elements.

Plan for every possibility

Even with a well-designed project plan, navigating a large-scale construction project over nine months can be a challenge. For instance, the hotel hosts an annual “ICE! Christmas at Gaylord Palms” festival, which features six weeks of musical events, lavish holiday displays, and an ongoing flow of families and spectators. Since hotel management did not want construction visible in the festival areas, Valcourt’s team needed to meet the client’s requirements without sacrificing overall job productivity.

“When major events like that happen, it’s a logistical challenge of being flexible enough to halt production in one area and resume elsewhere,” Pernigotti says. “Moving swing stages is time-consuming, but sometimes it’s necessary to enhance the client’s guest experience.”

Unlike the Christmas festival, long stretches of bad weather are not something that can be built into a project plan. So, when an unusually damp late summer and fall halted many scheduled days of coating work, the Valcourt team used weekly meetings with hotel management to negotiate alternative work hours. This included working longer into certain evenings or keeping crews moving straight through weekends to make up for lost time.

“The weather clearly was not on our side for this project,” Hardy says. “But it’s a testament to Janeen and her team that they fully understand their project and have built a flexible schedule that allows them to take full advantage of dry weather stretches to stay on schedule.”