Apartment Building in Fells Point
In Spring of 2018, Four Twelve was hired to perform demolition, roofing and framing work on a 6-unit apartment building in Baltimore City’s Historic Fells Point neighborhood. A couple of investors purchased the building, with the intent to turn it into a multi-family investment property and were looking for a house framing contractors. We happened to be able to provide framing contracting services as well as roofing contracting services and were hired for the project.
Here is an image from Day 1, showing the Four Twelve team in the midst of tearing off the original roof of the building. When performing historic restoration in Baltimore, oftentimes you run into hairy projects like this, with layers upon layers of the old roofing membrane, sheet metal, and plank boards dating back to the original construction of the property. Four Twelve’s internal team is experienced in working on large scale projects like this, within old homes of Baltimore City. This led to a safe, quick and effective removal and installation of a new roof on this property to start construction.
As an Owens Corning preferred contractor, Four Twelve is well versed in shingle and flat roof installations. This project had both shingle roofs and flat roofs, which led to the complexity of the installation. Additionally, Four Twelve was asked to install a new plywood deck on top of the original roof plank boards.
For the shingle roof, Four Twelve installed synthetic underlayment and 25 year Estate Gray Supreme Owens Corning shingles. For the flat roof planes, Four Twelve installed 15 year, Owens Corning DeckSeal self-adhering membranes. Below are photos of the roofing installations in progress on this multi-family roofing project. For both roofs across the house, Four Twelve installed historic galvanized, half-round gutters and full-round galvanized downspouts to help the homeowners and investors attain their CHAP, State and Federal Historic Tax Credits through the construction process – something that is very important when renovating in Baltimore City or Baltimore County.
Following the execution of the roofing scope, Four Twelve rolled into the framing portion of the work on this old apartment building. Below is the lumber package arriving on Day 1. We would have walked it down from the lumber supply house – but we’d rather save our energy for the actual building of the house!
Four Twelve provided turnkey assistance to the investors and owners of the property – ordering the lumber package and performing a turnkey installation. Constructing everything from stud walls, ceilings and floors – to setting staircases, hand-railings, windows and exterior doors, as well as returning at the end of the project to install bulkheads for HVAC systems and ensure that the building was ready for drywall, through adding additional framing blocking for other contractor to use during their installations. At Four Twelve, this is something we pride ourselves on – offering a service that takes you from Day 1 of your journey (whether it is framing or roofing) and delivering you to the end, without hassle of ordering labor or material – but letting our crews take care of the installation and insuring it is done accurately and quickly.
To execute the framing on this ~5,000 square foot project, it took our team 2-3 weeks.
This was a great project for the company. We like tackling larger restoration projects, with interesting design elements, that positively impact our community. As Baltimore City locals, Shea and Sam (Four Twelve’s owners), particularly enjoyed playing a role in seeing this project come to life. The owners experimented with an interesting design – from cathedral ceilings and collar ties, to flat framed walls to gain more space in order to work within the confines of the Baltimore rowhome (not an easy framing project, but one that we are accustomed to).
Below is a photo of Four Twelve’s framing team, installing the cathedral ceilings requested by the property owners for the top floor bedrooms of the apartment building – a feature that added some great character to the design and ultimately yielded a great end-product.
