What is the Difference Between Historic Commercial and Residential Restorations for Skilled Tradespeople?

Successfully restoring a historic commercial property and a historic residential property requires the same attention-to-detail and superior level of craftsmanship and care. But there are also some significant differences in terms of the restoration skills, experiences, and capabilities required for commercial and residential restoration jobs, particularly when it comes to specialties like historic carpentry, roofing, and architectural sheet metal. 

To help today’s skilled trades professionals better understand which type of historic restoration work is best for their interests and skill sets, let’s look at a couple of differences between historic commercial and residential restoration work, and how bringing your craftsmanship to Renaissance provides the opportunity to restore and preserve unique commercial and residential properties.

HIstoric roofing may be the biggest differentiator

When it comes to the difference between historic commercial and residential restoration projects, the roof may be the biggest differentiator. This is due in large part to the range of historic roofing materials, some of which include clay tile, slate, metal, copper, concrete, and even wood and cedar. 

Each of these roofing materials comes with their own unique challenges and requires a specific set of skills and experiences in order to successfully restore and preserve any given roof system. For example, concrete tile roofs are more common in historic residential structures, while copper roofs are most often associated with commercial properties that feature domes, steeples, or clock towers. 

In addition, each of the historic roofing materials we just touched on has its own ideal pitch rate for maximum performance. This is part of the reason why our restoration specialists need to bring a high level of precision and attention to detail regardless of whether they’re restoring commercial or residential structures. 

This is also why we ensure our restoration technicians have access to state-of-the-art technologies and processes to ensure the marriage of material and roof type is as effective as possible.

Historic commercial projects are larger — and taller — in scale

Residential properties can certainly be large in scale, but more often than not, historic residential properties are only two or three stories in height. Restoring commercial structures like courthouses, churches, university buildings, and even memorials requires a much more complex system of scaffolding, and these projects also demand familiarity and comfort with working at higher elevations. 

As a result, commercial restoration specialists — in fact, all restoration specialists — need to observe strict safety standards and guidelines to protect the structure, landscaping, and the public, and to also avoid workplace accidents. This also means historic commercial projects require a high degree of craftsmanship and experience with more sophisticated restoration materials and techniques. 

For example, restoration technicians that specialize in historic commercial properties often work with: 

• Architectural sheet metal, particularly for commercial building components like domes, steeples, clock towers, bells towers, and more. The ability to fabricate and install custom sheet metal elements is part and parcel of commercial restoration work. This is why we invested more than $1 million in our in-house copper studio — to help our restoration specialists acquire and develop their skills in this important part of commercial restoration work
• Historic carpentry, which is key in restoring the frame of a variety of commercial buildings, from churches to government buildings. Historic carpentry also includes restoring elements like soffits, fascia, and dormers, and while these components are found in residential projects, the size and scope of versions used in commercial properties can require more experience and skill
• Historic masonry, which includes more than pointing restoration, though that is certainly part of the commercial restoration process. Historic commercial properties commonly require the restoration or fabrication of custom exterior and interior terra cotta adornments, including the restoration of parapet walls and coping stones. .  

Renaissance has won a variety of prestigious awards for our commercial restoration projects, and our industry-leading safety program helps to provide a safe working environment for our specialists and the structures they work to preserve. In fact, this recent commercial restoration project demonstrates our commitment to the highest quality restoration with an emphasis on communication, collaboration, and safety.

Historic residential restorations require significant chimney work

One of the most common features in historic residential properties is a chimney — or, in cases of larger properties, multiple chimneys. Restoring historic chimneys not only requires experience and skill in historic masonry, but it also requires knowledge of complete chimney systems along with an understanding of historic roofing materials and techniques. 

The components found in historic chimney construction include chimney step flashing and counterflashing, chimney crowns, and chimney caps. Historic restoration technicians who specialize in residential properties must also have a firm grasp of the tools, processes, and materials to waterproof historic chimneys in ways that also protect the roof system from water or moisture damage. 

The brick construction of historic chimneys means residential restoration specialists need to demonstrate superb craftsmanship with brick pointing work, particularly to help combat environmental conditions like heat, rain, and snow. Using your historic masonry skills to restore a chimney also means working closely and collaboratively with historic roofing specialists to ensure the foundation and base of the chimney are properly integrated into the roof system. 

This is a large reason why Renaissance encourages and supports cross-training opportunities to help our restoration specialists become more well-rounded, collaborative craftspeople. This restoration of a residential property in St. Louis, Missouri, is a good example of how our restoration teams worked in a cross-functional way to facilitate a world-class restoration.

Whether your passion for historic restoration work resides in the commercial or residential space, Renaissance offers skilled trade professionals the opportunity to work on once-in-a-lifetime projects that will help you make the most of your experience and craftsmanship. learn more about our career opportunities and join the Renaissance team today.