Z-Craft Owner and President, Zach Taylor.

Z-Craft played an integral role in the beautiful exteriors of SugarSquare in Denver. The premium clad panel features 20-gauge stainless steel with black patina, creating a striking visual for the renovated building.

Tradition and innovation work side by side at Z-Craft. While Z-Craft has a strong reputation for quality roofing and siding, the Denver, Colorado-based company is especially known for its expertise in architectural metal.

Z-Craft, much like other roofing companies, installs the full scope of roofing materials, including a wide range of flat roofing membrane systems as well as a variety of sloped roof system of shingles, shakes and tile roofing. It also has a full fabrication shop operating as ArcFab.

Z-Craft has stepped outside the usual and created its niche in the roofing industry by also working with metal in a variety of ways, from functional to artistic, says company President Zach Taylor. Z-Craft is often selected for high-end custom projects as well as remediating roofing projects that have failed in terms of weathertight warranties from the manufacturers.

Custom Metal Expertise

The team at Z-Craft does a lot of problem-solving regarding various custom fabrications of flashings and panels of both metal roofing and siding, as well as custom finishes and patinas.

“Having an intimate knowledge of the various metal choices allows us to identify a better selection of, or more appropriate materials for, a project to accomplish its end goals,” Taylor says. “We pay attention to a variety of solutions and materials and recommend the best solution, rather than commonly given answers.”

“The firm is known for creating custom and specialty roofing and siding systems,” he adds, “and is recognized for adding a boutique or artistic flair to projects. Sometimes, people don’t know what they want. This offers an opportunity for Z-Craft to bring new ideas to the table and help clients choose from solutions they may not have realized were possible.”

Taylor learned the roofing industry through on-the-job training while attending college for philosophy and business in Durango, Colorado. Initially, it was a summer job to earn money for school, and then later in college he set up his class schedule to allow him to do roofing for a local contractor around his college courses.

After graduating from college, he started a roofing company in Summit County and worked in the surrounding communities of Vail and Beaver Creek. That company quickly grew to more than 15 roofers and operated for several years before Taylor sold the company to his employees.

It was in the years that followed that Taylor really honed his craft of architectural metal roofing and siding. Those experiences helped Taylor build relationships with several technical directors from the major architectural metal manufacturers in the industry. Those individuals recognized Taylor’s attention to detail, hard work and straightforward demeanor, which prompted them to seek his services in custom application as well as re-roofing and fixing projects that had gone to litigation.

“These projects not only needed to be completed, or redone, but performed totally by the book,” Taylor says. “The mitigation projects also had to stand up under the added scrutiny of the client and their incumbent engineers and attorneys.”

These experiences were later parlayed into providing training and consultation for large international companies that were looking to enter the architectural metal field.

Expanding the Business

In less than seven years since starting Z-Craft, Taylor has grown the multifaceted business to include roofing and siding with an emphasis on 
architectural metal, as well as shingle, shake, tile and various membrane roofing systems. The company has added equipment, including a metal architectural fabrication shop complete with panel fabrication and custom welding capacities, that continue the firm’s growth.

“We have built the company piece by piece, organically, investing in equipment as warranted, careful of debt. I have become fond of Henry Ford’s famous quote, to paraphrase, ‘If you need a piece of equipment and don’t buy it you will end up paying for it and not owning it,’ “ Taylor says.

“We really needed to expand the business by adding a full-sheet metal shop,” Taylor says. This has allowed us to better serve our clients as well as to service other companies in the profession. The fabrication component has been instrumental in successfully completing all of the wall paneling on the new Denver Health hospital at 660 Bannock St, with Turner Construction. It was a real honor to be a part of such an important building as a new hospital building in the heart of Denver.”

Thinking Outside the Box

Taylor, a philosophy major in college, has spent lots of time pondering his ultimate goals in life and at work.

Taylor believes that a good esprit de corps in the workplace is essential. Camaraderie is the central focus of this common bond among team members, which can inspire enthusiasm, devotion and unity. The company values teams and symbiotic work environments so that employees remain engaged in a variety of work tasks. Z-Craft strives to keep good teams working in ways that are most fitting to their preferences, talents and personalities.

“I really have a sense that work is life,” Taylor says. “You don’t want your life to just be work, but it is a big part of it. Irrespective of your finances, a person needs to work. A vocation is essential; you want work to be positive with a genuine sense that it is good. Everyone needs a roof. It is intrinsically valuable to individuals, companies and the market as a whole. Obviously, roofing is a hard task. The inherent difficulty is a good thing as a worthy challenge towards human flourishing. Accomplishing hard tasks in challenging situations is a key ingredient needed to build solid character, to know that one has contributed, and have a real sense of one’s value and worth in the community and the world.”

Creating Environments with Details

As a “metal artist,” Taylor often looks at jobs beyond paneling, siding and roofing, searching for an artistic approach to not only meet a project’s needs, but further nurture a sense of the aesthetic.

“I genuinely care about being pragmatic,” he says. “I like to use materials that may not be extravagant or rare—although those are great in their own way—but rather ordinary materials in a way that is not normally considered for a particular application. Maybe it is ⅛-inch plate steel, certainly not rare or uncommon for construction use, but with a patina and some interesting shapes, it can create a feeling or look that’s unique and artful.”

This application was employed in one high-end residential project where there was a unique stairwell that went up and around an elevator shaft in the center of the home. To give the project added visual interest, Z-Craft created a blackened gun-barrel blue patina on plate steel and fit the pieces of plate steel together in a variety of different sizes to resemble a puzzle-type design going up the middle of the elevator shaft. On other projects, Z-Craft has also created different interior pieces with copper and patina to provide a unique look for various paneling systems.

Taylor has an innate design talent to create something that is simple to manufacture and install, as well as durable enough to withstand hurricane forces, like he did for a paneling system at the SugarSquare project in Lower Downtown Denver, pictured above.

Developed by Urban Villages, SugarSquare is a new office building project that Z-Craft recently completed. Z-Craft was tasked with creating custom-made siding panels with a specialty patina finish. The four-story, 10,800-square-foot structure features an exterior facade of glass and blackened 20-gauge stainless steel cassette panels complete with a rooftop deck. The custom panel design was a collaborative venture between Zach Taylor and Jeff Patch.

“Jeff and I explored some interlocking designs for their appearance, but most especially their form and function in both fabrication and installation. Once we had worked through the initial fabrication constraints, it was time to get the panel tested,” Taylor says. He went to Tampa Bay, Florida, and had the panel system tested by an engineering firm, PRI, and ran the system through a variety of ASTM International testing for water and air permeance and wind loads (the force on a structure arising from the impact of wind on it). Even with large two-by-four-foot panels fabricated from common 24-gauge painted steel, “the panel performed admirably and passed every one of its tests, even at hurricane-wind forces,” Taylor says.

From there the panel design was accepted by the SugarSquare architect, Semple Brown Design, to be installed on the building, which is located by the historic Sugar Building. Z-Craft is now creating and selling the panel system as the BoxLock Cassette Panel in a variety of sizes and finishes for a price that is competitive with other rainscreen systems.

Serving Communities, Near and Far

Taylor believes in supporting nonprofits with both time and talent. Taylor has helped to build several projects for missionaries working with the poor in the Dominican Republic and throughout Latin America. Another ministry that Taylor supports is Vida Nueva Ministries, in which he helped build a church and print shop in a rural area of Mexico to support a pastor and his family working with rural neighbors.

Through the years, the team has planted trees in multiple parks across the Denver Metroplex for the Denver Parks & Recreation Department, and is thankful to support various Christian charities.

Contributing to the larger community is part of the work-life balance that is so important to the Z-Craft ethos, Taylor says. He prefers to focus on the positive. “ ‘Remember we are building something’ is not just a practical reminder, but has a genuine moral component, whether it is fulfilling a client’s needs or giving back in some way.

“On the job and in life, I really value the various aspects of both the joyful and the difficult,” Taylor says. “If you have a good sense of honoring and enjoying your work, including those with whom you work, then the endeavor is going to succeed—however that may be defined.”