ON June 22, 1999, Louis F. Garcia, New York City's chief fire marshal, issued a directive that called for the arrest of anyone who uses a propane torch on a wood-deck roof in the city. But while Chief Garcia's directive went out more than a year ago, its full impact is only now being felt by property owners whose roof repair and installation costs are expected to increase by as much as 30 percent.
''I have no idea how the real estate world missed this,'' said Robert Grant, the director of management at Diversified Property Management in Brooklyn. ''I only found out about it after talking to a roofer who had read it in a memo from the National Roof Contractors Association in Chicago.''
In fact, lawyers, engineers and roofing contractors said, very few people involved in New York City real estate were aware of Chief Garcia's directive until Mr. Grant wrote an article about it for the May 17 issue of Real Estate Weekly, a trade publication in New York.
''I can tell you that engineers were still writing specs calling for torched-down roofs between July of 1999 and May of 2000,'' Mr. Grant said. ''And I can tell you from personal experience that those specs didn't take into account the fire department's directive.''
Wood-deck roofs, he said, are typically found on low-rise apartment buildings and on some older high-rise buildings, particularly in the outer boroughs. Most high-rises in Manhattan, he said, have concrete decks or metal roofs.
Christopher Tempro, supervising fire marshal for the New York Fire Department, said that according to department statistics, there was an average of 35 roof fires a year from 1994 to 1998. That, along with a three-alarm fire that destroyed 30 apartments at 327 West 30th Street on May 10, 1999 -- a fire caused by a roofing contractor's using a propane torch to repair a wood-deck roof -- resulted in Chief Garcia's directive. Propane torches can still be used on buildings with concrete decks, provided that the contractor holds a certificate of fitness issued by the Fire Department.
''Using a torch on a combustible roof in New York City is illegal,'' Mr. Tempro said, ''and we decided that we have to be pretty strong in enforcing those codes.'' Title 3 in Chapter 25 of the Rules of New York City makes it a Class B misdemeanor to use an open flame on the roof of any structure that is combustible. Maximum penalties are a year in jail and a fine of $1,000.
Muhammad Zulfikar, the president of Mascon Restoration, a roofing contractor in Whitestone, Queens, said that banning propane torches would likely increase roof repair and installation costs by 25 to 30 percent.
The most common method for repairing and replacing flat roofs used to be what's called torched-down bitumen, Mr. Zulfikar said. The material, known as modified bitumen, is asphalt-saturated fabric with rubber or plastic added for flexibility. It comes in 33-foot-long rolls about 39 inches wide, making it relatively easy to transport to the roof in an elevator.
Once there, workers unroll the roofing, taking care to overlap the seams by at least three inches, and then heat it with a torch to make it stick to the existing roof. The heat produces a permanent watertight bond between the old roof and the new.
''Applying modified bitumen is actually an easy process,'' Mr. Zulfikar said. ''Just about everybody was doing it.''
Not anymore.
Alternative methods and materials must now be used. ''And those methods are more expensive, more labor-intensive, require more material, more skill and new machines,'' Mr. Zulfikar said.
Jim Hoff, the vice president for marketing at Firestone Building Products in Indianapolis, a manufacturer of roofing materials, said that the most common replacement is cold-applied modified bitumen.
That method, Mr. Hoff said, involves basically the same modified bitumen roofing material but using glue rather than heat to make it adhere.
''The downside is that using glue takes a higher level of skill and consistency on the part of the contractor,'' Mr. Hoff said. Extra care must be taken when gluing together the overlapping seams. While it was fairly simple to get a tight, solid seam using a propane torch, it is not so easy -- and more expensive -- to do the same thing using glue.
In fact, Mr. Hoff said, the additional skill and material required to install a cold-applied modified bitumen roof may make it cost-effective to choose a different material altogether.
''Throughout the country, over half of all roofing installations make use of single-ply rubber or plastic products,'' he said.
The reason they are not commonly used in New York City is because the rolls -- 10 to 50 feet wide, in 10-foot increments -- are hard to transport in an elevator. The rolls are heavy, too: the smallest, 10 feet wide and 100 feet long, weighs 300 pounds. But because the rolls are wide, that means fewer seams to worry about, so it can be cheaper to use rubber or plastic even if the rolls have to be hoisted to the rooftop.
''There may be savings found in using wider sheets of material to minimize the side laps,'' Mr. Hoff said. Because the rolls require less glue and less labor, there are additional savings there, he said.
Stephen Varone, the director of operations for Rand Engineering in Manhattan, said that property owners, including co-op and condominium boards, should make sure that any bid specifications sent to roofing contractors make it clear what material should be used and how it should be installed. Alternative methods of application must be specified in any bids for work on buildings with wood decks.
That is important, Mr. Varone said, because while the law banning propane torches on wood-deck roofs would seem to apply primarily to contractors, there is a possibility that co-op and condominium boards, property managers, engineers and architects could also be held liable.
Arthur I. Weinstein, the vice president of the Council of New York Cooperatives and Condominiums, agreed.
''The standard form contract used by most contractors is silent about who is responsible for complying with all applicable laws and regulations,'' he said. ''But the standard rider an attorney will attach to the contract contains a provision making the contractor responsible for complying with the law.
''This is just one more reason why co-ops and condominium boards should have all contracts reviewed by their attorney.''