Flat roof - advice needed please :)
 

Guys, we have pretty large 'flat' roof at the back of the house, about 1000 sq ft I suppose. It drains well, has a slight slope to it, and on the whole has been trouble free for fifteen years or so..

I last painted it with some silver stuff about ten years ago and it's been great, but we sprung a leak last night so guess it's time to paint it again.

However, I have no idea what to use. Can anyone recommend a product?

Thanks.

Simon.

Ps it's felt under the silver roof paint stuff.

The silver paint is reflective only and is to reduce the damage caused by the sun, uv etc...Sounds more like one of the joins has failed, although the felt used with the reflective paints is usually very good and was used on a lot commercial roofs years back...it has a thick 6mm bitumen based finish....

If you can pin point the area its leaking in you could get a roofer to use a quality SBS mineral finish felt, and cover a certain m2 of that area...this may give you a few more years...but once these roofs start to fail its usually a sign that the membrane could be nearing the end of its life..(well in most cases)

Another option would be to use a fibre based resin such as Acrypol which is brush applied and if used correctly can be very effective..again we find this product needs to be applied every couple of years or so depending on exposure etc...

The last option is to bite the bullet and have an epdm membrane fitted...which can be installed over existing flat roofing materials and is the most cost effective way of a re-roof with 40 year plus life expectancy....

Hope this helps.....

www.arroofing.co.uk

Top man. Thank you

Username bang on ;)

TX.

IVe got quite a large flat roof and in a similar situation. A few years ago I had to hire a company to re-lay the roof and they used a big old kettle and bitumin stuff. However I was told you must then put little stones on the roof to stop the heat cracking the underlying material.

Previous to this I used acroypol and it only lasted a season before it cracked and split due to the heat and not stones ontop.

Very difficult to know what to do.

Rooferman, wish you were near me, down in Sussex, as Ive got a leak around my chimney that I can never seem to fix. IVe cement rendered the chimeny, cemented up around the based / where it joins the roof, Ivve painted that water repellant stuff over the brick work. I reckon I need to the roof pulled up around it, releaded and re-placed.

Bloody roofs.

SBK

Yes the stones increase the surface area so form protection over the pour and roll system you had done.....this system is almost a thing of the past.And the Acrypol is not suitable to all applications although they claim you can cover flatroofs with it and it will be the end of your problems..!!! It is however very good in certain application...we used it on Zen Performances roof a while ago and they had very poor gulleys which leaked no end...

A question about your chimney.......is it capped off by any chance or an open set up.....????? Ie does it have airflow from bottom to top...???

:luxhello::luxhello:


Is yours a descriptive term for your occupation...!!!!:lol1:

We had our roof done a while ago. They used a double layer, the underneath was thinner and was attached to the wooden roof and the top layer was twice the thickness.

The faces were coated with bitumen and as they rolled the top layer on they used a gas flame to melt the bitumen and the top layer was glued to the under layer. The system is called "torch on" and seem to be very tough.

There must be loads of ways to cover the roof but I thought I would mention that one to you.

Les

Hi,

My chimney is open and is used heavily in the winter. someone mentioned to me that it could be down to the lead seal not being big enough under the tiles, so on a wet / winter day, it blows the water along, then up the lead and that eventually forms the stain that I see in my bedroom.

SBK

Yes could possibly be down to wind driven rain.....some tiles require a soaker system which is hidden below tiles to make a watertight abutment....

Yes the Torch on felts replaced the old roll and pour system.....but are starting to get expensive now that the single ply membranes have become more known/reliable.

Just 5 years ago you could buy a decent 8x1m green mineral torch on for around £20.00.....that figure has now doubled in some cases and seems to be ever rising...

What a damn shame you are not in the NE :(
Think we have some loose tiles and also the join of the extension to the house is leaking a bit, too. Bugger!!!!

Glad ours was done at a reasonable price then. :)

Looks like its a ladder job for you Lee!

;)

Oh the joy of living in a rambling old place :D

Tell me about it. Our house is a very old stone toll house for the original road which runs at the back. it has still got the hatch where they used to take the money. Its on well water which tastes very nice and a septic tank so we dont have to pay any water rates. :)

We are happy here though, so I won't ramble on about it!

Les :)