Flat roofing & flat roof repairs in Macclesfield
Flat roofs got their bad name honestly. The three-layer bitumen felt fitted across the country in the 1960s and 70s had a working life of ten to fifteen years, blistered in the sun, cracked in the frost, and was routinely laid to no fall at all — so it ponded, and ponding is what finishes a flat roof off.
What is fitted today is a different product. EPDM rubber goes down as a single sheet with no joints across the field of the roof and is generally warranted for twenty years or more with a realistic service life well beyond that. GRP fibreglass cures into one seamless laminate and suits complicated shapes and upstands. Single-ply membranes are hot-air welded and are what most commercial flat roofs use. Torch-on felt is still specified, and modern high-performance systems are a long way from the stuff that failed in 1978.
The choice between them is decided by the deck, the falls, the detailing at the abutments and what sits on the roof, not by preference. A roof somebody walks on wants a different build-up to one nobody ever sees. A roof with a door onto it has threshold heights to respect.
Falls are the thing to ask about. A flat roof is not flat: it should be laid to a finished fall of at least 1:80, and because timber and screeds are never perfect, the industry designs to 1:40 to actually achieve it. If a quote does not mention falls or a tapered scheme on a roof that currently ponds, it is quoting to re-cover the problem rather than fix it.
Flat roofing — every job, in detail.
6 jobs in this category. Each has its own page explaining what's involved, what your roofer checks and — just as importantly — when a job can safely wait.
EPDM rubber flat roofs
EPDM is a synthetic rubber membrane laid as a single sheet with no joints across the main area of the roof, which removes the seams that make felt roofs fail. On a domestic extension or garage it is normally the most reliable flat roof for the money.
Read more →GRP fibreglass flat roofs
GRP is laid wet and cures into a single seamless laminate over the whole roof, including the upstands and trims — so there are no joints anywhere, not even at the edges. It suits complicated shapes and roofs that are on show, and it needs dry weather and a properly prepared deck to go down correctly.
Read more →Felt roof repair & replacement
Old three-layer bitumen felt blisters, cracks and splits at the seams, and past a certain point patching it is money spent on a covering that has ended. Modern high-performance torch-on felt is a genuinely different product, but the honest question on most old felt roofs is repair or replace.
Read more →Garage roofs
Garage roofs are usually the oldest and least maintained covering on a property, and they come in three flavours: tired felt, corrugated cement sheet that may contain asbestos, and corrugated steel or fibre. The right answer depends on which one you have and on what the structure will take.
Read more →Dormer roofs
A dormer is a small roof with a lot of junctions — a flat or shallow top, two cheeks, and a joint back into the main roof — which is why they leak out of proportion to their area. Most dormer problems are at the cheek-to-roof junction or in the cladding, not in the flat top.
Read more →Flat roof leaks & ponding
A leaking flat roof is usually failing at a detail — a seam, an upstand, an outlet or the perimeter trim — rather than in the middle. Standing water is the thing that turns a small fault into a failed roof, and it means the falls were never right in the first place.
Read more →Not sure which one you need?
Describe it in your own words on the quote form. Your roofer will work out what the job actually is when they ring you back — usually the same day.
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