Flat roofing in Everton

What we take off. Nearly always felt. Either a three layer built up system finished with a mineral cap sheet, or a single torch on layer someone laid straight over the last one. It fails as splits along the creases, blisters where damp got shut in, and a lifted seam or a failed seam where the covering turns up an upstand. Once the surface is chalky and hard there is nothing left to repair.

What goes back. EPDM rubber on a plain rectangle, bonded down in one sheet with no lap and no seam anywhere in the open part of the roof. GRP fibreglass where the roof has kerbs, corners and upstands, because it is laminated in place and the detail is part of the same skin. Single ply, hot air welded, on a long run. Torch on felt still has its place where a building suits it.

The deck and the falls. Lift the covering and you meet plywood, OSB or chipboard decking on joists. Wet chipboard swells, gives underfoot and has to come off. The firrings on the joists create the fall, and a roof laid without one holds standing water in the same corner all winter. That ponding does more damage than any storm. Where re-firring is not practical we build the fall in tapered insulation. BS 6229 sets out how it should be done.

Sun rooms and anything heated. If the room below is heated, renewing the covering brings the insulation up with it under Part L. The safe answer is a warm roof, where the joists and the deck sit inside the insulated envelope, with PIR above the boards and a vapour control layer beneath it. The other answer, insulation between the joists, is a cold roof, and it puts the deck the wrong side of the dew point. Interstitial condensation then forms inside the construction, and the first sign is a soft board rather than a drip. Building control are notified and see it open.

Edges, junctions and openings. Most leaks live here rather than out in the middle of a roof. The abutment gets a chase, a lead cover flashing dressed into it and a cavity tray above. A parapet gets a coping and an apron. Every opening stands proud on a kerb so the covering can turn up an upstand: a rooflight, a lantern, a Velux style flat roof window, a hatch, a soil and vent pipe. The open sides finish over a drip trim, and the rainwater outlet runs into a hopper, a downpipe or the gutter. A garage is a day, a sun room two or three working days, and we say how long before we start.

No rate per square metre, because the square metres are the easy part and what is under the covering is what decides the job.

Getting to it. A detached bungalow garage, a sun room across the back of a house and a flat roofed link between two pitched roofs are three different jobs before anyone unloads. A garage or a single storey extension will often come off a tower, anything above a two storey wall wants a scaffold, and the platform has to stand while the deck is open rather than for an afternoon. The work at height rules are why it is a priced line rather than something folded into a rate.

The deck under the covering. A sound deck can be re-covered. Chipboard that has been wet for years, or ply that gives underfoot, has to come off and be replaced, and you cannot tell which you have from the ground or from a photograph. We lift a corner before quoting, because the deck is the single biggest swing in the price.

The falls, and where the water is meant to go. Most flat roofs that fail were never laid to a fall, or the fall runs at an outlet that has since been blocked or built over. Correcting it with firrings is more work than laying a membrane and it is the difference between a roof that lasts and one that ponds. Upstands, edge trims and each outlet are priced one at a time, because that is where the hours and the leaks both are.

Comparing quotes? Ask which system is being quoted and how many layers, whether the deck is being renewed or covered over, whether the falls are being corrected with firrings, how the upstands, outlets and edge trims are detailed, and whether the scaffold and the skip are in the price. Two quotes for the same job are usually two different jobs.

You are close enough to the water here for salt to settle on a roof and stay there, and it keeps the surface damp between showers rather than letting it dry out. Rubber and fibreglass do not care. The metal does. The aluminium drip trim, the screws through it, the lead at the abutment and the gutter brackets all corrode from the edge inwards, and a flat roof that looks sound can already have lost what holds its perimeter down.

So the specification changes on the seaward side. Non ferrous or stainless fixings as standard, trims in a coated finish rather than mill aluminium, and no mixing of metals at a joint, because two different metals in a wet salty lap corrode each other faster than either would alone. We also keep the outlets clear at handover, since salt-damp roofs grow moss and moss blocks an outlet in a season. It is a small part of the price and it is the part that decides how long the roof lasts.

We cover Everton, Hordle, Milford on Sea, Lymington and the rest of SO41. You are dealing with Bournemouth Roofing & Building, the trading name of Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.