Flat roof stripped back to the joists and rebuilt in EPDM rubber

The old covering here was felt, and it had done its time: moss growing on it, grit washed into piles and the surface breaking up. A flat roof in that state is not usually leaking in one findable place, it is simply worn out, and patching a worn out roof buys a winter at a time.

Back to the joists

It came off completely rather than being covered over. Once the felt and the old boarding were lifted, the joists were open to look at, which is the only moment anyone gets to see whether the timber under a flat roof is sound. Laying a new covering over a tired deck hides that question rather than answering it, and it is why a re-covered flat roof can fail again in a few years for reasons nobody can see.

New deck, then EPDM rubber

A new deck went down in fresh boarding, and the covering is EPDM rubber. The advantage of EPDM on a roof this size is that it goes on as one sheet: there is no seam anywhere across the middle of the roof, and a joint that does not exist cannot fail. It is bonded down and dressed into the edges and the upstand against the pitched roof beside it.

The photographs run from the finished roof back through the deck and the bare joists to the felt it replaced.