Slate roof replacement, and a fibreglass flat roof rebuilt in EPDM rubber

Two roofs on one property, done together off one scaffold: the pitched roof re-covered in slate, and the flat roof running off it taken from fibreglass to EPDM rubber. Splitting a job like this into two visits means paying for access twice and leaving one half weathering while the other is done.

The pitched roof

The old covering came off back to the rafters. A Proctor Air breathable membrane went on, the roof was re-battened in treated timber, and it was re-slated from the eaves up. The verges and the abutment against the neighbouring wall were detailed as the slating went, rather than filled afterwards.

Fibreglass to EPDM rubber

The flat roof was fibreglass and had reached the stage where the surface had gone chalky and dull and the seams were the thing to worry about. It was stripped, the deck was replaced in new boarding, and it was finished in EPDM rubber. EPDM goes down as a single sheet across the field of the roof, so on a deck this size there is no seam in the middle to fail, and it stays flexible in cold weather instead of going brittle.

Where the two roofs meet

The junction between a slate roof and a flat roof is where this kind of job is won or lost. The EPDM is carried up the abutment and dressed behind the slate rather than stopped at the edge and sealed, which is the detail that stops water tracking back under the covering.

The photographs start with the finished roofs and run back through the work to the fibreglass roof that was there before.