Flat roofing in Stamford

Extensions, dormers, garages and porches across Stamford were mostly felted a long time ago, and old felt has a finite life whether or not it has started to leak. We strip and re-cover flat roofs across PE9. This is also the work on a period property that is most often straightforwardly ours, whatever the main roof is made of.

Why old felt fails

Built-up felt goes brittle with age and ultraviolet, then splits precisely where it has to move: at upstands, at corners, and along the joint where the flat roof meets the wall. Ponding water finds those splits. By the time a ceiling shows anything, the deck below has usually been damp a while, which is why we lift a corner and look rather than price it from the ground.

EPDM rubber and torch-on felt

EPDM goes down as a single sheet across the field of the roof, so on a normal domestic extension there is no seam in the middle to fail, and it stays flexible in cold weather rather than hardening. Torch-on is a layered system bonded down with a gas torch and finished with a mineral surfaced cap sheet, and it suits a roof full of upstands and details. We fit both. On one job we took a tired fibreglass roof back to new boarding and finished it in EPDM; on another we re-decked a summer house roof and built it up in torch-on felt.

Where a flat roof meets old stone

The junction between a flat roof and a stone wall is where these jobs are won or lost. The covering has to be carried up the abutment and dressed in behind, not stopped at the edge and sealed with mastic, and on soft limestone that detail wants doing carefully rather than quickly. Mastic is a repair with a countdown attached.

The deck first

A new covering over soft boarding is money thrown away. Where the deck has gone we replace it in new boarding and say so when we quote, not as an extra once the old felt is off. 10 year guarantee, insured throughout.