Flat Roofing in Co. Kildare

Flat roofs turn up on extensions, dormers, garages, porches and apartment blocks, and almost none of them are actually flat. A working flat roof has a deliberate fall towards an outlet, and most of the trouble people have with them comes back to that fall being too shallow, having been lost when the deck sagged, or draining to an outlet that is now full of moss washed down off the pitched roof above. Water standing on the surface long after the rain has stopped is the sign worth acting on.

Failures rarely start in the middle of the roof. They start at the edges: the upstand where the roof meets a wall, the flashing above it, laps between sheets, and the penetrations for vents and pipes. That is why the choice between a torch-applied bitumen membrane, an EPDM rubber sheet, fibreglass laid in place or a liquid applied coating matters less than how the installer details those junctions. A recover also raises the question of where the insulation sits: putting it above the deck avoids the condensation problems that plague older cold roofs, and stripping a roof back is the one moment when correcting that is affordable.

When comparing quotes, ask whether the deck is being lifted and inspected and what happens if the timber underneath turns out to be rotten, whether the falls are being corrected or simply reproduced, whether new outlets, trims and flashings are included, and what the guarantee covers, since a product guarantee from a manufacturer and a workmanship guarantee from the installer are different things.