The best flat roof roofing material is without a doubt an individual sheet of rubber tailor made for weather-proofing flat roofs, such as for example Firestone’s EPDM product.
This is laid directly onto roof boarding, itself supported by the roof rafters and nagging. Insulating material is generally laid in the space between the two, and if you’re renewing your flat roof anyway you may as well take the chance of renewing that as well.
This will almost certainly function as recommendation you obtain from any reputable builder or roofer advising you on replacing your existing flat roof.
Until recently the most used material for a new flat roof was bituminous felt laid in three layers, the first layer nailed down and top of the two bonded to the main one beneath with mastic bitumen. According to the material used, this could mean heating a solid bitumen-based compound to create it liquid, and pouring it onto the underlying felt and spreading it evenly over the whole section of the roof.
Then you had to hold back for the compound to cool before applying the next layer, and by the end spreading a layer of stone chippings over the roof and bonding it with a chipping compound, this being to reflect natural sunlight preventing the felt and bitumen degrading quickly.
This was altogether a rather messy, complicated and time-consuming job best left to the professionals. In addition, there were several stages where it was very easy to neglect to make the roof weather-proof, e.g. where in fact the edge of the felt met the prevailing tile or slate roofing of the pitch roof.
On top of that, if, or rather when, there developed a leak in the flat roof, it would be very difficult and messy to determine exactly where the rain was getting back in. Seldom would the manifestation of the leak on the ceiling of the room below be directly below the foundation of it. water damage prevention could easily get by way of a weakness in the bitumen felt and travel along a rafter before descending to the ceiling board below.
The new generation of rubber-based flat roofing systems are far superior. For those who have reasonable DIY abilities then you can probably do it yourself, with one other person to assist. You can easily look for a local supplier of rubber flat roof roofing material online, and the existing price is around �6.65 per square metre.
Most suppliers slice the material to the exact size and shape that you require so there are no unnecessary joins, meaning no weaknesses and an extremely long-lasting, leak-proof roof.
The vital portion of the whole process is to ensure that there are no gaps between your rubber roof and any existing pitch roof where rain may penetrate. To ensure you can find no problems it is critical to run the rubber material up and under the tiles or slates of the adjoining pitch roof so that any rain dripping from the lower-most row falls onto the rubber, with no chance for it over-lapping the edge and getting within the pitch roof.
Also, make sure that the prevailing slope of the flat roof towards the guttering or other means of water escape is maintained. The rubber is simply glued onto the roof boards and sealed where appropriate with metal brackets or bitumen so that rain penetration is impossible. Mind that the glue covers the entire underneath of the rubber in order to avoid bumps in the surface that could obstruct the drainage of the water away.
Rubber roofs have been proven to last for more than 50 years under all weathers, so that it really is the only real flat roof roofing material that you should consider when deciding on a new flat roof.
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