The best flat roof roofing material is without a doubt an individual sheet of rubber tailor made for weather-proofing flat roofs, such as 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 are renewing your flat roof anyway you may as well take the chance of renewing that concurrently.
This will almost certainly be the recommendation you receive from any reputable builder or roofer advising you on replacing your existing flat roof.
Until recently the most famous material for a fresh flat roof was bituminous felt laid in three layers, the initial layer nailed down and top of the two bonded to the one beneath with mastic bitumen. Depending on roofing services used, this may mean heating a good bitumen-based compound to create it liquid, and pouring it onto the underlying felt and spreading it evenly on the whole section of the roof.
Then you had to wait for the compound to cool before applying another layer, and at the end spreading a layer of stone chippings on the roof and bonding it with a chipping compound, this being to reflect the sun’s rays and stop the felt and bitumen degrading quickly.
This was altogether a fairly messy, complicated and time-consuming job best left to the experts. In addition, there have been several stages where it had been very easy to fail to make the roof weather-proof, e.g. where the edge of the felt met the prevailing tile or slate roofing of the pitch roof.
In addition, if, or rather when, there developed a leak in the flat roof, it could be very difficult and messy to determine exactly where the rain was getting in. Seldom would the manifestation of the leak on the ceiling of the room below be directly below the foundation of it. Water could easily get through a weakness in the bitumen felt and travel along a rafter before descending to the ceiling board below.
The brand new generation of rubber-based flat roofing systems are far superior. When you have reasonable DIY abilities then you can probably do it yourself, with one other person to assist. You can easily find a local supplier of rubber flat roof roofing material online, and the current price is only around �6.65 per square metre.
Most suppliers cut the material to the exact shape and size that you require so there are no unnecessary joins, meaning no weaknesses and an extremely long-lasting, leak-proof roof.
The vital area of the whole process is to ensure that there are no gaps between your rubber roof and any existing pitch roof where rain could possibly penetrate. To ensure you can find no problems it’s important to run the rubber material up and beneath the tiles or slates of the adjoining pitch roof in order 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 existing slope of the flat roof towards the guttering or other means of water escape is maintained. The rubber is merely 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 whole of the underneath of the rubber so as to avoid bumps in the surface which could obstruct the drainage of the water away.
Rubber roofs have been shown to last for well over 50 years under all weathers, so it really is the only real flat roof roofing material you need to consider when deciding on a new flat roof.
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