Flat Roof Repair in Windsor & Berkshire

Flat roofs on garages, extensions and dormers take more punishment than any pitched roof. Water does not run off them, it makes its way off, so every weakness gets found. These are the faults we repair across Windsor and Berkshire:

• Splits and cracks in the covering, from movement, age and frost
• Blisters: bubbles where moisture or air trapped under the felt has lifted it from the deck
• Ponding: puddles that sit for days after rain because the deck has sagged or the falls were wrong
• Failed upstands, where the roof meets the house wall and water gets behind the felt
• Lifted edges and outlets: trims that have come loose and outlets that have cracked or blocked

Inside, you see it as a stain on the ceiling under the roof, damp at the top of a wall, or a drip that only appears in heavy rain. Outside, look for standing water, bubbles, cracks and gaps at the edges.

A repair holds when the problem is on the surface: one split, a blister or a failed joint on a roof whose deck is still dry and firm. Patch it properly in the same material and the roof carries on for years. When that is what we find, that is what we recommend, because it is cheaper for you and it works.

It does not hold once water has got into the deck. A saturated deck keeps rotting under any patch, and the new piece lifts or splits within a winter or two. Felt over felt on a wet deck seals the moisture in and makes it worse.

The signs a repair will not hold:

• The roof feels soft or springy underfoot
• Leaks keep coming back after previous patches, somewhere different each time
• Ponding that never dries, a sign the deck has sagged
• The covering has failed in several places at once

On our Chatham extension and our Hampton garage the roofs went back to the bare joists for exactly this reason.