Roofing
Rubber roofs
for a rowhome city.
Philadelphia is a flat-roof town. Whole blocks of rows, twins and trinities are covered by a low-slope deck with a parapet around it, and every one of them lives or dies on its seams, its terminations and whether the water can actually get off it.
Scope
What a flat roof replacement includes
EPDM is the workhorse here. Modified bitumen and coatings both have their place — we will tell you which one your roof actually wants.
- Tear-off of the old membrane and any wet, saturated insulation underneath
- Deck inspected and re-sheeted where it has gone soft
- New insulation board or recovery board, fastened to spec
- Single-ply EPDM membrane, fully adhered or mechanically fastened
- Seams cleaned, primed and taped — the seam is the whole roof
- Parapet walls and curbs flashed up and terminated with a metal bar and sealant
- Drains, scuppers and downspout connections re-worked so water actually leaves
- Ponding areas tapered rather than ignored
The difference
Where flat roofs actually fail
The seams
A single-ply roof is only as good as the joints between the sheets. Dirty, unprimed or hand-rolled seams open up in a few seasons. Ours get cleaned, primed, taped and rolled properly — and we keep seams out of the low spots entirely.
The terminations
Where the rubber turns up a parapet or a chimney and stops. That top edge needs a termination bar and sealant, not a nail and a prayer. It is the second most common flat-roof leak we get called to.
The water that never leaves
A flat roof is never truly flat — it is pitched to a drain or a scupper. Block the drain, crush the insulation or let a low spot form and you get ponding, which finds every weakness and kills a roof early.
Before you decide
Types of Roofing
Nine roof types you will actually see on a Philadelphia house — what each one is, what it costs relative to the rest, how long it lasts, and which ones we install.
Straight answers
Flat & Rubber Roofing — FAQ
Also from us
The rest of the outside
of your house.
Free estimate
Free inspection. Written estimate. No pressure.
Tell us what you are looking at and we will come and look at it — and we will tell you honestly what it needs, including the times the answer is nothing yet.