We were out working at Wyoming Baptist Church this week, working on a small portion of their flat roof. (You can find out what the client thought of our work here)
Their main roofing system was a sloped metal roof system, however there was a section of roof where two air conditioning units were situated that were on a flat section of roof, using a 2ply modified roof system.
The church was having leaks in this section of roof, there were a few trouble spots on this roof, for instance the seams on many parts of the 2ply system could be lifted up, we could actually put our hands under some sections, and there was moisture underneath most parts. The vertical detail that you can see in the video we could lift up the cap sheet, the roof was in bad shape, even though the roof didn’t look like it had been done too long ago.
Instead of replacing the roof, to save the church money we re-seamed the asphalt, and then covered with a rubberized all sands system for an extra water tight seal. You can see in the video where we used a heat gun to heat the asphalt back up and roll it using lots of pressure to get it to reseal again. A good tip if you are trying this, is to wait until the asphalt is bubbling, then you know it’s hot enough to roll and get a good seal.
There was another section of roof on a corner detail where the sloped roof truss meets the flat roof section, the membrane there just seemed to be plopped in there with nothing to seal it, I could actually get my hands in behind there, and it was causing problems for the building envelope. We framed up that section, put cap sheet on there to stop any water flowing, then seal the truss from getting rain exposure by putting in some metal flashing to stop the driving rain.
There was one other section where the leading edge of the roof met the metal sloped roof, and it was very poorly done, they had used caulking to create the seal (don’t ever do that!). We cleaned that area up and put a polyurethane membrane down. First we put a layer of polyurethane down, then put some mesh down, and then another layer of polyurethane. That gives the roof an excellent watertight transition between roof layers.
It was a small section of roof, the smallest one we have done in a while, but definitely needed doing, and hopefully we could save the church some money by not replacing the entire roof system, as well as saving any further damage to the interior of their building.
Legacy Flat Roofing & Sheet Metal – Serving all of SouthWestern Ontario: Lambeth, Windsor, Chatham, Sarnia, Wyoming, London, Woodstock, St. Thomas, Wallaceburg